Fine Arts Names New Director of School of Comparative Arts

Editors, Reporters: A photo of William Condee is available for download at www.ohiou.edu/news/pix/condee_bill.jpg

Contact: Jess Goode, (740) 593-1886 or goode@ohio.edu

ATHENS, Ohio (March 9, 2001) -- Ohio University's College of Fine Arts has named William F. Condee Director of the School of Comparative Arts, effective July 1, 2001.

Condee came to Ohio University in 1986 as Head of the Theater Arts and Drama Program and Director of Studies for the Honors Tutorial Program in Theater.

Over the years, he has served as Interim Director of the School of Theater, Head of the Theater History and Criticism Program (M.A.), and Associate Director of the School of Theater. He will remain as Director of the Honors program. Condee is the first recipient of the Outstanding Senior Teacher Award from the Ohio University College of Fine Arts.

In the professional theater, he was dramaturge for "A Touch of the Poet," with Vanessa Redgrave and Timothy Dalton. He has also worked as a research assistant for Theater Projects, a London architectural consulting firm. In addition, he appears annually on Broadway as a clown in the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade.

Condee is the author of "Theatrical Space: A Guide for Directors and Designers" (Scarecrow Press, 1995), "Coal and Culture: The Opera House in Appalachia" (Ohio University Press, forthcoming), "Architecture for the Twentieth Century: Imagining the Theater in the 1920s" and "Art, Glitter and Glitz: The Theater of the 1920s Celebrates American Diversity" (Greenwood, forthcoming).

His articles on theater space have appeared in the Journal of American Drama & Theater, Architectural Review, World Architecture, Journal of American Culture, Scenography International, Theater Design and Technology, Themes in Drama and McNeese Review. Articles on other subjects have appeared in Theater Annual, Western European Stages and The Eugene O'Neill Review.

Condee received his Ph.D. from Columbia University and his A.B. and M.A. degrees from Vassar College, where he was elected to Phi Beta Kappa. He has taught at the University of Leipzig, University of Wales and Vassar College, and will serve as Director of the Ohio-Leipzig European Center in Spring 2001.