Pasadena Taps New Director

Filling a job that has been vacant since 1992, stage director Sheldon Epps has been named artistic director of the Pasadena Playhouse.

Epps, who is African American, is the first nonwhite artistic director at any of Southern California’s major professional theater companies.

He comes from the Old Globe Theatre in San Diego, where he has been associate artistic director since 1994. But he has directed, as a freelancer at Pasadena, “On Borrowed Time� in 1992, “Blues in the Night� in 1995 and “Mr. Rickey Calls a Meeting� earlier this year. He also was a production consultant on the playhouse’s hit production of “Sisterella� last year.

As previously announced, Epps, 44, is slated to stage Tom Stoppard’s “The Real Thing� at Pasadena in January and John Henry Redwood’s “The Old Settler� next spring.

Epps was in transit yesterday from San Diego to Pasadena and unavailable for comment. However, playhouse executive director Lars Hansen called Epps’ appointment “a unique opportunity to add a highly distinguished and valuable theater artist to our staff. . . . Sheldon brings with him strong associations with some of the nation’s leading artistic talent. Part of his responsibilities will include developing even stronger relationships with actors, designers and playwrights.�

Nationally, Epps is probably best known for conceiving the musical revue “Blues in the Night,� which he staged on Broadway in 1982 (garnering a Tony nomination), in England (Olivier Award nomination), at the Los Angeles Theatre Center and the Old Globe--as well as in Pasadena. Last year he staged “Play On!,� a musical adaptation of “Twelfth Night� at the Old Globe, and he directed it on Broadway earlier this year.

The playhouse has been without an artistic director since Paul Lazarus resigned in 1992, although “director of creative services� Deborah G. Dixon assumed many of the duties. However, she was laid off in 1994, during the financial collapse of Theatre Corp. of America, which then ran the playhouse. Hansen has made most of the artistic decisions in recent years.

Born in Los Angeles, Epps moved with his family to Teaneck, N.J., as a teenager and attended Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh. In 1978, he co-founded the off-Broadway Production Co., where he first staged “Blues in the Night,� but he left in 1981 to work as a freelancer.

Discussing opportunities for artists of color in a 1995 article in The Times, Epps said, “You [can] talk about multiculturalism, broader programming, color-blind casting or any of those things. But finally what it’s going to take is artists of color being in those top positions. It’s happening--but very slowly.