PLAY - Key Persons
Adrian Rooney is currently living the dream, working as the head of electrics and sound at Studio Theatre, one of Washington DC's premier theatres. If any alumni are in the DC area and need over-hire work or want to meet up for a Pitt game, feel free to email him at AdrianRooney@gmail.com.
Job Titles:
- Freelance Theatrical and Entertainment Lighting Designer and Technician
Amanda Kircher is a freelance theatrical and entertainment lighting designer and technician. She was born and raised in Washington D.C. Her journey began her freshman year of high school when she signed up for the Tech Crew of Fiddler on the Roof. Over the next four years she would find that her true passion was for art of light. In 2007 she completed her first lighting design: Les Miserables. With this show, she discovered how much of an effect manipulating color, texture, movement, and intensity can have on an audience. She was hooked.
She went on to study at the University of Pittsburgh where she double majored in Theatre Arts and History. While at Pitt, she studied stage management and lighting design under Annmarie Duggan. She also became the electrics workstudy and logged hundreds of hours in the electrics shop and participated in over sixty hangs and focuses in all three spaces (Proscenium, Black Box, and Thrust). Her mainstage designs at Pitt were Alice and As You Like It. Both designs earned her the Certificate of Merit from KCACTF and the Best Lighting Design Award from the Pitt Theatre Arts Department. In 2010, Amanda won the Shirley Custer Memorial Award. The Shirley Custer is given to a college student attending any university located in the Pittsburgh area who shows great promise in the world of theatre. This was the first time the award had ever been given to a technician.
During college Amanda was also heavily involved in Pitt's USITT student chapter. In 2010-2011, she became president of the chapter, and headed the first ever collaboration between the Musical Theatre Club and USITT.
Amanda spent her summers working for Creative Productions and X-Laser, in Laurel, MD. Her summer experiences gave her a different perspective on the art of light and how light can be used. She designed over 100 mobile lighting rigs for corporate events, weddings, and various other functions. Her experience in the mobile world gave her a very strong grasp on the art of problem solving. Unlike Theatre, there isn't a week to work out all the kinks; there is only a few hours. She learned if something does not go as planned there's no time to get upset; you have to solve it and move on because no matter what 1500 people are going to walk in the door whether the rig is up not.
Amanda's mobile production experience molded her into a designer who is not afraid to use bold colors and textures. Her understanding of putting lights to music gave her a unique ability to design effective and motivated moving light cues for theatre.
After graduating with a B.A. in Theatre Arts and History in 2011, Amanda moved to Philadelphia, PA and became the Production Management Apprentice at the Walnut Street Theatre. Her apprenticeship allowed her to have a very well rounded perspective of all aspects of producing theatre. While at the Walnut, Amanda was asked to be the Assistant Lighting Designer for A Christmas Carol, and then asked to design the Walnut's touring production of Around the World in 80 Days. After her apprenticeship, she continued to work as the electrics overhire for all mainstage load-ins and strikes.
Amanda's other projects include being the Assistant Technical Director for her former High School, Georgetown Visitation Preparatory School for girls. At Visitation, she is allowed to bring her experiences from the professional world back to the place where it all began for her. Amanda is passionate about teaching and truly enjoys seeing the students transform from girls who have never picked up a hammer to young women who can successfully design, build, hang, focus, and execute productions with very little adult assistance.
Amanda strongly believes in the art of collaboration and positive energy. She believes the efficacy of the message of any production lies in the quality of the process of its creation. Every project Amanda has ever done, she has devoted her whole self to seeing that her contributions to the process are only positive and collaborative. Amanda hopes to have a very long design career and will go wherever the wind takes her to ensure she can continue to design and create meaningful pieces of art.
Education & Training
BA - Theatre Arts, University of Pittsburgh, (Summa Cum Laude) 2011
Job Titles:
- Professor / Head of Design, Technology and Management
Annmarie Duggan has designed Off-Broadway and extensively in regional theatres across the United States. She has designed lighting for more than 400 productions.
Annmarie was the 2013 Bellet Teaching Excellence Award recipient. Learn more about her teaching philosophy and hear her students talk about the opportunities she's given them. Watch online. Learn her thoughts on mentoring by reading her article "Teaching Times." Read here.
