Board of Directors

Susan V. Booth, President
Rosalba Rolón, Vice President
Timothy J. Shields, Vice President
Paul Nicholson, Treasurer
Jeffrey Woodward, Secretary
 
Susan V. Booth, Artistic Director; Alliance Theatre, Atlanta, GA
Peter C. Brosius, Artistic Director; The Children's Theatre Company, Minneapolis, MN
Carlyle Brown, Playwright; Minneapolis, MN
Carol Brown, Pittsburgh Cultural Trust, Pittsburgh, PA
Douglas R. Brown, President & CEO; Cambridge Homes, Inc., Libertyville, IL
James Bundy, Artistic Director; Yale Repertory Theatre, New Haven, CT
Dawn Chiang, Lighting Designer; Bridgeport, CT
Jeff Church, Producing Artistic Director; The Coterie Theatre, Kansas City, MO
Teresa Eyring, Executive Director; Theatre Communications Group, New York, NY
Philip Himberg, Producing Artistic Director; Sundance Institute Theatre Program, Sundance, UT
Danny Hoch, Actor, Playwright, Director; Hip-Hop Theater Festival, Brooklyn, NY
Melanie Joseph, Producing Artistic Director; The Foundry Theatre, New York, NY
Rachel Kraft, Executive Director; Lookingglass Theatre Company, Chicago, IL
Martha Lavey, Artistic Director; Steppenwolf Theatre Company, Chicago, IL
Robert H. Leonard, Director; Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, VA
Todd London, Artistic Director; New Dramatists, New York, NY
Abel López, Associate Producing Director; GALA Hispanic Theatre, Washington, DC
Marc Masterson, Artistic Director; Actors Theatre of Louisville, Louisville, KY
Benjamin Moore, Managing Director; Seattle Repertory Theatre, Seattle, WA
Jennifer Nelson, Director; Washington, DC
Paul Nicholson, Executive Director; Oregon Shakespeare Festival, Ashland, OR
Rosalba Rolón, Artistic Director; Pregones Theater, Bronx, NY
Michael Ross, Managing Director; CENTERSTAGE, Baltimore, MD
Olga Sanchez, Artistic Director; Miracle Theatre Group, Portland, OR
Bartlett Sher, Artistic Director; Intiman Theatre, Seattle, WA
Timothy J. Shields, Managing Director; Milwaukee Repertory Theatre, Milwaukee, WI
Mark Shugoll, CEO; Shugoll Research, Bethesda, MD
Molly Smith, Artistic Director; Arena Stage, Washington, DC
Susan Trapnell, Managing Director; ACT Theatre, Seattle, WA
Shay Wafer, Managing Director; Cornerstone Theater Company, Los Angeles, CA
Kate Warner, Artistic Director; Dad’s Garage, Atlanta, GA
Jeffrey Woodward, Managing Director; Syracuse Stage, Syracuse, NY
Chay Yew, Playwright, Director; Los Angeles, CA

Susan V. Booth (president) is the artistic director of the Alliance Theatre Company. Ms. Booth's regional directing credits include; the Alliance, Goodman Theatre, Repertory Theatre of St. Louis, Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park, Northlight Theatre, Actors Theatre of Louisville, Connecticut Repertory, City Theatre of Pittsburgh, New York Stage and Film, Victory Gardens, Touchstone Theatre, Organic Theatre, RAPP Arts, La Jolla Playhouse, Ojai Playwrights Festival, the National Playwrights Conference and L.A.Theatreworks' Theatre On the Air. Booth has held teaching positions at Northwestern and DePaul Universities and the School of the Art Institute in Chicago and currently serves as adjunct faculty with Emory University.  She holds degrees from Northwestern and Denison Universities and was a fellow of the National Critics Institute.  She is a member of Leadership Atlanta's Class of 2003, was cited as a Lexus Leader for the Arts by WABE and "Atlanta's Best New Visionary" by Atlanta Magazine in 2004, was named one of Atlanta's "25 Power Women to Watch" in 2006 by Atlanta Woman Magazine, and was chosen as the Best Local Director in The Sunday Paper's 2006 Readers' Choice Awards.  She also serves as an officer on the board of the Metro Atlanta Arts and Culture Coalition and is the co-chair of the City of Atlanta's One Book, One Community Program.

