OUR TEAM

Artistic Team

Molly Rice

Artistic Director/Lead Playwright, Co-Founder.

  • I am a native-Texan, Gen-X cis white woman with a terminal degree from an Ivy League university, no children and a lifelong disability that has shaped my perspective in a million rich ways. Although I grew up influenced by Texan and Tex-Mex culture and speak Spanish, my forebears are from the Pennsylvania-Ohio area and, further back, Germania, Sweden, Denmark, Poland and Belarus.

    I have always had a musical ability and been enthralled by the complexities of human language. I’ve been writing plays for over 20 years, songs since I was 10 (when I was 19, one of them made the top-100 charts–in Alaska!), and my creative work has been developed, published and produced across the country (more below.)

    I currently use she/her pronouns.

  • My plays have been produced and developed by small experimental companies, off-Broadway houses, and regional theaters; in black box studios, the alleys of Greenwich Village, Salvation Army cafeterias, the World Trade Center, various graveyards, a crumbling Slavic dance hall, midtown cabarets and an East Coast 18th-century mansion.

    My words have been published by American Theater Magazine, The Dramatist, Kenyon Review, Play: A Journal, Indie Theater Now, Clarkson Potter Press, and Heinemann Press, and my projects have been covered by local and national publications including American Theater, the New York Times and the New Yorker.

    Honors include Brown University’s Weston Prize for Playwriting, winner of the Women’s International Theater Festival, Princess Grace Award (finalist), PONY Award (finalist), O’Neill National Playwrights Conference (2-time finalist), nominations for the New York Innovative Theater Awards, the Kesselring Fellowship, the Pittsburgh Mayor’s Award for Public Art, and Global Pittsburgh’s Organizational Diversity Champion award.

    I was a resident artist in New Work Initiatives at Montclair and Pace Universities with collaborators Rachel Chavkin (2019 Tony winner, Hadestown) and Orion Johnstone, and have enjoyed other residencies at Yale/ P73, the Orchard Project, Tofte Lake, Bard College, and the Missoula Colony, among others.

    Projects beyond RealTime include Futurity: A Musical by the Lisps (book co-writer, additional text and story) at ART (Cambridge, 2012) and Soho Rep/Ars Nova (Lucille Lortel Award for Best New Musical, 2016) and THE SAINTS TOUR, a site-specific traveling play that has appeared in neighborhoods across the country since 2009.

    I’ve taught at Brown, Montclair, Pace, Marymount Manhattan, Kenyon College and CMU School of Drama; since 2014 I’ve been on the faculty of the Point Park Writing for Screen and Stage MFA program. My MFA is from Brown University, under Paula Vogel.

Rusty Thelin

Artistic/Executive Director, Co-Founder.

  • I am a Buddhist Viking (meaning as Norse as can be genetically but with Eastern spiritual influences), born and raised in a military family in California by conservatively progressive parents from New England. I spent over a decade each living in Savannah, GA, and New York City before settling in Pittsburgh, PA.

    I have been practicing my stagecraft continuously from a very early age; I also grew up immersed in comic books, games, and escapist fiction and consider myself an expert on all things related to Star Wars and Middle-Earth. I use the he/him/his set of pronouns.

  • I am a graduate of NYU/Playwrights Horizons Theatre School.

    I have worked as a producer, director and in other roles with NYC companies 13P, Clubbed Thumb, Soho Rep, the New Ohio Theater, The Brick and New Georges, among others.

    I graduated from the Commercial Theater Institute and produced the indie musicals ERNEST SHACKELTON LOVES ME by The GrooveLilys; FUTURITY by The Lisps (A.R.T.); STRUCK by Rebecca Hart; SOMETIMES IN PRAGUE by Orion Johstone & Joshua William Gelb; and Molly Rice’s CANARY (NYTW), directed by Tony Award winner Rachel Chavkin.

    As a director, I have developed and directed new plays by Lucy Thurber, Maura Campbell, Justin Maxwell, and Molly Rice as well as classics like DEATH OF A SALESMAN, ROSENCRANTZ AND GUILDENSTERN ARE DEAD, and HAMLET.