Job Titles:
- Theatrical Production Director
Ashley Martin is the Theatrical Production Director with the Department of Theatre Arts at the University of Pittsburgh. She holds an M.Ed. from Pitt's School of Education and a B.A. in Theatre, is a member of Actor's and Stage Manager's Equity Union, USITT, National Writing Project, and The Stage Manager's Association. Selections of her management work includes plays, musicals, casting, conferences, and festivals with Pittsburgh Public Theatre, City Theatre, The Mountain Playhouse, Pittsburgh Cultural Trust, Three Rivers Entertainment, and Mosser Casting. Areas of interest include professional writing and theatre career development mentorship. Theatre teaching experience with the University of Pittsburgh, Point Park University, and the University of South Carolina. She is the department liaison with facilities management and manages theatre rentals for the Richard E. Rauh Studio Theatre and Foster Memorial Building.
Education & Training
BA - University of Pittsburgh, Theatre Arts,
MEd in Education- University of Pittsburgh School of Education
Job Titles:
- Member of the Pittsburgh
- Teaching Assistant Professor
- Teaching Assistant Professor / Musical Theatre
Becki Toth is a professional singer, actor, director, and teacher living in the Pittsburgh area. A familiar face to Pittsburgh's theater audiences, Becki has performed with City Theater, Pittsburgh CLO, Front Porch Theatricals, and many other local and regional companies. She is the co-lyricist of the new musical Abduction!, which won an honorable mention at the 2019 New York Musical Theater Festival. Becki was voted Pittsburgh's Favorite Actress twice by the readers of Pittsburgh's City Paper.
In addition to her work in musical theater, Becki is an active member of the Pittsburgh musical community. She is the managing director and a founding member of the chamber choir Voces Solis, and has also performed with the Mendelssohn Choir and the Bach Choir.
Becki has performed with such varied acts as Ben Folds, The Chieftains, The Skivvies, and odc/dance. She's sought after as a soloist, ensemblist, and educator, and teaches at Point Park University and the CMU Pre-College Program in addition to her work at the University of Pittsburgh.
Job Titles:
- Costume Shop Assistant Manager
Brittany (she/her) has been a freelance costume designer and technologist for film and theatre in Maryland, DC, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, and a handful of other states and cities since 2008. Her most recent work has been designing for independent films currently in post production in Pittsburgh and Philadelphia. She is extremely excited to find herself back in a costume shop again and to join the Pitt family!
Job Titles:
- Designer
- Teaching Assistant Professor
Britton Wayne Mauk (he/him/his) is a scenic designer (that happens to be a queer, trans man) that is devoted to diverse collaborations, bold choices, and innovative solutions. Thinking outside the box while ensuring the production remains visually accessible and true to the artistic intention.
Most notably, he has designed several world premieres-Untitled and The Burdens at City Theatre, and Old Man and the Sea at Pittsburgh Playhouse. Some of his other designs from these venues include American Fast and The Absolute Brightness of Leonard Pelkey at City Theatre, Good Grief, and Wig Out! at Pittsburgh Playhouse. Britton has designed for Portland Center Stage (Hedwig and the Angry Inch and Rent) in Portland, OR; Long Wharf Theatre (I am My Own Wife) in New Haven, CT; Cardinal Stage (<Matilda the Musical and Fun Home) in Bloomington, IN; Mixed Blood (Mermaid Hour Remixed) in Minneapolis, MN; Bristol Riverside Theatre (Skeleton Crew); Gulfshore Playhouse (26 Miles and Steel Magnolias) in Naples, FL. Closer to home, he has designed for Pittsburgh Public Theatre (The Chief), Front Porch Theatricals, CLO Cabaret, Prime Stage, Pittsburgh Musical Theatre, and Quantum.
He is an active member of the USITT IDEAs Committee, co-chair of the USITT Queer Nation Network, and co-coordinator for the USITT Gateway Program.
Britton has taught at Carnegie Mellon University School of Drama and Point Park University Conservatory of Performing Arts.
His portfolio can be viewed at brittonmaukdesign.com
Education & Training
MFA in Scenic Design - Carnegie Mellon University
BFA in Scenic Design - California Institute of the Arts
Before coming to Pitt in 1997, Professor McConachie had published widely in American theatre history and theatre historiography. His books included Theatre for Working-Class Audiences in the U.S. (1985), Interpreting the Theatrical Past (with Thomas Postlewait, 1989), and Melodramatic Formations: Theatre and Society in the U.S. 1820-1870 (1992), for which he won the Barnard Hewitt Award from the American Society for Theatre Research (ASTR). American Theater in the Culture of the Cold War: Producing and Contesting Containment, 1947-1962 followed in 2003. Along with three other historians, McConachie published a world theatre history book in 2006, Theatre Histories: An Introduction. This innovative textbook is now (in 2016) in its third edition. From 2000 to 2003 he served as President of ASTR.
