Biography
R. Michael Gros, MFA/SDC
A California native, Michael, spent his youth hanging out at the beach and playing baseball... until his high school English teacher took the class to see the seminal Peter Brook production of A Midsummer Night's Dream. While Michael still visits the beach on occasion, his dream of playing on baseball diamonds rapidly transformed to theatrical playing spaces.
Michael, a member of the professional theatre directors union (SDC), is the Artistic Director of PlayFest Santa Barbara (https://www.facebook.com/PlayFestSantaBarbara/?viewas=100000686899395), a company dedicated to the development of new plays, playwrights, and audiences. He recently retired from Santa Barbara City College and holds the rank of Professor Emeritus. He was on the Graduate faculty at Kansas State University and The University of Akron. He was an adjunct faculty member at California Institute for the Arts, California State University at Northridge, and El Camino College. He has served as an Associate Dean (Allan Hancock College), Division Dean (Ohlone College), and most recently as department Co-Chair at Santa Barbara City College.
Michael served as Artistic Director for six seasons with PCPA Theaterfest, a resident professional theatre company producing up to twelve major productions annually in three venues in two cities (Solvang and Santa Maria, CA). The resident company included up to eight professional actors and multiple designers on seasonal contracts. At PCPA he produced and/or directed 70 Equity productions including multiple world and west coast premieres as well as commissioning new works, and producing numerous regional educational outreach tours. Among the world premieres were Alfred Hitchcock's Rope, the Hip, Cool and Swinging production of The Wildest!!! based on the music of Louis Prima and Keely Smith, and commissioned adaptations and translations of Little Women and Goldoni's A Servant of Two Masters. The west coast premiere of Rebecca Gilman's Boy Gets Girl was produced at PCPA under Michael's creative leadership.
Michael is also an arts consultant in the areas of leadership, planning, production, and programming. He has served as an advisor to the Board of Directors and as interim Executive Director for the Clark Center for the Performing Arts in Arroyo Grande, CA, where he was recently invited to join the Board. Over the past 30+ years, Michael has presented numerous seminars on leadership and arts management through the United States Institute for Theatre Technology Leadership Academy. He regularly speaks on arts advocacy and arts education topics to civic, social, and professional organizations. He was an invited participant in Theatre Communication Group’s New Artistic Leaders Institute and New Works, New Ways Forum. He was a regularly invited professional participant at the Humana Festival of New American Plays at Actors theatre of Louisville. Michael was an invited participant at Scandinavia on Stage, an international convocation of producers, directors and writers, exploring trends in contemporary Scandinavian theatre. He is a former Board member of the United States Institute for Theatre Technology, and for the Association for Theatre in Higher Education where he served as a multi-year representative (Chair) for the directing focus group.
Michael has worked professionally at the Utah Shakespearean Festival, Shakespeare Santa Cruz, South Coast Repertory Theatre, and the Center Theatre Group. He has participated in the creation of plays in venues as diverse as 99-seat Equity Waiver theatre, corporate events, and religious pageants in the Crystal Cathedral.
Michael has served on statewide arts grant panels in Kansas and regional panels in California. While teaching in Akron, Ohio, he participated in the statewide Arts Advocacy Day. He was a reader for the National Endowment for the Arts playwrights-in-residence grant and for the Kennedy Center/American College Theatre Festival undergraduate playwriting award. In California, he served as an Alameda County and a City of Fremont Arts Commissioner. Michael was the marketing coordinator for the Historic Downtown Torrance Festival, helping the Chamber of Commerce double the size of the festival within two years of his service. Michael is a regular participant in numerous arts advocacy activities and arts in education programs at the local and state levels with experience in California, Kansas, and Ohio.
Michael worked closely with BOORA Architects (www.boora.com) on the $22 million Gary Soren Smith Center for the Performing Arts (http://www2.ohlone.edu/org/smith_ctr/) and design and renovation of the Ohlone Recital Hall. He also produced the grand opening celebration of the Smith Center featuring Academy Award-winning actor, Tom Hanks. Michael was directly involved in capital and operational "asks" that raised more than 1 million annually.
He served as the production manager for the South Bay Center for the Arts (presenting more than 400 events annually in three venues ranging from a 148 seat recital hall to a 2,000 seat auditorium) and was the resident technical director for the Department of Theatre and Dance.
In 2005, Michael was one of 48 persons selected worldwide to receive a residency fellowship in non-profit arts leadership at Stanford University's Graduate School of Business Center for Social Innovation. This "by invitation only" program was presented in partnership with National Arts Strategies. He earned his MFA in directing from the University of California at Irvine, studying with Robert Cohen, Keith Fowler, Ian Bernard, William Needles (Stratford Shakespeare Festival) and Brewster Mason (Royal Shakespeare Company) among others. He earned his BA in theatre, Magna Cum Laude, at the University of California Los Angeles. He studied with Mel Helstein, Michael Gordon (Group Theatre), Gary Gardner, Richard Rose, and Carl Mueller among others. He earned an AA degree from El Camino College where he studied with Howard Banks (Colorado Shakespeare Festival), William Buck, and Charles Turner.
Michael served as Management Commissioner and Southern California Section Chair for the United States Institute for Theatre Technology (USITT). In addition to ATHE and USITT, he has been a member of Theatre Communications Group, California Presenters, Association of Arts Administration Educators, Western Alliance of Arts Administrators, Association of Performing Arts Presenters and the Association of California Community College Administrators.