    I have appeared on stage as a number of Shakespearian characters, including Petrucchio in THE TAMING OF THE SHREW, Caliban & the villainous Antonio in THE TEMPEST, and the good Antonio in TWELFTH NIGHT; I was nominated for an Irene Adler Award for originating the role of Jess in PAPER CUP OCEAN.

    I spent 3 years as the Theater Specialist for the City of Savannah, directing and production-managing numerous shows and teaching in the education department. I went on to serve as the Associate Artistic Director for the Savannah Shakespeare Festival, and to teach Theater at Savannah’s Arts High School.

Meet the Board

  • IT Product Manager, PNC Bank

    Lani is a Filipina, an immigrant, a mother of 4. She calls herself an advocate for inclusion in tech, with an over 25-year career in IT. Technology is power, and she aims for equity in the distribution of this power. She is a dreamer, and dreams that someday we are all color-blind, that we all have compassion and kindness for all. She has fears of losing control, being taken advantage of, and fears of showing vulnerability. She gets bored or restless if forced to slow down for too long. She makes great strides mentally when she can exchange ideas, theories, or concepts with people. She fills her time with reading; she thirsts for knowledge; and she intents on being a lifelong learner. She loves to travel and learn about other cultures. She loves the art - art through music, visual expressions, movements and interactions. The things that kill or sap her energy the most are people’s limiting beliefs, dealing with unnecessary blockers, power trips, and closed-minded people. The type of work or environment that helps her thrive and deliver her very best is working on social justice; and when making a positive impact on humanity and the world.

  • I am a lifelong Pittsburgh-area resident who grew up in the Mon Valley on the same street as 8 other family members, including two cousins, an aunt, and my grandmother. I am a first-generation college student and a transactional lawyer. I’m also an outdoors enthusiast who likes to spend my free time hiking, making travel plans, and spending time with my friends and my two cats, Peter and Olive. After my first experience on a plane (in college, to study abroad in France), I developed a deep passion for travel and learning about other cultures, and I will take any opportunity to go somewhere that I have never been. Practicing mindfulness is an important part of my life, giving me the ability to live in the present moment; I try to meditate daily. I use the she/her/hers set of pronouns.

  • A Licensed Clinical Social Worker at the VA Pittsburgh Healthcare System. She has a decade of social work experience addressing drug and alcohol rehabilitation, child welfare, mental health recovery, inpatient medicine, crisis intervention and homelessness. Ombrea currently serves the homeless Veteran population in Pittsburgh and surrounding areas. She conducts clinical assessments, clinical case management, and acts as a liaison for Veterans and local public housing authorities. Ombrea works with local homeless community providers to address the needs for Veterans who face barriers with income, substance abuse, physical health, mental health and vocational deficits.

    Prior to joining the VA, Ombrea was a caseworker for Allegheny County Children, Youth and Family Services from 2014 to 2016. During her undergraduate and graduate studies, she was employed at Sojourner House residential treatment center for women and their children from 2008 to 2014. She also completed a MSW social work internship at UPMC Mercy Hospital Acute Medical Detox that provided complete addiction treatment services to safely guide people through the detox process.

    Ombrea holds a Masters of Social Work from the University of Pittsburgh and a BS in Elementary Education from Indiana University of Pennsylvania.

  • An attorney from the Mon Valley with a background in community and government affairs. She graduated from the University of Pittsburgh with a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration, appearing on and behind the stage along the way. She seeks hope and the special moments that only live performance can create. Finding that magic in everything RealTime Arts does, she is thrilled to join the Board. In her spare time, she can be found with her family, friends, and a cold lemonade.

  • A software developer and author living in Pittsburgh, PA. He has two books with the publisher Onyx Neon, the memoir "Refactored: My Attempt at Breaking into Tech During the Rise of the Coding Boot Camp" (2021) and the novel "Out of Print." (2022). He currently works as a Software Developer in Test for the medical software company Bluesight.

Photo Credit

Laura Petrilla

Contact us

Our Current Rehearsal Space
The Hollander Project—the flagship initiative of our friends at ForGoodPGH—is a co-working space and business incubator for female entrepreneurs from Braddock and surrounding Mon Valley communities.

Accessibility:
Live art is for everyone. We ask artistic collaborators and patrons with accessibility concerns to contact us and share their access needs so that we can meet them as effectively as possible. Please connect with our Access Liaison, Molly Rice.