In 2006, McConachie also published Performance and Cognition: Theatre Studies and the Cognitive Turn (with F. Elizabeth Hart), the first of several books and essays investigating the evolutionary and cognitive basis of theatre and performance studies. Other books in this area of interdisciplinary scholarship soon followed: Engaging Audiences: A Cognitive Approach to Spectating in the Theatre (2008), Theatre & Mind (2013), and Evolution, Cognition, and Performance (2015). During this time, McConachie also put together a Cognitive Science and Theatre Conference at the University of Pittsburgh and joined with Professor Blakey Vermeule to co-edit the "Cognitive Studies in Literature and Performance" series for Palgrave Macmillan Press, which had published a dozen monographs by 2015. In 2011, ASTR awarded McConachie the Distinguished Scholar Award.
During his 18 years at the University of Pittsburgh, McConachie continued to perform theatrical roles and direct plays. He performed regionally with Unseem'd Shakespeare Company, Quantum Theatre, and Theatre by the Grove at IUP and appeared in several supporting roles with students at the University. McConachie directed Chekhov's Uncle Vanya at Pitt, American Humbug, by Theatre Arts Professor Lynn Conner, for the Three Rivers Arts Festival, and A Streetcar Named Desire at Queens University in Belfast, UK.
Bruce McConachie retired as an Emeritus Professor at the end of December in 2015. For a recent copy of his CV, please contact him directly at bamcco@pitt.edu."
Job Titles:
- Artist
- Producing Artistic Director
Chad Rabinovitz is the only artist in the United States simultaneously serving as the Producing Artistic Director of two theaters devoted to new and contemporary works: Adirondack Theatre Festival (Glens Falls, NY) & Bloomington Playwrights Project (Bloomington, IN). In addition to producing new works, Chad has directed more than 100 productions across the country, focusing primarily on new and contemporary plays and musicals. He is also the Producer of the Adirondack Film Festival as well a visual arts festival, Arts Fair on the Square.
At the Adirondack Theatre Festival - the leading professional theatre in the Capital Region devoted to new and contemporary works, Chad has grown attendance from 5,700 to over 9,000 in just 2 seasons, nearly doubled subscribership, broke numerous box office records, introduced innovative children's programming, and produced multiple best-selling-selling shows in ATF's history.
Under Rabinovitz's tenure, the Bloomington Playwrights Project has undergone what Bloom Magazine calls "a near miraculous renaissance." Taking the helm of a theatre nearing six-figures in debt, in just four years Rabinovitz quintupled its subscribership, erased all debt, vastly expanded its education program, completed a full-building renovation, doubled the operating budget, increased its community partnerships, greatened the company's national renown, and sold more tickets in a single season than in its 30+ year history. The BPP reached a new milestone having recently purchased its building. It has also sold out every single performance of every production for 2 straight years.
Specializing in developing new works, Rabinovitz has fostered and directed premieres from such prominent playwrights as: Alex Brightman, Dan Castellaneta, Deb Lacusta, Jesse Eisenberg, Jeff Daniels, Craig Wright, Greg Kotis, Paris Barclay, Drew Gasparini, Michelle Kholos Brooks, Kelly Younger, Jon Marans, Israel Horovitz, Jeremy Schonfeld, Wendy MacLeod, Michael Healey, Nicole Parker, Chris Jeffries, Henry Murray, Carner & Gregor, Scott Alan, and William Missouri Downs. Rabinovitz is also known for working closely with magicians to direct and develop their acts, working most prominently with "Washington D.C.'s 2013 Best Performing Artist," Max Major.
The plays Rabinovitz has developed have gone on to productions off-Broadway, at major regional theaters, and to publication in the U.S. and Canada. For his achievements, Rabinovitz was the recipient of Bloomington's Manager of the Year Award, the Downtown Revitalization Award, Bloomington's Attraction of the Year Award, Ivy Tech's Community Partner Award, and was honored with being on the cover of Bloom Magazine where he's referred to as "a visionary artistic director, savvy businessman, and inspirational leader." He was named one of the 100 Reasons to Love Bloomington and was honored with Bloomington's 10 Under 40 award as well as Glens Falls' 20 Under 40 award in the same month.
