Piven Theatre announces Leslie Brown As New Executive Director

The Piven Theatre Workshop Board of Directors today announces the appointment of Leslie Brown to the position of Executive Director. Brown comes to Piven from Ragdale in Lake Forest, Illinois, the renowned artist-in-residence program, where she has served as the Director of Programs and Communications for the last several years. Brown will begin her position with the theater company on October 5, 2010.

Brown's appointment concludes an extensive executive search process that began early in 2010. "Piven Theatre Workshop is delighted to welcome alumna Leslie Brown back to the organization as its Executive Director," says Board President Elizabeth Guscott Mueller. "As an alumna of one of our first Young People's Company troupes, Leslie provides Piven with the best of both worlds: extensive management experience with other artistically oriented nonprofits and longtime connections to the Piven Theatre, going back over twenty years. She will be able to combine an outside perspective and fresh ideas, along with the institutional memory that comes from having "grown up" in the Workshop. We are confident that Leslie Brown has the experience, talent and temperament to successfully lead Piven Theatre Workshop into the future."

"I am honored to be selected as Piven Theatre Workshop's next Executive Director," says Brown. "The work of Piven is so important and has drawn out the creative spirit of thousands of individuals for almost forty years. Alumni from Piven are not only remarkable actors committed to the craft of theatre, but they are people who are invested in their community, culturally and artistically savvy, and significant contributors to the arts and education. I am looking forward to working with Piven's Board and staff as the organization moves into the next stages of its exciting future."

During her tenure at Ragdale, Brown managed collaborative programming with Chicago area organizations that showcase the work of Ragdale artists and was extensively involved in donor and volunteer cultivation and development, including close involvement with alumni of the program, and oversight of special events. In addition, she managed the organization's marketing, communications, and public relations as well as the logistics, budgeting, and evaluation of the Programs Department.

Having earned her bachelor's degree from Columbia College and her master's degree from Boston University, Brown also previously served as Associate Director of the Wilmette Theatre and the Deputy Director of Public Programs at the C.G. Jung Center. She taught film studies at Boston University, Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and has worked in various capacities with several film festivals in Massachusetts and Evanston, IL. While in Boston, Brown also served as the Associate Director and Special Events Coordinator with The Brattle Theatre and The Brattle Film Foundation in Cambridge, Massachusetts

Brown currently resides in Evanston with her husband and son, where she serves on the Steering Committee for Leadership Evanston, a program of the Evanston Community Foundation, and is Chair of its Alumni Committee. She is also a Board Member of Percolator Films, the founding organization of Evanston's Talking Pictures Film Festival and has served as the Contributing Arts Writer for Shop Evanston.
About The Piven Theatre
For over 35 years, the Piven Theatre Workshop has remained a nationally respected acting school and professional Equity theatre. Within recent history, Piven Theatre has received a Joseph Jefferson Award for Best Sound Design, and an After Dark Award for Outstanding Ensemble. The theatre has also received several Joseph Jefferson Recommendations, a Joseph Jefferson Award for Best New Adaptation, and Jeff nominations for Best Original Score, and Best Ensemble. Co-Founders Byrne & Joyce Piven have trained countless theatre artists such as John and Joan Cusack, Kate Walsh, Aidan Quinn, Lili Taylor and Jeremy Piven, to name only a few.
Stagebill honored the Pivens with the designation "Chicago's first family of acting." The Pivens have been awarded the Evanston Mayors Award for the Arts, Lifetime Achievement Awards from the Chicago Improv Festival, and the University of Chicago's Glorious Gargoyle Award for lifetime contribution to the theatre. They were named 1996 Artists of the Year by the Chicago Tribune and were recipients of the Chicago Drama League's 1998 Crystal Award. In 2000, they were awarded a Joseph Jefferson Lifetime Achievement Award. For more information, please visit www.piventheatre.org.

 

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