Staff
Karla Boos
Artistic Director
Karla Boos founded Quantum Theatre in 1990 and serves as Artistic Director. The company creates adventurous productions of contemporary plays from around the world or stages updated classics in innovative performance sites all over the city, and frequently makes original work. Boos often directs or acts for the company and will open the 2009–10 season by directing Naomi Iizuka’s 36 Views outdoors on Washington's Landing.
She recently created a world premiere flamenco adaptation of The Red Shoes by Hans Christian Andersen, and just directed the American premiere of Breakfast With Mugabe by Fraser Grace. Other recent works under her leadership include the world premiere of The Collected Works of Billy the Kid by Michael Ondaatje, directed by Dan Jemmett and staged in the Garden Theatre. This production opened in June 2007 in Pittsburgh and toured to the Festival de Otoño in Madrid in November 2007.
Quantum’s work has been recently featured in American Theatre Magazine and Stage Directions Magazine, and frequently earns distinction in local publications’ year-end tallies. Boos has won awards locally, including a Pittsburgh Cultural Trust Creative Achievement Award, Pittsburgh Magazine Harry Schwalb Excellence in the Arts Award, and a University of Pittsburgh Freddy Award. She is a 2007 Women and Girls Foundation “Women in the Material World” designee and a 2007 New Hazlett Theatre honoree for “Women in the Arts: Founders, Pioneers, Instigators.”
Read about Karla in Pop City and the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review.
René Conrad
Managing Director
René Conrad has an extensive background in both for-profit and non-profit management. Her diverse experience has given her expertise in strategic planning, the development of marketing strategies, financial and budget management, and process improvement. She worked for many years in industry, while also serving as a board member and volunteer for a variety of arts organization. She turned to arts management in 2002, and has served as a marketing consultant for Chatham Baroque, a grant review panel member for the Greater Pittsburgh Arts Council’s PA Partners in the Arts program, the Business Manager of Pittsburgh Musical Theater, and the Managing Director of Gemini Children’s Theater, all in Pittsburgh. She is in her sixth season with Quantum.
Michelle Engleman
Stage Manager
Michelle Engleman is pleased to be working her second season with Quantum Theatre. She recently worked on The Miss Firecracker Contest in Missouri. Michelle has worked with Northern Stage, ECU/Loessin Summer Theatre, People’s Light & Theatre Company, Actor’s Theatre of Louisville, and Contemporary American Theatre Festival. She has also toured nationally as a Stage Manager with Chamber Theatre Productions. Michelle holds her B.A. in Theatre and B.S. in English Education from Indiana University.
Josh Storey
Administrative Associate
Josh Storey is a writer who has been involved in a variety of roles in the arts and media. He began working in arts management while studying for an MA in English literature at Kent State University, where he worked extensively with the Stan and Tom Wick Poetry Center. He is a Pittsburgh native, and where he has worked with Autumn House Press as the founder and technology editor of CoalHillReview.com. This is his second year with Quantum.
Sam Turich
Teaching Artist
Sam Turich is an actor, writer, director, and teacher who recently relocated to Pittsburgh and runs Quantum's Educational Program of residencies with high school students. Prior to his return, he spent thirteen years in New York City creating original comedy plays, films and online content.
His production company, Long Bodied Mouse, was recently selected to create an original short for the Pittsburgh Neighborhood Narratives project. He is a story editor for and featured actor in The Party, a web-based comedy, and is in the cast of the online sit-com Buttonmasherz. A short film Sam wrote and starred in, The Box, directed by David Franklin, was an official selection at the Palm Beach International Film Festival and San Francisco Independent Film Festival. While in New York, Sam made multiple appearances on Law & Order, and in television commercials. His first appearance on television was opposite Joanne Woodward and Laura Linney in the Hallmark Hall of Fame movie Blind Spot.
A professional improviser at the Gotham City Improv Theater and School, Sam created Off the Top of Our Heads, which won the 6th Big Apple Improv Festival. Other recent directing includes The Magnificent Hour at the NY International Fringe Festival, Itamar Moses’ Dorothy & Alice and the sketch comedy troupe Pressing Charges. The original stage comedy Crush the Infamous Thing: The Adventures of the Hollywood Four, which he wrote and performs with co-creators Tina Benko and Gabrielle Reznek, had its world premiere at the Coconut Grove Playhouse in Miami after workshops at the Williamstown Theatre Festival and Urban Stages in New York. Sam played the lead in Kyle Jarrow’s Armless, winner of the Best Overall Production Award at the New York International Fringe Festival. He was a writer and performer in Weekly Review, the original news-parody musical.
Pittsburgh acting credits include work at the City Theatre, Public Theatre, Open Stage and Quantum Theatre, where his performance in the role of Octavius Caesar in Antony & Cleopatra earned Sam a notice in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette as best supporting actor of the year. His last two theatrical credits were world premieres: David Turkel's Key to the Field at Bricolage and Amy Hartman's The Chicken Snake at the Pittsburgh Playhouse Rep.