Rabinovitz has also been an Adjunct Professor of Theatre Management at Indiana University and a member of the Indiana University Theatre Circle's Board of Directors. He has been a script reader for the Eugene O'Neil Theatre Center and The Playwrights' Center and has held the title of Artistic Director at Crested Butte Mountain Theatre, Artistic Associate at Westport Country Playhouse, Assistant Managing Director at Northern Lights Playhouse, and Education Director/Artistic Associate at Greenbrier Valley Theatre.
Education & Training
BA - Theatre Arts, University of Pittsburgh, Dual Theatre/Business Degree
Cory Tamler (class of '09) is a writer, translator, theater artist, and emerging scholar who has made research- and community-based performances in NYC, Chicago, Pittsburgh, Germany, Serbia, and beyond. As a 2010 Fulbright scholar in Germany, she wrote about Berlin's post-migrant theater movement. Her critical and personal writing has been published by The Offing, Culturebot, Extended Play, Howlround, ArtParasites, Exberliner, Interartive, and the Berlin Theatertreffen, and her translations appear in The Offing, Asymptote (2013 Close Approximations Translation Contest winner), and The Animated Reader: Poetry of the Surround Audience (in association with the New Museum Triennial, 2015). She is part of The Civilians' Field Research Team and a collaborating artist on PENOBSCOT, an Open Waters performance project in Maine. In 2015, she spent a month aboard an oceanographic research vessel in Micronesia as an experiential writing retreat. She is the Spring 2016 R&D Fellow at the New Museum (NYC), where she is engaged in research, documentation, archival, and performance activities around the theme LEGACY.
Job Titles:
- Director
- Department Chair / Head of MFA Performance Pedagogy Program
- Fellow of the NEA / TCG Career Development Program for Directors
Cynthia Croot is a director, deviser, writer and activist, and serves as Associate Professor and Head of Performance at the University of Pittsburgh. Croot earned her MFA in Directing from Columbia University under the tutelage of Anne Bogart, Robert Woodruff, Andrei Serban, and Kristin Linklater. U.S. directing credits include: John Guare's The House of Blue Leaves and Theresa Rebeck's Seminar (Perseverance Theatre, Juneau); Shakespeare's The Winter's Tale (Colorado Shakespeare Festival); Shakespeare's Much Ado About Nothing and the company-created chamber musical The Millay Sisters (Stonington Opera House) as well as productions in NYC at PS122, HERE, Town Hall, The Ontological-Hysteric Theatre, Symphony Space, and the Guggenheim Museum.
A 2007-2009 Fellow of the NEA/TCG Career Development Program for Directors, Croot is also Resident Director of the NYC-based theatre company Conni's Avant Garde Restaurant. With her company, she has staged experimental audience-immersive and site-specific work in NYC, the Cleveland Public Theatre, OH; The Motherlodge Festival, Louisville, KY; North American Culture Lab, NY; and American Repertory Theatre's "Club Oberon" in Cambridge, MA. Croot's direction helped earn Conni's Avant Garde Restaurant two 2012 New York Innovative Theatre Awards. In 2015, she co-founded the activist art collective Ifyoureallyloveme with poet Joy Katz. Their first project: One Large, a piece about race and money, has been performed at the Open Engagement Conference, Pittsburgh, the Theatre Communications Group Conference, Washington, DC, and at Actors Theatre of Louisville, KY.
Among her international credits, Croot toured Suzan-Lori Park's Venus in Cape Town and Johannesburg, South Africa, during the historic moment of Sara Baartman's repatriation and burial. Her benefit U.S. stagings of VENUS at the Public Theater and Gatehouse (NYC) featured Tim Robbins, Joe Morton, Jayne Houdyshell, Arliss Howard and Kathleen Chalfant. In 2008 she received a TCG/ITI grant for travel to Croatia for another incarnation of the Venus Project: using it as a lens to examine the sex trafficking industry in Eastern Europe.
In 2017 she launched "Taking Refuge," an examination of refugee crises around the world by artists, activists, journalists, academics, and individuals directly affected by war and political violence. The project was a collaboration with Colgate University, the College of Charleston, College of the Holy Cross, Indiana University of Pennsylvania, Louisiana State University, Noor Theatre company, Roehampton University UK, and Washington College, MD.
