By BRENT MARTIN
St. Joseph Post
St. Joseph’s new executive director of the Performing Arts Association is eager to get started.
Paul Storiale comes to St. Joseph after stints in Los Angeles, Wyoming, and Alabama. Storiale says he checked out St. Joseph before interviewing with Performing Arts Association board members.
“We met at a coffee shop and we sat there and I just felt like these are my people, this is where I belong, I hope they like me,” Storiale tells host Barry Birr on the KFEQ Hotline. “A few days later, maybe a week-and-a-half later, they made me an offer.”
Storiale has been shadowing Executive Director Beth Sharp. Sharp retires at the end of June after 19 years in the position.
Storiale comes to St. Joseph with quite a background. He produced and directed plays in Chicago and Los Angeles. It was on the way to LA that Storiale stopped at Littleton, Colorado and interviewed survivors of the 1999 Columbine High School shooting. That stop and those interviews led Storiale to write and produce the award winning docu-drama “The Columbine Project.”
Storiale has served as Performing Arts Manager at the Heritage Center Theatre in Gillette, Wyoming and Assistant General Manager of the Montgomery Performing Arts Center in Alabama.
Storiale says the opening in St. Joseph had a strong attraction for him.
“I think it’s the opportunities, the opportunities both within the arts arena and the ‘living life to your fullest.’”
Not just through the job, but personally. Storiale says he’s tired of living in apartments and appreciates that he can own a house in St. Joseph.
Storiale says St. Joseph has something special in the Missouri Theater.
“I was warned that a lot of people here don’t know what they have. And I hope that they do. I don’t know if that’s true,” Storiale says. “But I know that the people that I’ve talked to are very proud of it. And I’ve talked to people who aren’t interested in theater and they know the Missouri Theater and they are very proud of it, but maybe they’ve never been in it.”
Storiale begins his new duties July 1st.
You can follow Brent on X @GBrentKFEQ and St. Joseph Post @StJosephPost.