Assistant Professor

Director of Musical TheaterRob Gretta

Office: Waller 206H
Phone: 724-357-2965
rgretta@iup.edu

Rob has worked professionally as an actor and a director for almost 30 years from Off-Broadway, national tours and several theaters throughout the country. He has worked in a variety of genres and styles including new contemporary works, classics, dramas, comedies, and musical theatre. His training includes the major theories of Stanislavsky, Uta Hagan, Lee Strasberg, and Michael Chekhov; period-style acting and directing training (Elizabethan, Restoration, Edwardian, 20th century plays and musicals). He has also taught Master classes and Workshops in Audition Techniques, Musical Theater Audition Techniques, Acting in Plays and Musicals at the Southeastern Theatre Conferences (SETC's), PA State Thespian Conference, NJ Teen Arts Festival, Kennedy Center/American College Theater Festivals, as well as several universities in Florida, Louisiana, North Carolina, and Virginia.

As a professional actor, some of his favorite roles include Man in Chair (The Drowsy Chaperone), Ali Hakim (Oklahoma), Barfee (The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee), Herr Schultz (Cabaret), Cowardly Lion (The Wizard of Oz), Nathan Detroit (Guys and Dolls), Mother Superior (Nunsense), Giles Corey (The Crucible), Don Armado (Love's Labor's Lost), Dottore Lombardi (The Servant of Two Masters), and, at IUP, Stephano (The Tempest).

Regionally, Rob has directed such productions as Closer, How I Learned to Drive, Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, Witness for the Prosecution, The Woman in Black, Othello, Jesus Christ Superstar, Man of La Mancha, Singin' in the Rain, Annie Get Your Gun, The Marvelous Wonderettes, Bat Boy, the Musical, Avenue Q, School House Rock Live, and The Sound of Music, among others, as well as noted chamber operas Il Matrimonio Segreto and Amahl and the Night Visitors.

While at IUP, Rob has directed Boeing Boeing, Into the Woods, The Pajama Game, Guys and Dolls, The 3Penny Opera, Anything Goes, and Sweet Charity, for which he received the KC/ACTF Certificate of Merit for Direction. His production of A Year with Frog and Toad was invited to perform in the Kennedy Center/American College Theater Festival Region II in 2010.

He is a proud member of Actors' Equity Association, Society of Stage Directors and Choreographers and the Musical Theatre Educator's Alliance.