Her current research focuses on staging operatic and music-centered pieces addressing pressing social issues These include: "We Crossed the River" an opera by Eric Moe with libretto by Angie Cruz; "Mirror Butterfly: Migrant Liberation Suite" by Ben Barson with libretto by Ruth Margraff; "Angelmakers" by Molly Rice; and "Bad Activist" starring dissident Vietnamese musician Mai Khoi in a one-woman show exploring her journey from pop stardom to social activism to life in exile.
Education & Training
MFA - Directing, Columbia University
Job Titles:
- Associate Professor
- Emeritus Professor
Don Mangone is Associate Professor Emeritus, University of Pittsburgh, and a member of United Scenic Artists, 829, in Costume Design.
He has designed costumes for both theatre and dance in New York, regionally and abroad for companies that include the Jose Limon Dance Company, Transitions Dance Company at the Laban Centre and Ballet Rambert in London, BBC Educational TV, the Manhattan Ensemble and National Shakespeare Company in New York, Colorado Shakespeare Festival, and Florida Stage. Mr. Mangone has also designed product launch performances for the Ciba-Geigy and Hoffmann-LaRoche Corporations.
Costume design art work has been exhibited on a regular basis nationally through the US Institute for Theatre Technology and the Athens Institute for Educational Research in Greece. He was a research contributor for World Scenography 1990-2005, edited by Eric fielding and Peter McKinnon.
Mr. Mangone has taught various courses in design and production at the State Univeristy of New York, College at Brockport, Smith College and the University of Pittsburgh. He is currently an adjunct professor at Eastern Florida State College teaching courses in theatre appreciation and theatre history.
Job Titles:
- Professor / Department Founder
The Department of Theatre Arts extends its deepest sympathy to family, friends, students, and colleagues on the recent passing of Dr. Attilio (Buck) Favorini, Professor Emeritus and founder of the Department of Theatre Arts.
Elizabeth Salisch graduated from the University of Pittsburgh in 2008. She has worked at the George Street Playhouse whereshe stage managed three shows (Peacemaker, New Kid and IRL:IN Real Life) as part of the outreach program that travels around New Jersey with a forth show coming in January: Austin The Unstoppable which is a new musical about wellness. Her Off-Broadway credits include: Vieux Carre, Tartuffe, Twelfth Night, Nathan the Wise, and The Oedipus Cycle all at The Pearl Theatre Company. Off-off Broadway Elizabeth participated in the productions of Futura (NAATCO), A Streetcar Named Desire (Mississippi Mud Productions), The Cradle Will Rock (Theater Ten Ten) which was nominated for an innovative theatre award for best musical production in 2010, Slave Shack (Algonquin Productions) and Mr. Kolpert (Artist Collective NYC). Her regional credits include; American Mud (Straw Flower Productions),The Next Reunion, A Marriage Minuet (City Theater), Snow White, The Emperor's New Clothes and, Jack and The Bean Stalk (Storybook Musical Theatre).
Education & Training
BA - Theatre Arts, University of Pittsburgh, 2008
Job Titles:
- Part Time Instructor in Lighting Design
My name is Eve Bandi. I'm born and raised in Pittsburgh and a University of Pittsburgh alum. In the summer of 2010, I was the lighting intern with American Ballet Theatre during their annual stay at the Metropolitan Opera House in New York City. I graduated in 2011 with a BA in physics & astronomy and a minor in theatre arts. I worked around town for a couple years as an assistant, electrician, and designer. Then, in 2013 I started my graduate degree in lighting design at the University of Arizona. I continued to freelance while in school in Tucson and here in Pittsburgh. After completing my MFA in 2016, I spent a year teaching English in Taipei, Taiwan. Once returning to the states, I lived in San Diego for a little bit and worked with Pacific Event Productions setting up and taking down events all over the city. Following that, I was an associate designer for a condensed version of Carmen that Magic City Opera installed on a cruise ship. We installed it on two separate ships in the Azamara cruise line; one in April 2018 and the other in August 2018. I then moved to New York City for a year. I designed a handful of shows for Gallery Players and Seeing Place Theatre. I also was an overhire electrician at NYU. After New York, I moved back to Pittsburgh where I've been freelance designing and occasional electrician work. In town I've worked with No Name Players, South Park Theatre, The New Hazlett Theater, University of Pittsburgh, Bodiography, Staycee Pearl Dance Project, Pittsburgh Opera, Robert Morris University, and many others. I spent the 2021-2022 school year as the Visiting Assistant Professor of Practice in Lighting Design at University of Arizona.
