A&L Productions operates primarily under the auspices of the Dean of the College of Arts and Letters.
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.
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.
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: [email protected]