DETROIT (April 3, 2012) - The College of Fine, Performing and Communication Arts at Wayne State University is pleased to announce the appointment of Professor John Wolf as chairperson of Wayne State's Maggie Allesee Department of Theatre and Dance.

John Wolf is a professor of lighting design and director of production in the Department of Theatre at the University of North Carolina, Greensboro (UNCG), where his tasks include budgeting; production management; heading of the bachelor of fine arts degree in technical production, design and theatre technology; marketing and recruitment; facilities management and curriculum. While at UNCG, Wolf led major curriculum initiatives at the undergraduate and graduate level, chaired the university's Enrollment Management Committee and represented the Department of Theatre in a merger that created UNCG's School of Music, Theatre and Dance. Other duties included providing guidance on facility renovation projects, including a $12 million renovation of Brown Building and the Brown Building Theatre and a $22 million renovation of Aycock Auditorium.

"We are very pleased that Professor John Wolf joins us as chair of the Maggie Allesee Department of Theatre and Dance at Wayne State," said Matthew Seeger, dean of the College of Fine, Performing and Communication Arts. "He brings not only considerable experience in both professional and academic theatre but also the drive and commitment to take Wayne State's theatre and dance programs to even higher levels of national prominence."

Professor Wolf earned a master of fine arts degree in theatre with an emphasis in scenic and lighting design at University of Alabama, a bachelor of science degree in theatre at Lindenwood University and he interned at Juilliard School of Music. He has been at UNCG for 20 years.

Wolf serves on the City of Greensboro Performing Arts Center Task Force to study the economic impact associated with the creation of the Greensboro Performing Arts Center. He served as both administrative vice president and chair of design for the Southeastern Theatre Conference and sat on the boards of directors for the Kennedy Center/American College Theatre Festival Region IV and Stillwater Theatre in Raleigh, NC. He is resident lighting designer for Triad Stage, a regional theatre in Greensboro where he designed 35 productions in the past 11 years. His designs have been seen in New York at Lion Theatre, Center Stage, Soho Playhouse, Gene Frankel Theatre, Trinity Theatre, Symphony Space and Lincoln Center. Regionally he designed at North Carolina Shakespeare Festival, Mill Mountain Theatre, University of Florida, University of Tennessee and University of Nebraska Opera.

Wayne State University's Maggie Allesee Department of Theatre and Dance serves students as a nexus of performance, production and research in the fields of dance, theatre and performance studies. It provides a wide choice of degree programs that allow students the flexibility to study these disciplines broadly or to concentrate more specifically in performance or management. The dance program is one of the longest-running in the U.S., tracing its beginning to Ruth Lovell Murray's founding of the Dance Workshop in 1928. The theatre program is internationally recognized as a training ground for theatre professionals. The Hilberry Theatre, soon to launch its 50th season, is the nation's longest-running graduate repertory company. The two programs are accredited by the National Association of Schools of Dance and the National Association of Schools of Theatre, respectively.

Established in 1986, Wayne State's College of Fine, Performing and Communication Arts serves more than 2,500 students majoring in 16 undergraduate and 13 graduate programs through the Maggie Allesee Department of Theatre and Dance, the James Pearson Duffy Department of Art and Art History, the Department of Music and the Department of Communication. The college's size, diversity and creative energy make it a major force in the life of Wayne State and metropolitan Detroit. Wayne State University, located in the heart of Detroit's Midtown Cultural Center, is a premier urban research institution offering more than 400 academic programs through 13 schools and colleges to nearly 32,000 students.