WHITE RIVER JUNCTION — The last time Jason Smoller, Northern Stage’s next managing director, and his wife lived in the Upper Valley 10 years ago, they lived off Colburn Park in Lebanon.

This time they’ll live with their child in White River Junction, Northern Stage’s home and what a couple of people have told him is known as the “Brooklyn of the Upper Valley,” he said in a Thursday phone interview.

Smoller, 35, a current resident of Brooklyn, N.Y., who has served as development and marketing director for the Manhattan-based Irish Repertory Theatre, said the comparison between the Hartford, Vt., village and the New York City borough isn’t perfect.

Still, he said, “I think White River Junction is having a moment.”

He pointed to the Phnom Penh sandwich shop and the Turkish spice shop as elements of the “walkable, fun” village. “To me that’s what really exciting about having the theater there too,” he said.

The nonprofit theater company, which announced Smoller’s appointment as the next leader of the business side of its operations in a Wednesday news release, has played a role in the village’s revitalization, which has moved along considerably since Smoller last worked at Northern Stage in 2012 as a development associate. That job was his first full-time position after earning a bachelor’s degree at Brown University in music and French studies; and a master’s degree in orchestral performance — oboe — at Manhattan School of Music in New York.

The organization, which makes its performance home at the Barrette Center for the Arts and the Courtyard Theater on Gates Street, continues to expand its footprint. The Hartford Planning Commission recently gave its approval for a Northern Stage plan to build a performing arts center and a 26-unit residential complex for theater employees on Gates Street.

Smoller was selected for the role through a national search conducted by the New York-based Tom O’Connor Consulting group in collaboration with a search committee chaired by Carolyn Dever, a member of Northern Stage’s board. He replaces Irene Green who left this summer to become the executive director of a performance venue in Minnesota. He will join Producing Artistic Director Carol Dunne as co-leader of the company.

“He is the full package,” Dever said in a Thursday interview. Smoller has the experience required for the job, as well as the set of artistic and social values that matches the culture of Northern Stage, Dever said, pointing to his commitment to anti-racism and inclusivity.

He is a “great combination of practical and visionary,” Dever said.

Like theaters around the country, Northern Stage is navigating the performing arts world that has been changed by COVID-19, Smoller said. While philanthropic and governmental support of the arts remains strong, audiences have been reluctant to return to the theater, he said.

“Arts companies are really suffering mostly at the box office,” he said. “...People are still worried about COVID. That’s not going away this winter.”

As a result, he said he expects to begin his tenure at Northern Stage, which begins in January, by seeking new sources of support and new revenue opportunities. Part of it is competing with all the other options people have in terms of where to go for entertainment and sorting out how to “get them off the couch into the theater,” he said.

He is also looking forward to Northern Stage’s housing project, which he described as “really exciting and important (for) the Upper Valley,” as well as bolstering the company’s workforce amid a worker shortage.

“It’s about creating a good work environment,” he said.

Nora Doyle-Burr can be reached at ndoyleburr@vnews.com or 603-727-3213.

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