Seven new faculty join PCA&D for Spring 2025

Pennsylvania College of Art & Design is pleased to welcome seven new faculty members to the College for Spring 2025: 

Brittany Bland

Brittany Bland – Live Experience Design & Production: Brittany Bland (she/her/they) is a passionate storyteller dedicated to fostering empathy through her work as a projection designer for the stage. She has an extensive portfolio that includes designs for theater, dance, immersive media, concerts, and opera. Her notable recent credits include “Cats: The Jellicle Ball”, “Becoming A Man” at A.R.T., “Westerly Breath” at the MET Museum, “Amani” at Rattlestick Theater, “A Raisin in the Sun” at the Public Theater, and “Goddess” at Berkeley Repertory Theatre. Brittany holds an M.F.A. from the Yale School of Drama and is a proud recipient of the 1/52 Project grant, which supports emerging theater artists.

Chris Gash – Illustration: Chris Gash is a conceptual illustrator working for editorial, book, corporate, and advertising clients since 2000. His work has been recognized by the Society of Illustrators, Communication Arts, American Illustration, 3×3, Creative Quarterly, and others. Chris was a founding faculty member of the Illustration and Animation program at Montclair State University for 10 years and one of his syllabi was included in Steve Heller and Marshall Arisman’s book Teaching Illustration. Chris

Chris Gash

joined the faculty at the University of the Arts as an Adjunct Associate Professor in August 2023 and currently teaches at FIT in New York City.

A partial client list includes The New Yorker, MasterCard, The New York Times, United Nations, The Wall Street Journal, Time, The Atlantic, Newsweek, Scientific American, Politico, Forbes, The Washington Post, ESPN, Entertainment Weekly, The Boston Globe, Fortune, Rolling Stone, Southwest Airlines, Harvard University, Barnes & Noble, Nickelodeon, Energizer, Wells Fargo, the BBC, Pentagram and many others. Chris is represented by Richard Solomon Artists in NYC.

Ryan Gibbs – Live Experience Design & Production: A director, producer, and stage manager, Ryan Gibbs has a 20-plus-year theatrical career, from being in school plays to working on Broadway shows and almost every step in between. Broadway and National Tour credits include: Rent, Wicked, Avenue Q, Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, The Drowsy Chaperone, School of Rock, Chicago: The Musical, and Mary Poppins (to name a few).He was Production Supervisor for the Austrian and Japanese companies of Mary Poppins.  He was Assistant Director on the 20th Anniversary Tour of RENT.  Gibbs has worked directly “in the room” for such creatives and producers

Ryan Gibbs

as The Disney Theatrical Group, Jason Moore, Casey Nicholaw, John Tiffany, Cameron Mackintosh, and Andrew Lloyd Webber. Locally, Gibbs has worked for the Fulton Theater, The Dutch Apple Dinner Theatre, Franklin & Marshall College, Sight & Sound Theatres, Totem Pole Playhouse, and many others.  Outside of theater, Gibbs has worked on the Rock Lititz campus as a Program Manager for Atomic Design. Gibbs currently serves as the Producing Artistic Director of the Totem Pole Playhouse. Gibbs served as the Artistic Director of the Allenberry Playhouse for three seasons and was a founding member of the Lancaster-based theater company The Reverie Acting Company. For four years Gibbs was a Producer for Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS where he produced work for such Broadway legends as Jerry Mitchell, Chita Rivera, and Bernadette Peters. Gibbs is a graduate of Kennard Dale High School and Marywood University. Along with his wife, Gibbs runs a nostalgia retail experience called Retrosplat! and a theater coaching and consulting company called Gibbsology. Ryan is currently working as the Producing Artistic Director of the Totem Pole Playhouse in Caledonia State Park. He lives in Lancaster with his wife (Amy) his sons (Anderson and Benjamin), and his cat (Gumbo). Learn more about  Gibbs from his website: gibbsology.com

Dave Lester

Dave Lester – Live Experience Design & Production: Dave Lester has been in the live event industry as an audio engineer for 36-plus years, over 28 of which have been with ShowCo and CLAIR Global. He has spent many years as a System Engineer/Audio Engineer controlling concert sound systems. He has been the FOH mixer for artists such as P!NK, John Fogerty, Wallflowers, and Blondie, to name a few. He also has been the monitor engineer for artists such as Alanis Morissette, Boston, Judas Priest, White Zombie, and many others. He has spent the last 22 years as the Director of Education and Safety at CLAIR Global. There, he has created a curriculum for an intensive 12- to 14-week education process for new and existing road staff on proprietary technologies, new technologies, company protocols, culture, performance, and safety processes. He has consulted with colleges and universities in the development of curricula for their programs. Lester also has taught at Millersville University for several years, helping to create pathways and opportunities for students from Millersville and the local community. He is one of the founding members of the Event Safety Alliance, an organization that promotes life safety and helps create and set safety standards for the live event industry. 

Anthony Rudderow

Anthony Rudderow – Liberal Arts: Anthony Rudderow is an artist and museum professional focused on supporting the impact not-for-profits have in their community. Rudderow’s artistic work reflects his avid enthusiasm for art, history, the great outdoors, and antique tools and machinery. He proudly holds a BFA in Illustration from the Pennsylvania College of Art & Design and has earned a Master of Science in Arts Administration and Museum Leadership from Drexel University. In his downtime, Rudderow can be found puttering around antique malls, learning how to fix things in his 90-year-old house, and spoiling his cats. 

Jonathan Marshall Smith

Jonathan Marshall Smith – Illustration: Jonathan Smith is a Baltimore-based artist and writer working in illustration and alternative comics. He specializes in editorial portraiture, posters, tabletop game art and design, and small press publications. His work is read all over the world and he exhibits internationally and across the U.S. Smith began his career in fine arts and he brings a focus on authorial thinking, and initiative to his classes where he tries to foster independence, confidence, and clear-thinking in his students. Smith earned his BFA in Painting, Drawing, and Printmaking from Towson University, and an MFA in Illustration and Visual Culture from Washington University in St. Louis. He wants students to be using their sketchbooks. Learn more at jmarshallsmith.com. 

Rebecca Winters

Rebecca Winters – Liberal Arts: Rebecca Winters lives and works in Connecticut. She earned her BFA in Fine Art from Pennsylvania College of Art & Design in 2015, and an MA in Clinical Counseling Psychology from Naropa University in 2018. She has been a mental health therapist for seven years, a tattoo artist for two, and continues to create independent artwork.