The Pittsburgh Public Theater has announced a new team to lead the troupe when producing artistic director Ted Pappas leaves next year after 18 seasons.

It is promoting Louis A. Castelli to managing director and named Marya Sea Kaminski, the current associate artistic director at Seattle Repertory Theatre, as artistic director.

Castelli has been with the theater, based in Pittsburgh's Cultural District, for 20 years. He is in charge of marketing and the box office. Castelli has kept the organization up to date with everything from ticketing software to website design and social media.

Kaminski, who has been recognized as artist of the year by Seattle Magazine, is a director, writer, and producer who believes that theater is not only an artistic but a civic act. She co-founded the Washington Ensemble Theatre in 2004 and served as co-artistic director there for five years. She has been in her current position since 2014 where she spearheaded a collaboration with New York's Public Theater and Dallas Theatre Center to create Public Works Seattle, a major new initiative based on long-term authentic partnerships between regional theaters and local nonprofits.

“After a nationwide search, we are fortunate to have hired as our artistic director one of the most dynamic artistic leaders in the country,” board chair Michael H. Ginsburg said about Kaminski in a news release.

“Both are phenomenal choices and give us all supreme confidence that the Public's reputation for gorgeous and engaging theater, produced with fiscal integrity, will continue unabated, and that unprecedented adventures are in store,” Pappas, who will leave at the end of the 2017-18 season in August, said in the release.

Details: ppt.org

JoAnne Klimovich Harrop is a Tribune-Review staff writer. Reach her at 724-853-5062 or jharrop@tribweb.com or via Twitter @Jharrop_Trib.

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