PITTSBURGH — Carnegie Mellon University’s School of Drama has been leaderless for more than a year and a half. Now we finally know who will be stepping up to fill that void.
The university announced Monday that Robert Ramirez will become the new head of the CMU School of Drama effective Aug. 1. He replaces Peter Cooke, who stepped down in September 2020 after 11 years “to resume his practice as a designer and consultant, and to continue teaching in international arts academies,” according to a September 2020 note from Dan Martin, then-dean of CMU’s College of Fine Arts.
Ramirez comes to Carnegie Mellon from the University of Texas at Austin. He started there in 2014 as an associate professor and the head of the school’s acting program. The Department of Theatre and Dance tapped him to serve as its interim chair in summer 2019 and as department chair in spring 2020.
“I’ve admired Robert’s leadership for years and could not be more delighted that he will be joining us at CMU,” Mary Ellen Poole, dean of CMU’s College of Fine Arts, said in a statement. “I’m absolutely convinced that he is the right person to take the School of Drama forward, in community and in this exact moment.”
He is a graduate of the Los Angeles Theatre Academy and has a master’s degree from the University of Delaware’s Professional Theatre Training Program. Before joining the world of arts academia, Ramirez dabbled in voice-acting, directing, acting and working with fellow aspiring creatives as a voice, text and acting coach.
Prior to his time at UT Austin, Ramirez worked as an adjunct professor of voice and speech for the stage at both Marymount Manhattan College and the American Musical and Dramatic Academy in New York City. He also had a stint as an associate professor of acting, voice, speech and dialects at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
CMU’s School of Drama was founded in 1914 and holds the distinction of being the first dramatic institution in the U.S. to offer a degree-granting program. Its alumni have earned a combined 52 Tony Awards, 13 Academy Awards and almost 150 Emmy Awards, according to a CMU press release.
“I am, indeed, honored to join the School of Drama at Carnegie Mellon,” Ramirez said in a statement. “This is an opportunity to build upon the solid reputation and foundation that exist here among every discipline that contributes to the theater-making process and performance industry. "
