Richard M. Parison, Jr.

Richard M. Parison, Jr. begins his third season as Producing Director of Barrington Stage Company. Before coming to the Berkshires, Richard was Associate Producing Director at the award-winning Prince Music Theater in Philadelphia, PA. There he worked with a dedicated staff of artists and administrators with oversight of production, marketing, and institutional advancement. He produced a five-show Main Stage season and a sophisticated Cabaret series including some of our industry's finest cabaret artists. For more than eight seasons, Mr. Parison was the Assistant to the Producing Artistic Director at the internationally recognized Walnut Street Theatre in Philadelphia, working with Bernard Havard.

A native of Northeast Ohio, Richard began his professional career at Great Lakes Theater Festival working for six years with Gerald Freedman, Artistic Director, and Victoria Bussert, Associate Director. He was honored by the PEW Charitable Trusts as one of Philadelphia's Next Generation Arts Leaders and was part of a regional pilot program on arts and arts leadership. He has served on several panels for Theatre Communications Group, the Greater Philadelphia Cultural Alliance, and served as a peer panelist for the City of Philadelphia Cultural Fund. Richard was a longtime member of the Board of Trustees of the Theatre Alliance of Greater Philadelphia and is an fellow of Leadership Philadelphia

Here in the Berkshires, Richard is a member of the Board of Directors of Downtown, Inc., and serves as a peer panelist for the Massachusetts Cultural Council. As a director, he is a two-time Barrymore Award nominee for Outstanding Direction of a Musical for Dreamgirls at the Prince Music Theater and The Big Bang at Act II Playhouse. Representative regional directing credits include Collected Stories, The Lake and Children for the Walnut Street Theatre; The Interview for The Cleveland Play House and Eye of the Storm at the Asolo Theatre Company. For Barrington Stage, Richard directed The Laramie Project: 10 Years Later and will direct the 2010 holiday production of A Christmas Story. A member of the Society for Stage Directors and choreographers, Richard holds a cum laude BFA from Miami University, Oxford, Ohio with an emphasis in Arts Administration and Directing.