Quantum Theatre, the acclaimed Pittsburgh-based company known for mounting site-specific dramas at unexpected locations throughout the region, has chosen accomplished director and educator Katie Brook as its new Artistic Director.
Katie Brook Succeeds Longtime Artistic Director Karla Boos at Quantum Theatre
When Quantum Theatre announced that founder and longtime artistic director Karla Boos would be stepping down, the company launched an international search for her successor. In the end, they found their choice — in rehearsals for Quantum’s next show.
Katie Brook, a Toronto native who earned an MFA at Carnegie Mellon University, will be Quantum’s next artistic director. The announcement arrives as Brook is actively working with the company; she’s been tapped to direct the play radio island, a world premiere set to open Oct. 23. It’s not her first time in the director’s chair for Quantum; she previously directed the company’s 2022 production of The Cherry Orchard, staged outdoors at the Roundhouse in Hazelwood. Boos herself starred in that production.
“She’s an amazing artist, as she would have to be to have bested great and gratifying competition for the job,” Boos said in a statement. “And she really wants to run a theater of our size and character, where we’ve so consciously traded things commonly valued for innovation and freedom.”
Brook Brings National (and Classroom) Experience to Quantum
Brook, who also earned a BFA in Theatre from Tisch School for the Arts, has directed and produced extensively in New York, with a focus on original and devised productions. She worked closely with playwrights and artists including Liza Birkenmeier, Cristobal Cea and Lyndsey Bourne in bringing original, largely experimental work to stages in and around Manhattan.
She’s also an accomplished educator, with a current role in the Department of Theatre at Tufts University and previous experience teaching at MIT’s Department of Theatre and Dance and CMU’s School of Drama.
“For me, being an Artistic Director means setting a vision and creating the conditions for great artists to do their best work,” Brook said in a statement. “I want to build creative teams, support bold projects, and develop work that keeps Quantum relevant and essential to Pittsburgh and beyond.”
The World Premiere radio island Debuts in October, with Brook at the Helm
radio island, a new work from Brook’s former collaborator (and fellow CMU alum) Birkenmeier, will debut next month at Rockwell Park in Point Breeze. The show, about a hostage negotiator returning to her remote childhood home, will be staged in a modular space in Rockwell Park — the kind of resonant, found space Quantum is known for.
That production follows a well-received and almost entirely sold-out run of The Tempest, presented as Boos’ swan song with the company (though she remains the Artistic Director for radio island, as her official departure is set for December).
Before Brook’s selection, Boos spoke with TABLE Magazine about the key elements that would mean success for her successor.
“There will be a new artistic director, and a future that is different from the past for Quantum,” Boos said earlier this year. “It’s labor and magic — a little magic, for sure.”
Tickets for radio island are on sale now.
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About the Author
Sean Collier is the editor-in-chief of Shady Ave and the arts and culture editor of TABLE Magazine. Before joining the TABLE Media team, he spent nearly 15 years as a writer, editor and columnist at Pittsburgh Magazine. As the in-house film critic for the top-rated WDVE Morning Show since 2009, he’s been Pittsburgh’s most widely heard voice on movies for nearly two decades. A Pittsburgh native, Sean has since 2020 appeared weekly on KDKA-TV’s popular Pittsburgh Today Live talk show. He’s the co-founder of Vigilance Theater Group and an active stand-up comedian and event host. He can be found on Instagram and Twitter at @seancollierpgh.
Photo by Nile Scott
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