Job Titles:
- Designer
- Teaching Associate Professor / Director of Undergraduate Studies
Gianni Downs (Scenic Designer) is a Lecturer of Scenic Design and Scenic Art in the Theatre Arts Department at the University of Pittsburgh.
His work has been nationally recognized with a Kevin Kline Award and two nominations for productions at the Repertory Theatre of St. Louis, as well as an Irene Ryan nomination for designs at Stoneham Theatre. He is the recipient of the 2017 Tina and David Bellet Teaching Excellence Award and the 2015 Innovation in Education Award. He has had the pleasure of working regionally at Theatre Squared, The City Theatre, Merrimack Repertory Theatre, PICT Theatre, The Repertory Theatre of St. Louis, Stoneham Theatre, Pittsburgh Playhouse, as well as many others .
Gianni received his MFA from Brandeis University, and has been on the faculty of Westminster College, Carnegie Mellon University's School of Drama, the University of Pittsburgh, and Point Park University. His portfolio can be viewed at his website www.giannidesigns.net
Education & Training
MFA - Scenic Design, Brandeis University, 2003
BA - Theatre, Univeristy of New Hampshire, 1998
Job Titles:
- Editor of the Montclair Times
- Education & Training
Gwendolyn is the arts editor of the Montclair Times located in Montclair, New Jersey.
Education & Training
PhD - Theatre and Performance Studies, University of Pittsburgh, 2006
AM - Standford University, 1987
Job Titles:
- Temporary Department Coordinator
Job Titles:
- Part Time Lecturer in Sound Design
Jennifer is currently the Drama Director of The Palms Drama Ensemble at Palms M.S., Gifted/High Ability Magnet School in the Los Angeles Unified School District, where she's put together some amazing productions: The Egyptian Cinderella, NARNIA, James and the Giant Peach, The Phantom Tollbooth, RnJ: The Urban Remix (a Shakespearean hip-hop tour-de-force of Romeo and Juliet w/original raps by Ms. Hunter), and this year, they've created a middle school version of Alice's REVOLUTION in Wonderland based on Lewis Carroll's classic, that goes up in March 2011. Jennifer is an avid Shakespeare performer, and completed the Will Geer Theatricum Botanicum's Shakespeare Acting Intensive, as well as Ellen Geer's Master Class and a Julius Caesar intensive at A Noise Within theatre company.
Job Titles:
- Director of Event Technology at PSAV Presentation Services
Justin Baker graduated from Pitt in 2011. While at Pitt, he focused on Electrics and Lighting Design. As a junior he picked up his first design with the world premier of Gasmasks. After Gasmasks, Justin went on to design The Yellow Boat in the same year along with taking the Master Electrician position for The General of Hot Desire. In his senior year he went on to design Shakespeare's Lovers and Fighters a touring production for Shakespeare In The Schools program that was remounted for the 2011-2012 season. Later that year Justin also designed Authorial Intent and The Well of Horniness. He finished up his time at Pitt by designing Into the Woods for the newly formed USITT/Musical Theatre partnership, and took the position of Assistant Lighting Designer for As You Like It. Along with various electrician spots here and there, at Pitt Justin was also very involved with the Pitt Chapter of USITT. Currently Justin is the Technical Director at the Society Hill Playhouse in Philadelphia and can thankfully say that Pitt got him in shape to handle the trials and tribulations of the world of theatre after college.
Job Titles:
- Teaching Associate Professor
Job Titles:
- Marketing and Engagement Specialist
- Writer, Producer
Job Titles:
- Assistant Professor / Department of Theatre and Dance
While in undergrad at PITT, she was heavily involved in the RedEye Theatre Project (becoming President in 2008-2009), Tomfoolery (an improv group), and BUSCARE (a student government organization). LaShawn knew that being on the stage was not her strong suit, so she focused heavily on stage management. After graduating in 2009, she got a job with the Kitchen Theatre Company in Ithaca, NY, becoming their Resident Production Stage Manager. She SMed 30 shows in the almost 3.5 years she was there. Afterwards, she moved to NYC to freelance, which she did successfully until she got her job at CAP21 in 2015.
