Associate Professor
Associate Artistic Director, The REP
John Amplas is an associate professor with the Conservatory of Performing Arts and has been teaching at Point Park since 1982. He has taught all levels of acting and directing and has served both as an actor and director in countless productions. As an actor, some of his most memorable work was in Ah, Wilderness!, The FBI Girl, The Visit, Breaker Morant, Le Bete, Knights of the Round Table, The Colonel Bird, On the Beach, The Heiress, American Buffalo, Brecht on Brecht, Marat/Sade, A Life in the Theatre, The Lion in Winter and The Little Foxes.
On other stages, Amplas has appeared in Bricklayers for the City Theatre, Appear and Show Cause for the Public Theatre, Glengarry Glen Ross for Axiom and Hair (1973-74) for the Odd Chair Playhouse. Amplas has also worked Off-Off Broadway in productions of Look Back in Anger and Streamers. Amplas is also an accomplished film actor with more than 15 films to his credit, most notably the star in Romero's classic Martin, Tony Buba's No Pets, Brady Lewis' Daddy Cool and a featured role in Melissa Martin's The Bread My Sweet.
Directorial highlights at The Playhouse include: Antigone, No Place to be Somebody, The Vertical Hour, for colored girls who have considered suicide when the rainbow is enough, The Rover, The Exonerated, Hair, Kimberly Akimbo, Le Liaisons Dangereuses, Hard Times, Arcadia, Nine, The Threepenny Opera, The Prince, The Third Lie (world premiere), Quills, The Time of Your Life, Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, Driving Miss Daisy, The Elephant Man, Suburbia, Blue Window, Savage in Limbo, The Day Room, Lost in Yonkers, Brigadoon, Into the Woods, The Fifth of July, Getting Out, When Ya Comin' Back Red Ryder, and Look Back in Anger.
Amplas is a founding member of The Playhouse REP, as well as its associate artistic director.
Recently in collaboration with actor Bill Nunn, Amplas developed a Conservatory Outreach Program that brings theatre to underserved urban schools in and around Pittsburgh, as well as the establishment of the August Wilson Monologue Competition for high school students. The national finals for the competition are held in New York City at The August Wilson Theatre, sponsored by Kenny Leon's True Colors Theatre in Atlanta. The top three national competitors' receive $10,000, $7,000 and $5,000 in scholarship to attend the acting program of Point Park University.