Faculty & Staff Directory

Robin Reese, associate professor of theatre arts at Penn State Altoona, is a professional actor, director and playwright. She holds her masters of fine arts degree from the Actors Studio Drama School where she was the Teaching Fellow and received voice and acting scholarships. She is a recipient of new theatre and performance grants from the DIA Center for the Arts, the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts and the Bread and Roses Community Fund. She served as a Panelist for the PA Council on the Arts, Inter-Disciplinary. Robin is a proud member of Actors Equity Association and has appeared off-Broadway, off-off Broadway and in regional theatres, playing classical, contemporary, musical theatre and experimental roles. She has traveled the United States and Italy performing her own written performance pieces. Her company affiliations include: Executive Artistic Director of The Women's Ensemble Theatre Company in Philadelphia, Co-Founding Director of Drunken Lotus Productions and Managing Director for New Legends Productions. As a director, Robin is a recipient of Merit Awards for Distinction in Directing from The Kennedy Center/American College Theatre Festival for her Penn State Altoona productions, "The Tempest," "Medea," and "Big Love," which was also selected to be fully presented at the Region II Festival in 2009. New York City directing credits include: "Othello," "Troilus and Cressida," "Rosemary with Ginger," and the Actors Studio premiere workshop reading of her own play "The Inquisition," with Tony Award winning actress Carlyn Glynn. Robin directed Robert Auletta's adaptation of "The Persians" for New York City's Lee Strasberg Theatre and Film Institute/New York University and directed her own play "Mamma Was an Andalusian Jet Skier" at The Players Club in NYC. Robin is also a successful playwright and screenwriter. In 2008, she was named a Semi-Finalist for the prestigious O'Neill Playwright's Conference. In 2007, she was selected as one of five national playwrights to compete in The Cardboard Box Collaborative's SPEED THE MUSE competition, and her play, "Fungible," was performed at The Philadelphia Fringe Festival. Robin's one-act play, "The Inquisition," was produced at The Looking Glass Theatre in NYC. Robin has directed locally for Cresson Lake Playhouse.

Bryce Britton is a full time instructor at Penn State Altoona, teaching musical theater, acting and interdisciplinary arts. He received his master of fine arts in theatre direction from Ohio University and has worked in many professional theaters throughout the country. Some of his favorite directorial credits include Dana Lynn Formby's "The Small of Her Back," "Wonder of the World," "West Side Story," "Pippin," "Into the Woods," "Extremities," "Sleuth," "The Dumb Waiter," "Compleat Female Stage Beauty," and his MFA thesis, "The Grapes of Wrath." Recently Bryce directed "Dead Man's Cell Phone" for Shepherd University and "A Voice from the Prairie - the Life of Laura Ingalls Wilder" for Ohio Valley Summer Theater. Next up is Engelbert Humperdinck's opera "Hansel and Gretel" with Shepherd University's Music Department and "A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum" this spring at Penn State Altoona. Bryce is also an Equity Stage Manager and has worked at Contemporary American Theater Festival, Seattle Children's Theater, Village Theater and Seattle Repertory Theater.

Mr. Villani is recognized by many as one of the top audio professionals in the region. He has been recording and engineering music for almost three decades and has mixed and edited musical content alongside Grammy Award winners and nominees. He has composed and scored his own music, and has studied with Robert Moog, the legendary pioneer and inventor of the Moog Synthesizer. A recent project included editing and engineering voice tracks for the popular video game “Call of Duty” for game maker Activision. In addition to teaching audio production, he maintains and manages Data Music Services, a state-of-art audio studio and editing facility that is based in Altoona. He was one of the early adopters of non-linear digital technologies, and is recognized for his expertise in ProTools software. He has earned a Masters of Arts in Music Theory/Composition at Indiana University of Pennsylvania. He has also studied acoustics and music at Temple University, North Carolina University/Ashville, and North Texas State University. He has completed doctoral-level classwork at Boston University and hopes to fully complete his doctoral studies in the near future.

Eleanor Hart (Noel) Feeley is the Theatre and Gallery Manager at Penn State Altoona and facilitates the administration and programming for a 400-seat theatre, galleries, dance studio, scene shop and conference spaces. She serves on the Board of the Pennsylvania Rural Arts Alliance, the Altoona Community Theatre and the Southern Alleghenies Museum of Art. In the past, Noel has worked as a lighting designer, a grants program specialist for the National Endowment for the Arts, and as a theater and museum non-profit arts administrator.

Brittany Thaler, Technical Director, earned her bachelor’s degree in English from Penn State. Her previous credits for technical direction include the Altoona Junior and Senior High drama programs, Hollidaysburg Area Children’s Theatre, and Hollidaysburg Jr. Theatre; her lighting credits include Central Cambria High School, Bishop Guillfoyle High School, Great Commission Schools, Penn State Altoona, the Blair County Arts Foundation, and other assorted local productions. She also engaged in union work for the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees and sound and lighting for Freelance Audio.