Education & Training
BA - Theatre Arts, University of Pittsburgh
Laura Frecon is an Alumni of the New School University/Actors Studio Drama School where she received her M.F.A. and holds a joint B.A. in Theater and Business from the University of Pittsburgh. She is a member of the Costume Designer's Guild Local 892 in Los Angeles as well as the United Scenic Artists Costume Designer's Guild Local 829 in New York.
Laura has designed costumes for Film, Television, Theatre, Print, Fashion, Dance and Opera. Her works range from Period Silhouettes to Contemporary Fashion. Ms. Frecon has worked with Costume Designers Mary Vogt, Janie Bryant, Audrey Fisher, Sophie DeRackoff and Judy Ruskin-Howell. She currently works as a Costume Designer, Assistant Costume Designer and Wardrobe Stylist. Other design credits include Broadway Theater, Independent Films, Commercial Production and Fashion Editorial.
Ms. Frecon's most noted Film Credits Include: "Grudge Match", "Broken Horses", "Men in Black 3", "Dinner for Schmucks" and "Loaded". Noted Television Credits Include: "Mad Men-season 4" where her team received an Emmy Nomination for Best Period Costume Design as well as a Costume Designer's Guild Award Nomination. She is currently working on the hit HBO show "True Blood". See Website and IMDB Credits for complete Resume and Portfolio.
Education & Training
MFA - New School University/Actors Studio Drama School
BA - University of Pittsburgh, Theatre and Business
After graduating from the University of Pittsburgh, Laura worked for 7 years in varying degrees at the Box Office at City Theatre in Pittsburgh. She also worked in arts management capacities at Quantum Theatre, Attack Theatre, Prime Stage Theatre and the Jewish Theatre of Pittsburgh. Laura has returned to Pitt and currently works as in the University Center of Teaching and Learning. She was married in October 2010.
Job Titles:
- Part Time Instructor in Painting
Job Titles:
- Theatre and Dance Historian, Cultural Theorist, Playwright / Professor and Chair
Job Titles:
- Associate Professor, University of Buffalo
Job Titles:
- Associate Professor, Indiana University of Pennsylvania
Job Titles:
- Director of Graduate Studies
Job Titles:
- Philip Chosky Teaching Artist - in - Residence
Job Titles:
- Assistant Professor
- Assistant Professor of Theatre Arts at the University of Pittsburgh
Patrick McKelvey is Assistant Professor of Theatre Arts at the University of Pittsburgh, where he teaches graduate and undergraduate courses in performance studies, theatre history, and disability studies. Before joining the faculty at Pitt, he received his PhD from Brown University in 2017 and taught at Florida State University's School of Theatre from 2016 to 2018. He has published essays in Theatre Journal, Theatre Survey, the Journal of Dramatic Theory and Criticism, and Queer Dance: Meanings and Makings (ed. Clare Croft; Oxford, 2017). His reviews appear in Modern Drama, TDR, and the Journal of American Drama and Theatre, among other venues. In 2019, he delivered a plenary at the American Society for Theatre Research annual meeting drawn from this very book project, Disability Works. He is a core member of the John Hope Franklin Humanities Institutes' "Equitable US Arts Infrastructures" Cross-Campus Consortium convened by Sarah Wilbur (Duke University).
McKelvey's first book, Disability Works: US Performance After Rehabilitation is under contract with NYU Press. Disability Works offers a new history of disability and performance in the postwar United States. The book's argument is twofold. First, it shows how theatrical practices and institutions profoundly shaped the form and substance of vocational rehabilitation (VR) as a political and cultural paradigm. Focused on disabled Americans' realization of economic independence through wage labor, VR would come to dominate both disability policy and disability performance in the second half of the twentieth century. Disability Works shows how a seemingly unlikely ensemble of rehabilitation professionals, deaf schoolteachers, policy makers, disability activists, queer artists, and religious leaders championed performance's rehabilitative promise across these decades. Second, it demonstrates how disabled artists and activists mobilized theatre to critique, refuse, and otherwise imagine worlds beyond the demands of productive citizenship. Drawing upon previously unexplored archives of art, activism, and policy, Disability Works focuses on dramaturgical, aesthetic, and infrastructural developments between 1950 and 1990. It features critical examinations of renowned companies, such as the National Theatre of the Deaf and Alvin Ailey American Dance Theatre, as well artists and organizations that have previously garnered little scholarly attention, including playwright Ron Whyte, the National Task Force for Disability and the Arts, the CETA New York Artists Project, and the National Theatre Workshop of the Handicapped.
