Retired Pitt-Greensburg professor starts nonprofit theater group

Stephen Schrum’s goal is to direct 100 plays.

He’s at 88.

And while that wasn’t the sole reason behind his decision to form a local theater company, it certainly was a motivating factor for the Latrobe resident, who retired in 2022 after 17 years of teaching theater arts at the University of Pittsburgh at Greensburg.

“I tried to start a theater company shortly after I’d gotten my bachelor’s degree, but I didn’t have the experience at that time to do it,” said Schrum, 66. “I still feel like I have things to do — I’m retired, not dead. And part of the idea of making it a nonprofit was to get people involved in theater who don’t always have access to it.”

Schrum got together with Pitt-Greensburg alum John Paul Ritchey to form the nonprofit, StoryZ, and its digital arm, StoryZ Studios. Ritchey is a local Greensburg actor, founder and CEO of nonprofit arts group Artistic Prosperity, and a veteran of several film and Netflix production crews.

“I was a non-traditional student of Stephen’s at UPG, and as two old guys, we were the only two who got one another’s references,” said Ritchey, 55, of Latrobe. “We were looking to indulge our passion for theater, and we’d also been working with some businesses here in the area on economic development issues. Historically, art has been a resource that’s fostered economic renaissance time and time again, and the more we can do that in our community, the better.”

One of the first steps, however, is finding a venue. Despite decades of theater experience, Schrum is no longer part of a college theater department with its own dedicated venue and production framework.

“The question for us is: How do we stage small shows that can build into bigger things?” Schrum said.

Part of the answer is focusing on local creativity.

“We know that people have stories to tell,” Schrum said. “And so we want to try and do a lot of original works, find ways to get storytellers onstage.”

Ritchey agreed.

“In Westmoreland County, we have traditional theater pretty well covered,” he said. “We have a strong community theater, we have facilities at The Palace. But when it comes to utilizing art for social change? That isn’t seen too often. If you want to see a Rodgers and Hammerstein musical, we have that. But there are a lot of arts patrons who are looking for a little more meat on the bone, so to speak, and I think that’s where we’re headed.”

A couple of recent trial runs — an evening improv and a poetry night — at 512 Coffee & Ice Cream in Latrobe went well, Schrum said.

“They’re very amenable to use doing stuff there, and they also have a garden area,” he said. “I joined the chamber of commerce and we’ve been talking with some folks about potentially performing at their venues.”

Schrum said several local restaurants have suggested a murder mystery dinner.

“I started reading some of those scripts, and they were pretty horrible — so I wrote my own,” he said.

For now, Schrum and Ritchey are working to get the word out about StoryZ and looking to supplement it by continuing some form of theater education.

“Advertising and getting actors involved is always the hardest part,” Schrum said. “We’re going to have a play-writing contest in the coming year, and even though the class never seems to fill up, I keep trying to teach a play-writing class at Westmoreland County Community College.”

“I think once people get acclimated to doing new things, it’s going to go,” he said.

Ritchey said he’s excited to be working with Schrum.

“He is positively fearless, and that kind of attitude is infectious,” Ritchey said.

For more, see StoryzStudios.org.