A&L Production and Technical Services is primarily under the auspices of the College Dean, Dr. Peter McAllister.
Rico Garcia
Audio Engineer and Audio Systems Technician
Rico has a BA in Ethnomusicology Jazz Studies from UCLA and Certificates in Audio Engineering and Post Production from The Musicians Institute. Before coming to Cal State LA, Rico had worked for the Getty Museum as an audio technician, for LA Opera Community Outreach Programs and Center Theater Group as a touring Audio Engineer. Rico owns and operates his own boutique recording studio and has recorded many local up and coming rock bands. His responsibilities at Cal State LA include technical maintenance of all audio systems, sound design for stage productions, and live mixing/recording of concerts and recitals.
Meredith Greenburg
Faculty / Production Manager
Meredith J. Greenburg is a Professor in the Department of Music, Theatre and Dance, teaching Stage Management, Stage Operations, Production Support and Analysis of Drama and Theatre. Meredith has been the Production Manager for the Department since she arrived at CSULA in 2001. Meredith’s stage management students can be found all over the country working professionally in Theatre, Dance and Opera.
Meredith is currently the coordinator for the Next Step Auditions for the Kennedy Center/American College Theatre Festival’s Region 8 Festival, to be held in Los Angeles in 2013. She is a Professional Mentor through the Stage Management Mentoring Project for the United States Institute for Theatre Technology and will be traveling again to the Conference in Milwaukee in March of 2013.
A professional Stage Manager for over 25 years, Meredith works extensively in both Theatre and Opera. She is a member of both Actors’ Equity Association (since 1993) and the American Guild of Musical Artists (since 1999), and has sat on committees and negotiating teams for both unions for over 10 years.
Currently, Meredith is part of the Stage Management team for The Two Foscari at the LA Opera. Since 1999, Meredith has been a regular on the staff at the opera, working on over 20 productions including the US premiere of David Cronenberg’s The Fly, Eugene Onegin, Don Carlo, Achim Freyer’s Damnation of Faust, and Peter Grimes. She has had the opportunity to work with so many wonderful and gifted directors and artists, including Placido Domingo, James Conlon, Ian Judge, Stephen Wadsworth, Achim Freyer, Gary Marshall, Kent Nagano and Francesca Zambello.
Meredith has been the Production Stage Manager for the Hollywood Bowl’s fully staged Broadway Musicals held every summer since 2006. For the LA Phil at the Bowl, she has managed Sunset Blvd. (a staged reading of the film), The Sound of Music, South Pacific, Bernstein’s Mass, Guys and Dolls, Rent, Hairspray and most recently, Susan Strohman’s production of The Producers. Favorite other theatre credits include: Baz Lurmahnn’s La Boheme at the Ahmanson, Deaf West/Mark Taper Forum’s Big River, the 1st National tour of Caroline or Change at the Ahmanson (sub), When Pigs Fly, The Last Night of Ballyhoo (with Rhea Perlman and Harriet Harris), Always, Patsy Cline, The Mystery of Irma Vep, Masada, The Musical, and for two years – from the Tiffany Theatre in Hollywood, to the Canon in Beverly Hills to the Promenade in New York - Bermuda Avenue Triangle (with Bea Arthur, Nanette Fabray, Renee Taylor and Joe Bologna).
Meredith has also managed productions for the LA Philharmonic at Walt Disney Concert Hall, Center Theatre Group at all of their venues, and the Spotlight Awards for the Music Center of Los Angeles County.
For the last four years, Meredith has had the honor of directing the Vocal fellows in Marilyn Horne’s program at the Music Academy of the West in Santa Barbara for their Gala Cabaret production. She also produces the event surrounding the Cabaret show along with Tim Jones and in collaboration with Ms. Horne, Jerry Sternbach and the staff of the Academy.
Meredith produces and manages special events for clients that have included: The Rick Weiss Humanitarian Awards, Paramount Pictures, S.T.A.G.E., Desert AIDS Project, BCEFA, The Actors’ Fund, The Spa Resort Hotel and Casino, The Palm Springs Film Festival, and the American Heart Association.
