William J. Byrnes

Professional Information

Dean of the College of Performing and Visual Arts and Professor of Theatre Arts

William Byrnes brings an extensive background in teaching and leadership in the arts to his capacity as Dean of the College of Performing and Visual Arts at Southern Utah University (SUU).  Dean Byrnes works with a talented and dedicated faculty and staff of 50 and over 500 majors in the departments of Art and Design, Music, Theater Arts and Dance, and the MFA Arts Administration to develop, promote, and strengthen the College and its programs.  In addition, he has oversight of the Braithwaite Fine Arts Gallery, the American Folk Ballet, and works with the Tony Award-winning Utah Shakespearean Festival.  He also serves as a member of the Board of Governors of the Festival.

Since coming to SUU Dean Byrnes has worked with the faculty and staff to strengthen the curriculum, pursue accrediting for all the arts departments, improve the visibility of the arts on the SUU campus and in the community, and to enhance the budgetary and facility resources of the College.  For more details of the planning initiatives of the College of Performing and Visual Arts, please review CPVA Strategic Plan and Dean’s Goals.  Annual reports of the accomplishments of the faculty, staff, students, and alumni of the College are available at CPVA 2005-06 Annual Report and 2004-05 Annual Report.  Dean Byrnes has also worked closely with the administration of USF in supporting the continual development of the Festival’s operations and its planning.

Dean Byrnes is active in the classroom through his teaching in the MFA Arts Administration Program.  He teaches graduate seminars in board relations, fundraising and grant writing, economics and financial management, and leadership and organizational development.  His textbook, Management and the Arts, now in its third edition, is widely used in arts and culture management courses throughout the world (including SUU).  The translation of the second edition into Chinese was published in 2004.

Before coming to SUU Dean Byrnes served as a Professor and Associate Dean of Florida State University's School of Theatre for 10 years.  He also served as Director of the MFA Theatre Management program while at FSU.  He oversaw the reorganization of an extensive production program, directly supervised the design and production faculty and administrative staff, and was responsible for supervising the overall marketing for the School's production season.  He taught a series of six graduate seminars in arts administration in support of the Theatre Management MFA and other arts administration degree programs on the FSU campus.  He also served on the planning committee for the regional arts festival, “Tallahassee: Seven Days of Opening Nights” and was a member of the Board of Directors of the Southern Shakespeare Festival.

Prior to his service at Florida State, he worked for 22 years at Oberlin College, in Oberlin Ohio, home of a highly regarded liberal arts college and outstanding Conservatory of Music.  He started as a Lecturer and left there as a Professor of Theatre.  He was technical director, production director, and director of the theatre and dance program, and production manager for the Oberlin Opera Theatre.  He taught numerous courses in design and production at Oberlin including an interdisciplinary course in arts administration.  That course was the impetus in 1992 for his writing his text, Management and the Arts.  

During his tenure at Oberlin, he maintained a busy schedule as a lighting designer and production manager.  Dean Byrnes has created the lighting designs for over 80 college and 25 free-lance productions.  His work has included lighting designs for over 18 productions for the Cleveland Opera Company as well as designs for Toledo Opera, Dayton Opera, Kentucky Opera, and the Porthouse Summer Theatre in Kent, Ohio.  He was twice recognized with the Peggy S. Ezekiel Award for Outstanding Achievement in Lighting Design while in Ohio.

Dean Byrnes maintains a strong international presence with his service on the Advisory Board of the Institute for Languages and Economics (ISW), an international culture management training school located in Freiberg, Germany ( http://www.isw-freiburg.de ). He regularly lectures at ISW and was a guest speaker at a German statewide conference in 2004 entitled, “Mozart, Marketing, and Money.”  In June 2003, he presented a short paper on “Culture Management Training in Five Years” at the International Conference on Culture Management and Education, in Turino, Italy.  In January 2007, he presented lectures about current trends in arts administration training programs hosted by the Institute for Theatre Research at Waseda University in Tokyo, Japan.

He was the President of the U.S. Institute for Theatre Technology (USITT) in 2000-02. USITT is a 3600-plus international membership association of professionals in design, production, and technology in the performing arts.  He is a Fellow of the Institute and was given the prestigious Founders Award in 1996 for his continued service to USITT and the theatre profession.  He served as a board member and Vice President in USITT for more than 15 years.  He currently chairs the 21st Century Task Force, serves on the Finance Committee, is a member of the Management Commission, and frequently presents at the USITT annual conference. 

In December 2001, Byrnes was inducted into the National Theatre Conference (NTC), an honorary society of theatre professionals and distinguished educators.  He also maintains active memberships in the Association for Theatre in Higher Education (ATHE), the Association of Arts Administration Educators (AAAE), the International Council of Fine Arts Deans (ICFAD), and in the Council for Advancement and Support in Education (CASE).  Dean Byrnes also serves as a Director on the ESTA Foundation Board.  The ESTA Foundation is a non-profit, tax-exempt organization established in 2005 to create and support educational and charitable programs for the entertainment technology industry.

He holds a Bachelors degree from the University of New Mexico and an M.F.A. from UCLA.  He was born and raised in Buffalo, NY.  He and his wife Christine, who hales from Toledo, Ohio, live in the Cross Hollow Hills area of Cedar City.  Their children Alison, Emily, and Matt live and work in Ohio.