McKelvey's 2016 essay, "Ron Whyte's ‘Disemployment' Prosthetic Performance and Theatrical Labor" (Theatre Survey) received three "best article" awards: from the American Society for Theatre Research, the American Theatre and Drama Society, and the Committee for LGBT History. OnTAP: A Theatre and Performance Studies Podcast dedicated a segment to his 2019 article, "A Disabled Actor Prepares" (Theatre Journal), which the Drama League includes in its bank of "Anti-Oppression Resources" for theatre and systemic change. McKelvey will spend the 2022-23 academic year as a Visiting Scholar in residence at Pennsylvania State University's Humanities Institute, where he will complete Disability Works and launch his second book project, Supporting Actors: A Disability History of Theatrical Welfare in the United States.
Job Titles:
- Philip Chosky Teaching Artist - in - Residence
Renana Fos is currently pursuing a Masters of the Arts in Theatre Education for Colleges and Communities at NYU while continuing her work as an Arts Based Learning educator for Kaiser Permanente's Community Health Initiative. In her time in DC she has worked with Nu Sass Productions, Brave Spirits Theatre, Kaiser Permanente's Educational Theatre, Tasty Monster Productions, Nice-ee Nice Productions, Lean & Hungry Theater, Inkwell, Infinity Theatre, Spooky Action, Source Theatre Festival, Imagination Stage, Adventure Theatre, and much more.
Education & Training
BA - Theatre Arts, University of Pittsburgh
Job Titles:
- Teaching Assistant Professor / Head of Performance
Job Titles:
- Teaching Artist - in - Residence
Ricky Lyle Campbell is the Costume Shop Manager with the Department of Theatre Arts at the University of Pittsburgh. He holds a BFA in Creative Dramatics and Puppetry from WVU and has over 18 years of experience in costume construction and design for both stage and screen. Ricky is also the instructor of the Costume Construction and Technologies course. He oversees all daily operations of the Costume Shop as well as mentoring students in costume construction. He collaborates with student and faculty designers to facilitate the pulling, buying, construction, fitting, and alterations of costumes for all departmental productions.
Job Titles:
- Russian Theatre and Performance / Adjunct at Florida State University and Valdosta Stage University
Sentell Harper has worked in arts education for the past ten years. He is an actor and playwright who recently had his one man show Seek and Ye Shall Find premiere in New York City off broadway at the United Solo Festival. Sentell is the recipient of the 2014 United Solo Festival's Emerging Actor award.
He recently was featured in the national media for his work, Alternative Names for Black Boys. This performance is a part of Stage the Change, a powerful organization dedicated to helping students become global citizens through creativity and performance, and to providing communities with inspirational original performances, which serve as a catalyst for change.
Education & Training
MFA - Arizona State University, 2008
BA - Theatre Arts Minor, University of Pittsburgh, 2003
Job Titles:
- Visiting Assistant Professor
- Visiting Assistant Professor / Research Interest Summary
Tavia La Follette, PhD, is an Artist-in-Residence at CREATE Lab and was the first Artist-in-Residence at The Center for Arts in Society-both operating out of Carnegie Mellon University. The Community Robotics, Education and Technology Empowerment Lab (CREATE Lab) explores socially meaningful innovation and deployment of robotic technologies. La Follette has been using the tools and data of the Lab to build art projects.
She is founder and director of ArtUp, a border crossing space for artists and companies that are concerned with exploring Art as Action. La Follette's work has toured all over the United States, Europe, South America, Asia, Africa and the Middle East.
Her work has been the subject of articles such as the Economist, Rolling Stone and the New York Times. Originally from NYC, La Follette is a director, curator and performance artist, whose work has been seen at Arts at St. Ann's (St. Ann's Warehouse), the Tenement Museum, the Williamsburg Historical Society, and The Cooler.
Some of the places La Follette has taught, directed and designed include: The Brooklyn Children's Museum, The Carnegie Museum, The Mattress Factory, DePaul University, Carnegie Mellon University, Colby College, Earlham College, the University of Pittsburgh, Chatham University, and at the University of Virginia via the Semester at Sea program.
Education & Training
PhD - Antioch University
MFA - University of Pittsburgh, 2002
Job Titles:
- Irish Theatre and Performance / Associate Professor
Job Titles:
- Visiting Assistant Professor