When I meet Joe Killian at Central Park’s Rumsey Playfield — the outdoor concert venue that SummerStage has called home since 1990 — it’s a gorgeous summer morning in New York City. After unceremoniously tripping up a staircase, I make a comment about the weather to that effect. Killian gently corrects me: it’s not a “gorgeous” day, it’s a “perfect” day.
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Killian would know the difference. As the founder of SummerStage, the summer concert series in New York City that began with a free Sun Ra Arkestra concert in 1986 and has expanded to host free shows across all five boroughs over the next four decades, Killian has seen perfect days, nightmare days and nightmare days that, with the benefit of hindsight, are perfect fodder for great concert stories.
SummerStage has witnessed, and been part of, Central Park’s transformation from the wasteland seen in films like The Warriors (1979) and Cruising (1980) to a tourist- and family-friendly green space. In 1993, after Killian steered the series through its early lean years, the City Parks Foundation officially took over management of SummerStage, after which Killian turned his attention to another iconic NYC location, Radio City Music Hall, and founded Killian + Company (which involved him in a variety of other endeavors, including the bizarre but delightful Duran Duran concert David Lynch filmed for American Express in 2011) and became an Emmy winner.