Peter C. Brosius joined The Children's Theatre Company (CTC) as its third artistic director in 1997. During Mr. Brosius' tenure, CTC was the winner of the 2003 Tony Award for Outstanding Regional Theatre, the first time ever a youth theater was bestowed this honor. In addition, CTC's production of A Year with Frog and Toad, which completed a run at the Cort Theater on Broadway in June 2003, was nominated for three Tony Awards. In 1998, under Brosius' leadership, CTC established THRESHOLD, a new play laboratory that has allowed CTC to work with some of the leading playwrights in American to create world premiere productions: Nilo Cruz, Jeffrey Hatcher, Kia Corthrun, Naomi Iizuka, to name a few. CTC has also been involved with international collaborations with theater artists from Sweden, Britain, and The Netherlands. Along with new play development, Brosius has helped launch new education program, one of which is the acclaimed Neighborhood Bridges program that is being used as a national model. Past directing credits at CTC include: Anon(ymous), The Lost Boys of Sudan, The Monkey King, Hansel & Gretel, Amber Waves, The Snow Queen, Dragonwings, Mississippi Panorama, A Village Fable, Whale, Afternoon of the Elves, and Boundless Grace. Previously he was the artistic director of the Improvisational Theatre Project of the Mark Taper Forum, where he commissioned and directed numerous world premieres by authors such as Lisa Loomer, Erin Cressida Wilson, Peter Mattei, as well as the U.S. premieres of One Thousand Cranes by Colin Thomas, Stamping Shouting and Singing Home by Lisa Evans, and Robinson and Crusoe by Teatro Dell Angollo. At the Taper, he also directed numerous productions for the Taper's New Work Festival and for its mainstage. In addition, he has directed at theaters across the country: South Coast Repertory, Arizona Theatre Company, South Street Theatre on Theatre Row, Pan Asian Repertory. He also spent many years as director-in-residence at The Sundance Playwrights Laboratory. He is the recipient of numerous awards including Theatre Communications Group's Alan Schneider Director's Award and honors from the Los Angeles Drama Critics Circle Award and Dramalogue. He holds a B.A. from Hampshire College and a M.F.A from New York University. Brosius is married to playwright Rosanna Staffa and is the father of fourteen-year-old daughter Daria and nine-year-old son Gabriel.

Carlyle Brown is a writer/performer and artistic director of Carlyle Brown & Company based in Minneapolis, which has produced The Masks of Othello: A Theatrical Essay, The Fula From America: An African Journey, and Talking Masks. Mr. Brown's plays include The African Company Presents Richard III, The Little Tommy Parker Celebrated Colored Minstrel Show, Buffalo Hair, The Beggars' Strike, The Negro of Peter the Great, Pure Confidence and others. He has received commissions from Arena Stage, the Houston Grand Opera, the Children's Theatre Company, Alabama Shakespeare Festival and Actors Theatre of Louisville. Brown is the recipient of playwriting fellowships from the New York Foundation for the Arts, National Endowment for the Arts, McKnight Foundation, the Minnesota State Arts Board, Jerome Foundation, Theatre Communications Group and the Pew Charitable Trust. He has been artist-in-residence at New York University School of the Arts Graduate Acting Program, the James Thurber House in Columbus, and Ohio State University Theater Department where he directed his music drama, Yellow Moon Rising. He has been a teacher of expository writing at New York University; African-American literature at the University of Minnesota; playwriting at Ohio State University and Antioch College; African American theater and dramatic literature at Carlton College as the Benedict Distinguished Visiting Artist, and "Creation and Collaboration" at the University of Minnesota Theater Department. He has worked as a museum exhibit writer and story consultant for the Charles Wright Museum of African American History in Detroit and the Kentucky Center for African American Heritage in Louisville. He is a core alumnus of the Playwrights' Center in Minneapolis and an alumnus of New Dramatists in New York.

Carol Brown was the founding president and CEO of the Pittsburgh Cultural Trust - a private not-for-profit organization established in 1984 to assist the cultural and economic growth of the Pittsburgh region through the development of an area of downtown Pittsburgh known as the Cultural District.  Mrs. Brown served as president from l986 to 2001, and was a member of the original board of the Trust.  In this capacity she created a long range holistic Cultural District development plan and then oversaw its implementation, resulting in a growth of theaters from one to seven (including the Benedum Center for the Performing Arts, the Wood Street Galleries, the Byham Theater and the Harris Theater), riverfront parks and open space (the Katz Plaza and the Allegheny Riverfront Park), housing, street-scaping, and various arts projects by nationally and internationally recognized artists and architects.  Prior to her work at the Trust, Brown was the director of the Allegheny County Department of Parks, Recreation and Conservation. She has received numerous awards including the Pittsburgh Woman of the Year (1992), The Governor's Award for Arts Leadership and Service (1996), The Arts Leadership Award of the National Assembly of State Arts Agencies (2000), Pittsburgh Magazine Pittsburgher of the Year (2001), as well as many honorary degrees and community leadership awards. She is a director of Mellon Financial Services Corporation and a consultant to the Pittsburgh Cultural Trust and serves on numerous other not-for-profit boards. She is past chairman of the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts, Citizens for the Arts in Pennsylvania, and the National Assembly of State Arts Agencies. She has consulted with cities across the country on cultural district development and has spoken on the subject at national and international conferences. She received a Bachelor of Arts degree from Marquette University and Master of Arts Degree from the University of Chicago.

