It was almost exactly a year ago that Goodspeed Musicals announced a changing of the guards. Michael Gennaro was going to take over for longtime executive director Michael P. Price.

It was a big transition for the East Haddam-based organization. Price had run Goodspeed since 1968, and, when he decided to retire, the move opened up a hugely coveted job in the theater world.

After being on the job since early February, Gennaro spoke during a recent interview about where Goodspeed is and where he might like to see it go. The subjects he touched on ranged from improvements he’d like to see happen eventually inside the theater to the idea of commissioning more new musicals to the decisions involved in selecting shows for the 2016 season.

A little background: Gennaro came to Goodspeed from his job as executive director of Trinity Repertory Company in Providence, where he had worked since 2007. Before that, he was executive director of the Pennsylvania Ballet, managing director at Ford’s Theatre in Washington, D.C., producing director at Paper Mill Playhouse, and executive director at the Steppenwolf Theatre in Chicago.

He told The Day last year that not many places could have enticed him away from Trinity Rep, but Goodspeed was one. He had long admired Price and the work that Goodspeed did.

Asked about a big mission statement, he says he’s working on that. He says, “What I hopefully bring to the table is not only the administrative/business side but the artistic side. This is a big operation. You’ve got to keep that in the back of your mind, that you’re running a big operation, So you have to make sure you’re always funded and selling tickets and all those things.”

At the same time, he says, Goodspeed is unique as a facility and in its ability to mount musicals. He says he doesn’t know of another theater in the country that has as long a history of producing only musicals.

One of the Goodspeed areas Gennaro believes is particularly important is education. He wants to find educational efforts that are organic to what Goodspeed does best. For instance, he believes the organization should put more resources into its existing intensive course on music direction for musical theater.

He sees this campus as the home of the American musical, and he’s looking at how Goodspeed can best use all its resources, particularly in developing new artists.

As for the concrete question of the building itself, Gennaro sees Goodspeed as staying in the venerable opera house in East Haddam. A few years back, there was a move to relocate Godspeed to Middletown and build a new theater.

“The uniqueness and what an icon this theater is, visually and to people’s experience of Goodspeed — you can’t divorce them. It’s what makes this place special,” Gennaro says. “One of those things is the intimacy of the audience to the performers is so profound.

“That being said, I’m all for improving the comforts for our patrons. The seats need to be replaced. The floor the seats are on should be raked. There could be a couple of more bathrooms. There could be some improvement on ingress and egress. Those are things in terms of looking down the line (where), if you said to me, ‘We could accomplish that in five years,’ that would be great. Because it’s only going to make the experience here better and better.”

In addition to its opera house mainstage, Goodspeed runs its Norma Terris Theatre in Chester, which has been devoted to developing new musicals. Having another venue in a different town across the Connecticut River has its pluses and minuses, he believes.

“It would be nice if it was right where that dock is —” he gestures to the dock outside of the Goodspeed Opera House “ — because then people could go, ‘I could see this work at a matinee, and I could go see that (show) tomorrow after I go antiquing or whatever.’ I think that is something that really has to be looked at. It’s all in the mix of creating a campus for all of this, which then also translates into: as education becomes more important, how close do you keep it to around here? I think that’s something I’ve got the board starting to think about and look at.”

Of course, he notes, that means raising a lot of money, and the state, as many states are, is in the midst of tough economic times.

On another front, Gennaro would like to see Goodspeed get more into commissioning new musicals.

“We clearly have the expertise and the muscle to do it. But people have to be comfortable that this is the right place to do it. For me, the fact that you can come up here for two or three weeks and be off the radar and just work on a show is a huge incentive for people,” he says.

Goodspeed recently announced its first Gennaro-led season line-up, with all five shows announced at the same time. He spoke about some of the thoughts behind the show-selection process. He was interested in titles that Goodspeed hadn’t done before.

“I also wanted to find a way to marry the opera house to the Terris theater so there could be some connection between,” he says.

First up on the mainstage will be Cole Porter’s “Anything Goes.” Gennaro says he thought “it was great to open the season with something that was straight-ahead great musical theater that Goodspeed can do its thing with.”

Following that will be “Bye, Bye Birdie,” which Gennaro looks at as “the kind of show our patrons could bring their children to, who could bring their children.”

He also wanted to do a new work if at all possible — which is where “Chasing Rainbows: The Road to Oz” comes in. It’s about Judy Garland’s life up to the point where she is cast in “Wizard of Oz.” The musical touches on her time with the Gumm Sisters and in the MGM camp, with songs from that period.

“I thought it would be perfect for this audience but still allow us to flex our muscles and do a new work,” he says.

As for the Norma Terris, he says, “I got off the path a little bit from only doing new shows, at least for next year, because I thought it would be interesting to try a show that had been on Broadway that’s rarely produced because it had some flaws in it.”

That choice is “The Roar of the Greasepaint — The Smell of the Crowd,” which was a suggestion of Don Stephenson, who directed “Guys and Dolls” at Goodspeed earlier this year, and Gennaro’s sister Liza, a choreographer. When Gennaro texted Liza to tell her he was going to become executive director of Goodspeed, she texted him back, saying, “I have a show for you.” He wasn’t convinced, since this allegorical show — in which the common man plays a game whose rules are forever being changed by the upper class — has been known to have some problems.

She answered, though, that she and Stephenson had devised a different way to do it, with four characters and a six-piece band. This version makes some changes, too, and brings a contemporary feel to the show, Michael says. (Stephenson will direct the production at the Norma Terris, and Liza Gennaro will choreograph.)

Rounding out the season at the Norma Terris is a new work, “A Sign of the Times,” which Gennaro describes as “That Girl” meets “Mad Men.” A lot of the music is from Petula Clark and others of that era.

“I’m a believer in the fact that certain shows fit in certain spaces. A show about Judy Garland in that era should be in the opera house because it has that same feel — as opposed to a show that’s Petula Clark lends itself better to a kind of black-box, simpler space,” he says.

And Gennaro speaks warmly of Price, who is remaining as adviser through the end of 2016.

Gennaro says, “One of the things that’s been wonderful is deepening my relationship with Michael. ... It’s so helpful to have someone with all his experience to rely on as an adviser right now.”