Riverside Theatre Works names new executive director

(Jeremy C. Fox for Boston.com)

Riverside Theatre Works, photographed on March 13, 2011.

By Jeremy C. Fox, Town Correspondent

Hyde Park’s Riverside Theatre Works has named Toni Ruscio its new executive director.

Ruscio joined the Riverside staff last year and currently serves as education and outreach director. She was previously drama director at two schools in Weymouth: Saint Francis Xavier School and Sacred Heart Elementary, according to a statement released Monday by Riverside.

She also teaches at Massasoit Community College and has founded and operated a theater company called Athena Productions, the statement said.

“I am very excited to be leading the way as Riverside Theatre Works enters another decade in its rich cultural history,” Ruscio said in the statement. “We have some exciting events planned for the rest of this season, and we are looking forward to a wonderful 2013 – 2014 season as well.”

Riverside, a performing arts school and theater company, was founded in 1981 by Hyde Park resident Marietta Phinney and has made its home for 30 years in the old French’s Opera House building on Fairmount Avenue in Logan Square.

The theater has faced financial difficulties in recent years, as the declining economy hurt grant funding and student enrollments. It filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in June 2010, but its fortunes have since improved, thanks in part to increasing enrollments and a five-year sponsorship by the Blue Hills Bank.

Email Jeremy C. Fox at jeremy.fox@globe.com.
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