Douglas R. Brown, graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Northwestern University in 1972.  Mr. Brown then joined the Midwest subsidiary of Leisure Technology, Inc., a large public homebuilder.  After graduating from Loyola University Law School in 1978, Brown began practicing law with a focus on corporate and real estate matters, ultimately opening his own law firm.   Doug joined Cambridge Homes, Inc. in 1983 as vice president and general counsel.  He was later named senior vice president and, in the early 1990's, president and chief operating officer.   Since the acquisition of Cambridge by D.R. Horton, Inc., the nation's largest homebuilder, he has served as the president of Horton's Chicago based Cambridge Homes division.  He is a member of the Home Builders Association of Illinois and the Home Builders Association of Greater Chicago.  He also serves as chairman of Steppenwolf Theatre Company's Board of Trustees, chairman of the Board of Directors of the Harris Bank Libertyville group of banks, as a member of the Economic Club of Chicago, and director of the Western Golf Association.  Doug and his wife have three grown children and reside in Libertyville, IL.

James Bundy is in his sixth year as Dean of Yale School of Drama and Artistic Director of Yale Repertory Theatre. In his first five seasons, Yale Rep has produced more than twenty world, American, and regional premieres, three of which have been honored by the Connecticut Critics Circle with the award for Best Production of the year, and two of which have been Pulitzer Prize finalists. During this time, Yale Rep has also commissioned more than a dozen playwrights to write new work, and provided low-cost theatre tickets and classroom visits to thousands of middle and high school students from Greater New Haven through WILL POWER!, an educational program initiated in 2004. Mr. Bundy's directing credits include The Psychic Life of Savages, The Ladies of the Camellias, and All's Well That Ends Well at Yale Rep, as well as productions at Great Lakes Theater Festival, The Acting Company, California Shakespeare Festival, Alabama Shakespeare Festival, and the Juilliard School Drama Division. A recipient of the Connecticut Critics Circle's Tom Killen Award for extraordinary contributions to Connecticut professional theater in 2007, Mr. Bundy currently serves on the board of directors of Theatre Communications Group, the national service organization for nonprofit theatre. Previously, he worked as Associate Producing Director of The Acting Company, Managing Director of Cornerstone Theater Company, and Artistic Director of Great Lakes Theater Festival. He is a graduate of Harvard College and Yale School of Drama.

Dawn Chiang has designed the lighting at numerous regional theatres including Denver Center Theatre Company, Oregon Shakespeare Festival, Milwaukee Repertory Theater, Arizona Theatre Company, Alliance Theatre, Mark Taper Forum, Guthrie Theater, Syracuse Stage, San Jose Repertory Theatre and Portland Center Stage.  On Broadway, Ms. Chiang designed the lighting for Zoot Suit, was co-designer for Tango Pasion, and associate lighting designer for Show Boat, The Life and the original production of La Cage Aux Folles.  Off-Broadway, she has designed for the Roundabout Theater, Manhattan Theatre Club, and co-designed the first two seasons of the Encores! concert musical series at City Center.  Chiang was resident lighting designer for New York City Opera, where her designs included A Little Night Music and Fanciulla del West.  She is the lighting designer for the award winning FDNY Fire Zone at Rockefeller Center in New York, which teaches visitors about fire prevention through an immersive environment using video, lighting, sound, show control and special effects.  At the Whitney Museum of American Art, she created a lighting performance piece, delights: Art on 5 Outlets.  She has worked on the concert tours of Paul Anka, The Carpenters, Diana Ross and Loggins and Messina; and authored the operation manual for one of the first major computer lighting control consoles, the Strand Light Palette 1.  Awards include two Dramalogue awards, an American Theatre Wing nomination, a Los Angeles Drama Critics' nomination and a THEA Award (Themed Entertainment Association).  She is a member of United Scenic Artists, an Eastern Division board member of the Themed Entertainment Association and an associate consultant with Theatre Projects Consultants.

