The Blue Ridge Community Theater (BRCT) invites all who are interested to come and meet their new executive director, Todd Olson, at the theater’s Kick Off party.
Patricia Webb, president and one of the BRCT founders said, “After an extensive national search, Mr. Todd Olson joins your Blue Ridge Community Theater as the Strategic Lynchpin of our organization. As your BRCT’s first paid executive director, Mr. Olson will lead our dynamic team into our third decade.”
Olson’s credentials feature both the Art of Theater and the Business of Theater. He brings over 30 years of experience in professional and community theater to the region as an accomplished director and theater administrator, Webb said.
Olson’s experience includes leading The Historic Palace Theatre in Crossville, Tennessee, The Chattanooga Theatre Centre, and the American Stage Theatre Company in St. Petersburg, Florida.
Olson has directed over 150 plays, musicals, and operas, including My Way, which he co-created, at the Actor’s Theatre of Louisville, and I Left My Heart, also co-created, at Milwaukee Repertory Theatre.
As a playwright, his works include Casa Blue, The Last Moments in the Life of Frida Kahlo, and Joe Corso Re-Enters from the Wings, which won the 2012 Holland New Voices Playwright Award at the Great Plains Theatre Conference.
His recent play, Althea & Angela just toured with Knoxville’s Word Players Theatre, and his adaptation of Agatha Christie’s early novel, The Secret of Chimney Manor, will debut at the “In the Round Players” in Minneapolis next month.
Olson received his M.F.A. from the University of North Carolina and is a graduate of the Institute for Advanced Theatre Training at Harvard. He was a teaching fellow at Harvard, and has taught classes at Vanderbilt, Boston University, the University of North Carolina, and the University of South Florida.
The Kickoff Party is slated for January 20, from 1 p.m. to 3 p.m. at the Blue Ridge Community Theater.