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American Stage finds new leader
By JOHN FLEMING, Times Performing Arts Critic
ST. PETERSBURG -- American Stage has named Todd Olson, an actor, director and educator from Tennessee, as its next artistic director. "He brings a wonderful background of acting and directing," said Marion Ballard, president of the board of trustees. "He wants to build a balanced season of cutting-edge drama and traditional plays." Olson, 39, was associate artistic director and director of education at Tennessee Repertory Theatre in Nashville from 1999 until July. He departed after Tennessee Rep, the largest professional theater in Tennessee with a $3-million budget, consolidated its operations with the Tennessee Performing Arts Center. Olson applied for the American Stage job in July and visited the theater twice. "I always knew about American Stage," he said. "It was pretty soon I realized this could be a match. When I first visited the theater, I got a feel for their stage. It's an odd, nontraditional space, which I really liked." He was chosen from 125 candidates who applied to succeed Kenneth Mitchell, who was asked to resign by the American Stage board in October 2001. The field was narrowed to six who came to St. Petersburg for interviews with the search committee, trustees and the theater's staff. Olson doesn't think American Stage needs big artistic changes. "In some ways, the artistic vision is already in place," he said. "I appreciate and respect their mandate for bold and innovative theater. I think they just need a leader to step up to the plate and finally make that happen." Olson is highly regarded in Nashville. In a story last March about his impending exit from Tennessee Rep, Tennessean arts writer Kevin Nance wrote that "in the past couple of years, Olson has easily been Nashville's best and most consistent stage director." Nance praised Olson's "innovative, immensely satisfying, occasionally electrifying" productions of Wit, How I Learned to Drive, Dinner with Friends and The Miracle Worker. "Almost uniquely among Nashville directors, he combines meat-and-potatoes skills -- pacing scenes, getting terrific performances out of actors -- with real conceptual flair," Nance said. "He's painterly, creating memorable stage pictures and framing them to the best advantage. And his casting instincts are almost always on target." Olson also got good notices for his performance as one of the three men whose friendship falls apart over a modern painting in Art. The incoming artistic director received a bachelor of arts from Tarkio College in Missouri. He also has a master's of fine arts from the University of North Carolina and a certificate in stage directing from the Institute for Advanced Theatre Training at Harvard. Olson has directed more than 100 plays, musicals and operas. He is writing the book and lyrics for the musical American Storm: The Great Galveston Hurricane of 1900, with Grammy Award-winning composer (and former pro football player) Mike Reid. My Way, Olson's revue of songs popularized by Frank Sinatra that premiered at Tennessee Rep in 2000, will be the eighth-most produced play in the country this year, according to American Theatre magazine. American Stage, the largest professional theater in the Tampa Bay area with a budget of about $1-million, has gone through three artistic directors -- Mitchell, Jody Kielbasa and Lisa Powers -- over the last several years. All three were let go by the board. "I think the troubles had less to do with the organization and more to do with the individuals in place," Olson said. "I don't think it was so much the theater losing its artistic directors as the artistic directors losing the theater." Neil DeGroot, a St. Petersburg resident long involved with American Stage before going into TV and film, has been interim artistic director. He was instrumental in bringing The Bomb-itty of Errors to Shakespeare in the Park last spring. The hip-hop treatment of The Comedy of Errors was a hit. "Neil was a lifesaver," Ballard said. "He gave us the luxury of spending the year searching for the right director." Olson, who is married and has two young children, plans to start at American Stage on Jan. 20. Times staff writer Lennie Bennett contributed to this report.
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