Pioneer Theatre Company's new managing director had bogus claims on his resumé, two news outlets discovered

When Christopher Massimine was hired to be managing director of Salt Lake City’s Pioneer Theatre Company, it felt almost too good to be true: An acclaimed young theater impresario, CEO of the National Yiddish Theatre Folksbiene and a producer who had been nominated for two Tonys, was coming to work his magic on Utah’s premier professional theater company.

Investigations by The Salt Lake Tribune and Fox13 (a content-sharing partner with The Tribune) found that, yes, it was too good to be true — and that Massimine included items on his resumé that were either exaggerated or fabricated.

Among the findings in my story for The Tribune:

• A “humanitarian of the year” award from a group that, it turned out, doesn’t exist.

• Credits on his IMDb page (since scrubbed) for producing work on movies and video games that he had nothing to do with.

• Inflating the roles he performed in two Tony-nominated Broadway productions.

Massimine took “approved personal leave” when these discrepancies were made public. The University of Utah, of which Pioneer Theatre Company is an entity, has not yet announced what’s going to happen to Massimine in light of these discoveries. For now, the company’s longtime development director has taken the role of acting managing director.

Stay tuned.