Biography
Ernest D. Dillihay

As Performing Arts Director for the City of Los Angeles Department of Cultural Affairs (DCA), Ernest heads the Cultural Facilities Division supervising division staff in facilitating the maintenance, upgrade, repair, renovation, design, development and construction of facilities in the department’s art and cultural real estate portfolio. His responsibilities have also included oversight of the department's City-Wide Theater operations, i.e. downtown's Los Angeles Theatre Center, the Madrid Theatre in Canoga Park, the Barnsdall Gallery Theatre in  Hollywood, the Warner Grand Theatre in San Pedro, the Nate Holden Performing Arts Center in Mid City and Leimert Park's Vision Theatre.

To increase the awareness, visibility and access to the arts city-wide, he created such programs as the Arts Card® citywide arts marketing and promotional campaign, Wordsmiths and Wordsmith-in Progress, Playwrights and Play Reading Programs, Play Day I & II, Theatre Week, Dance Week and Month among others. Ernest was a two term member of the Board of Governors for the Los Angeles Stage Alliance (LASA), a 200-member service organization for performing arts groups. He worked with Pulitzer Prize winning playwright August Wilson, co-founder of African Grove Institute of the Arts, Inc. (AGIA), and the California African American Theatre Roundtable.

Ernest's arts career includes a stint "working" for the California Department of Corrections Art-in-Corrections Program as an Institutional Artist Facilitator conducting theater workshops and a multidisciplinary arts program for male and female inmates and as Production Coordinator/Theatre Manager for the Inner City Cultural Center, the first multicultural performing and visual arts institute west of the Mississippi. Ernest is an OVATION Award winner for Best Large Stage Production, a CABLE ACE AWARD winner and nominee for LA ARTS MIX, a magazine style cable program; and a local EMMY (for cable programming) and NAACP IMAGE AWARD Nominee (Best Producer-Theater). Ernest is also the Founder of the Arts, Culture and Entertainment Ambassadors© Program and creator of the Masked Minister 4 the Arts©.

Ernest has presented such groups as the LA Philharmonic, the hit Broadway show "Ain't Nothin' But The Blues", Roger Guenveur Smith's "A Huey P. Newton Story", San Pedro City Ballet, Miriam Makeba, the Moscow Chamber Orchestra, Les Ballet Africans, jazz great Charles Lloyd and Billy Higgins, Gil Scott Heron, blues legend Linda Hopkins and has worked with a host of actors such as Oscar® nominee Beah Richards, directors and choreographers over his career. A veteran of the U.S. Marine Corps, he holds a BA in Ethnic Arts (World Arts and Cultures) and an MFA in Theatre Management from UCLA. He has also attended USC's Annenberg School and the Ross Real Estate Development Program as well as the Amos Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth College. Ernest has also been the recipient of fellowships from the CORO Foundation's Public Affairs and the Arts Program and the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA).