Point Park names artistic director, conservatory dean
Steven Breese, the just- announced artistic director of Point Park University’s Pittsburgh Playhouse and dean of the Conservatory of Performing Arts, could barely contain his excitement, saying he felt lucky and proud to be headed to Pittsburgh.
His most recent job was at Long Island University, where he had worked since 2017, “and I fully intended to stay for a while,” Mr. Breese said. But the dual position at Point Park with facilities “second to none in the world” was too much to pass up. He assumes the roles held by Ronald Allan- Lindblom for 20 years, overseeing the university’s performing arts center and conservatories in dance, cinema and the theater arts. Mr. Lindblom stepped down at the end of the 2018- 19 school year to pursue directing and teaching full time.
Mr. Breese begins his tenure Aug. 1.
Point Park also announced Thursday that Drew Martorella, who had been the vice chancellor for administration and finance at the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs, has been named assistant vice president and managing director of the Playhouse.
“We are thrilled to welcome Steven and Drew to Point Park,” Paul Hennigan, president of Point Park, said in a statement. “Their fresh energy, commitment and vision of the university’s mission for our nationally recognized Conservatory and awardwinning Pittsburgh Playhouse will set the agenda for years to come.”
Point Park’s dance program has been in the top 10 of OnStage Blog’s annual rankings and its musical theater program has remained near the top of Playbill’s annual “most represented on Broadway” list. The Playhouse is entering its second season in the state- of- the- art, $ 74 million Downtown center that opened last year.
The well- traveled Mr. Breese — an actor, playwright, educator and author of “On Acting: A Handbook for Today’s Unique American Actor” — grew up in Cleveland. When he showed the ad for the Point Park job opening to his wife, actress- teacher Erin McGrann, he said, she “looked me right in the eyes and said, ‘ You have to go for it.’”
Mr. Breese, 62, is giddy over his good fortune to be coming into a position where the already planned next season includes the Playhouse’s second world premiere of the musical “Pump Up the Volume” and the return of Tony-, Emmy- and Olivier- awardwinning alumnus Rob Ashford to direct a production of “Parade,” based on the true story of the lynching of a Jewish man in the South.
Mr. Breese comes to Pittsburgh with a long list of credits and colleges. Before LIU, he was academic dean of the School of Arts and Sciences at Southern Connecticut State University. Before that, at the College of Arts and Humanities at Christopher Newport University in Virginia, he opened a $ 60 million building for the humanities and created a new vocal institute in the Department of Music. He also has served as director of the acting program at Texas Christian University.
As an actor, director and playwright, his work has been seen at theaters in Chicago, Dallas, California and at the Operettenhaus in Hamburg, Germany.