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Theater leader remembered for his guidance

A fixture and well-known leader of Altoona’s theater arts has died.

Steven C. Helsel, 63, the operations manager of Altoona Community Theatre, died early Thursday at UPMC Altoona where he was a patient for about two weeks.

“It was a brief illness,” Steve’s brother, Dean Helsel Jr. of Altoona, said Thursday. “It just seem like it was one thing on top of another.”

News of Helsel’s death spread quickly among family, colleagues and friends on Thanksgiving Day.

“There isn’t anyone I know in this community who didn’t include Steve Helsel in their prayers or toasts at Thanksgiving dinner,” said longtime friend and theater associate Karen Volpe of Altoona. “For someone who was single, he had one of the biggest families in town.”

Dean Helsel said his brother has had two families for a long time.

“He had his blood family,” Helsel said. “But he also had his theater family, and for the last two weeks, the ACT group has been part of our family. They’ve been very supportive.”

Helsel, who was born and raised in Altoona, earned a theater arts degree from Penn State University in 1977.

While working at the Altoona Mirror, the newspaper founded by his great-great grandfather Harry Slep, Helsel became involved in Altoona Community Theatre as a volunteer and a board member.

In 1984, he left Altoona for a job in Los Angeles with the California Theater Council, then opted to return in 1987 when ACT offered him a job as its first first full-time operations manager. It’s a job he has held ever since and one that has earned him lots of praise.

“He’s done a lot to guide ACT,” ACT Board President Rick Vaneven­hoven said Thursday night. “I worked with Steve for many, many years and when you walked into his office, he always made you the focal point of that moment. He was a gentle manager of people and never imposing. He just had a wonderful ability to work with people that way.”

“I do not know if we would even exist if Steve were not here,” former ACT Board President Cynthia Baney told the Altoona Mirror for a story published in November 2016. “He holds us together. He is the key to the organization.”

In that same story, Helsel said he developed an interest in theater after seeing his sister, Dee Anne, perform as a child in “The Fantastics” at Penn State Altoona.

“I just think theater is a place where magic happens,” Helsel told the Mirror.

While Helsel’s work as ACT’s operations manager involved administrative tasks, including scheduling, public relations and fundraising, he usually directed one show a year at the Mishler Theatre and designed sets and lights for other productions. He also did some acting, with his last major role in “All My Sons” in 2009.

Dean Helsel said his brother’s active role and interest in the community was reflective of the role their mother, the late Marjorie Helsel, undertook while she was publisher of the Altoona Mirror.

“I think he got that dedication to the community from our mother,” Dean Helsel said. “And I’m thankful that he could carry that on.”

Mirror Staff Writer Kay Stephens is at 946-7456.

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