In 2011, Meredith was invited to be a member of the National Theatre Conference, “a theatrical ‘think-tank’ that meets annually to review and confer on matters pertaining to the welfare and development of the theatre.”
Tim Jones
Light Shop Technician
Tim Jones has worked at CSULA for ten years, principally providing audio and lighting support for the Department of Theatre Arts and Dance. His responsibilities now include music performance venues and focus primarily on lighting and effects support for all of our facilities. His accomplishments at CSULA include major lighting upgrades and installations on the State Playhouse and Arena stages, as well as spearheading the SpiralLift orchestra pit lift installation in 2007. Professionally, beyond CSULA, Tim provides lighting, audio and event support through his production support company.
Anne E McMills
Faculty / Faculty Technology Director
Professor Anne E. McMills teaches lighting design at CalState LA. Anne obtained her MFA in lighting design from Mason Gross School of the Arts, Rutgers University, New Jersey in 2002 and her BFA from Millikin University, Decatur, IL. Before coming to CalState LA, Anne worked extensively on Broadway as an associate lighting and projections designer.
Elizabeth Pietrzak
Technical Director and Shops Supervisor
As a poet and theatre artist, Elizabeth Pietrzak has been designing, building, technical directing, and storytelling through live theatre for more than 25 years. She has worked throughout Southern California with colleges and universities, churches, theme parks, local and community theatres, and spent two summers on the east coast doing summer stock theatre in New Hampshire, most notably designing and building 8 shows in 9 weeks for the oldest running summer stock theatre in the United States, the Barnstormers Theatre.
Prior to coming to CSULA, she was the Theatre Manager and Technical Director for 17 years at the University of La Verne in their Department of Theatre Arts. While there, she also taught classes in stagecraft, scenic and lighting design, desktop publishing, creative writing, and performance art. Elizabeth earned her BA in Theatre Arts from the University of La Verne and her MFA in Creative Writing, Poetry from Antioch University, Los Angeles.
Elizabeth continues to write poetry and has been published in a variety of online journals. She is fascinated by the intersection between science and poetry, the exploration of liminal spaces through performance, the fragmented and de-centered self, and the dialogic nature of identity. “I am intensely interested in poetry and writing that is multi-voiced, multi-languaged, and that presents a mutable, fluid identity.”
Elizabeth also writes scripts and monologues for collaborative work with solo performance artists.
She approaches her lighting design work as storytelling and calls it “writing with light.”
She has studied Irish Gaelic and dabbles on the accordion.
She gardens when she can, but mostly lets the plants run wild.
Bruce Zwinge
Costume Shop Supervisor
After attaining a B.A. from CSU Fresno and a Certificate of Fashion Design from The Fashion Institute of Design and Merchandising (FIDM), Bruce Zwinge has worked in the field of costume and fashion design for more than 25 years.
Early years spent as a production patternmaker in the garment industry led to extensive costume work in commercials, film, television, music videos, concert tours, stage, and print advertising. Experience working with top designers Theoni V. Aldredge, Bill Whitten, Melissa Daniels, and Pamela Shaw (past president of The Costumer’s Guild) has provided Bruce with opportunities to work with recording artists Prince and David Lee Roth, and entertainment industry work in films such as The Hidden, Slam Dance and television shows like Grace Under Fire.
His current position is as Costume Shop Supervisor at California State University Los Angeles—his artistic and occupational home for the past 24 years. Bruce nevertheless finds time to serve as freelance patternmaker, stitcher and designer for industry client Advanced Entertainment Technology, providing him subcontract work for Universal Studios, Universal Studios Florida, The Walt Disney Company, and Disneyland Tokyo and Paris.
He is very proud of the long standing working relationships he has with many other local colleges and universities and has been a member of the Cerritos College costume technician certificate advisory board for the past four years.
In a long and distinguished career, Bruce considers his most personally and professionally rewarding times to have been those spent at CSULA working with students, designers, and the CSULA campus community.
A&L PRODUCTIONS
CALIFORNIA STATE UNIVERSITY, LOS ANGELES
5151 State University Drive, Los Angeles, CA 90032
Office: Theatre Arts Building, TA-110
Phone: 323-343-4133 Fax: 323-343-5565
Email: pts@cslanet.calstatela.edu