TORONTO, JUNE 24, 1998 -- York University President Dr. Lorna Marsden is pleased to announce that award-winning stage designer and Theatre Professor Phillip Silver will become Dean of the Faculty of Fine Arts, effective July 1, 1998.

"We look forward to seeing what Professor Silver's able direction and insistence on excellence will bring to an already well-respected Faculty of Fine Arts. We anticipate that he will display the same ingenuity and vision in this new position as he has displayed in the theatre," said Marsden.

Silver, a set, lighting and costume designer, joined York's Faculty of Fine Arts in 1986. Since then, he has taught stage design in the University's Department of Theatre -- when he wasn't working on major Canadian stages from coast to coast. Silver's work has been showcased on such stages as the Stratford Festival, London's Grand Theatre, Theatre Plus, Theatre Francais de Toronto, the Canadian Stage Company, Tarragon Theatre, the Canadian Opera Company in Toronto, Edmonton's Citadel Theatre, Theatre New Brunswick, and the Vancouver Playhouse.

Silver, 55, has earned three Dora Mavor Moore Awards and four nominations as well as reviews from Globe and Mail theatre critics who have called his work "lusciously crafted" and his sets "arresting." Other awards include: the Sterling Award for Outstanding Set Design, Edmonton, 1992; the London Free Press Best Set Design Award, 1987; the Alberta Achievement Award, 1978; and the Edmonton Media Reviewers Award, 1978. He has also worked as a Theatre Architecture consultant for many projects, including one for the Canadian Museum of Civilization.

Silver earned his Bachelor of Arts from the University of Alberta in 1964, and attended the National Theatre School of Canada. He was the Resident Designer of Edmonton's Citadel Theatre from 1967 to 1978, and was a consultant on the award-winning architecture of the 1976 Citadel Building. Silver is one of 10 designers chosen to represent Canada at the Prague Quadrennial of Theatre Design and Architecture in June 1999.

Silver was represented in Toronto earlier this spring in the national design exhibition Prelude to Prague, showcasing the work of Canada's finest set and costume designers at the duMaurier World Stage Festival at Harbourfront Centre. It is currently on view under the title Stage Design in Canada 1994-1998 at The Gallery in Stratford. You can also see Silver's work at the Metropolitan Toronto Reference Library where it is part of the permanent Theatre Design Collections.

Silver's recent projects include: the North American touring production of the Andrew Lloyd Webber musical Aspects of Love; Democracy for Tarragon Theatre and the Manitoba Theatre Centre; Later Life and Six Degrees of Separation for Canadian Stage; The Merchant of Venice at the Stratford Festival; the Follows-Latimer production of RSVP Broadway at Toronto's Winter Garden Theatre; and, most recently, The Crucible, directed by Martha Henry for the Manitoba Theatre Centre, Winnipeg.

"In the time I have been teaching in Fine Arts at York, I have always been impressed by the artistry and scholarship of our faculty, and the exciting talents of our students. I'm looking forward to building even further on our already strong accomplishments," said Silver.

Silver, whose five-year appointment begins July 1, replaces Professor Seth Feldman to whom President Marsden thanked for his creative, skillful and good-humored guidance.

York University's Faculty of Fine Arts ranks among the leading centres for fine arts education in North America. The largest university-based fine arts programs in Canada and the only one of its kind in Ontario, it offers academic studies and professional studio training in all the fine arts: dance, film and video, music, theatre and visual arts, as well as an interdisciplinary fine arts cultural studies program. York University, founded in 1959, is a community of 40,000 students, more than 3,000 full-time and part-time faculty, and 130,000 alumni. It is respected nationally and internationally for its innovative research and award-winning teaching.

For more information, please contact:

Sine MacKinnon
Senior Advisor, Media Relations
York University
(416) 736-2100, ext. 22087
YU/048/98