Jeff Church is producing artistic director of the Coterie Theatre, a multi-generational theatre in Kansas City, MO. For the Coterie's 20th anniversary season, Mr. Church produced the "Great Books/Banned Books" season, which included the professional U.S. premiere of The Lord of the Flies. The Coterie commissioned and premiered The Wrestling Season from Laurie Brooks, which Church directed at both the Kennedy Center and Seattle Children's Theatre. The play was published in full in American Theatre magazine. Church also started the Coterie's Lab for New Family Musicals, which premiered the theatre for young audiences version of Seussical and Stephen Schwartz's Geppetto & Son. He has directed and written plays and musicals for the Kennedy Center (where he served as a playwright-in-residence for youth and family programs for five years), New York's Young Playwrights Inc., NYU, Seattle Children's Theatre, Denver Center Theatre Company, Kansas City's The Unicorn Theatre and in Washington, DC, for Woolly Mammoth Theatre. He has been the vice president of ASSITEJ/USA, the U.S. Center for the International Association of Theatre for Children and Young People. Over the past 17 years, he has served as a site reporter and panelist for the National Endowment for the Arts. He is a member of The American College of Theatre Fellows. 

Teresa Eyring joined TCG as executive director in March 2007. Ms. Eyring has been an executive in theatres around the U.S. for over twenty years. Prior to joining TCG, she served as managing director of the Children’s Theatre Company (CTC) in Minneapolis since 1999. Eyring began her theatre career as director of development for the Woolly Mammoth Theater Company in Washington, D.C. in 1983. She completed an MFA in theater administration at the Yale School of Drama between 1986 and 1989. From 1989-1993, she was assistant executive director of the Guthrie Theater in Minneapolis, where she handled artist contracts, play commissions, and oversaw a $5 million theater renovation project . From 1994-99, she was managing director of the Wilma Theater in Philadelphia, where she spearheaded completion of an $8 million capital campaign and oversaw the construction and transition to a new 24,000 square foot theater facility on Philadelphia’s Avenue of the Arts. She was named a ‘Woman to Watch” by the Twin Cities Business Journal in July 2005. Eyring’s past affiliations include service as chairwoman of the Theatre Alliance of Greater Philadelphia, board member of WYBE-TV, executive committee member of the League of Resident Theaters; board member and Treasurer of Minnesota Citizens for the Arts; and board member of Intermedia Arts. Eyring holds a BA from Stanford University and an MFA from Yale School of Drama.

Philip Himberg is the producing artistic director of the Sundance Institute Theatre Program. Since 1997, Mr. Himberg has overseen all aspects of the Sundance Institute Theatre Program including the Sundance Theatre Laboratory, an annual summer workshop in Sundance, Utah which supportsthe development of new work for the stage. Under his aegis, the Sundance Theatre Program has grown to include two new laboratories: The Sundance Theatre Lab at White Oak and The Sundance Playwrights Retreat at Ucross. In addition, Himberg has created the Sundance Theatre "international initiative" aimed at including Eastern European and East African participation at the theatre labs. In 2008 he will direct Flora the Red Menace for Reprise! in Los Angeles. Most recently he has directed the world premiere of Terrence McNally's Some Men at the Philadelphia Theatre Company, a concert of William Finn's Songs of Innocence and Experience in Williamstown, MA, as well as the West Coast premieres of Tony Kushner's Only We Who Guard the Mystery Shall Be Unhappy starring Sally Field. For Sundance, he directed revivals of Fiddler on the Roof, Funny Girl, and a new version of Jerry Herman's musical, Dear World. He also conceived and directed the world premiere of War Letters in Los Angeles. He received his B.A. in Theatre Arts at Oberlin College studying under Herbert Blau. He was co-artistic director of Playwrights Horizons in New York, where he produced over sixty plays in the theatre's most formative years. He is a recipient of the TCG/National Endowment for the Arts Artistic Fellowship, which brought him to the Mark Taper Forum in Los Angeles. Subsequently he was staff producer for the Mark Taper Forum's Improvisational Theatre Project (I.T.P.), a resident touring ensemble that created and performed new work for young audiences, and for whom he conceived and directed a new holiday show for the Taper's mainstage.

Danny Hoch is an actor, playwright and director whose plays Pot Melting, Some People, and Jails, Hospitals, & Hip-Hop have garnered many awards including 2 OBIES, an NEA Solo Theatre Fellowship, Sundance Writers Fellowship, CalArts/Alpert Award In Theatre and a Tennessee Williams Fellowship. His theatre work has toured to 50 U.S. cities and 15 countries. He is a Senior Fellow at the New School’s Vera List Center For Art & Politics and his writings on hip-hop, race and class have appeared in The Village Voice, New York Times, Harper's, The Nation, American Theatre, and various books: Out Of Character, Extreme Exposure, Laughing In The Dark, Creating Your Own Monologue and Total Chaos. His book Jails, Hospitals & Hip-Hop is in its second printing by Villard Books/Random House. Mr. Hoch founded the Hip-Hop Theater Festival in 2000 which has since presented over 75 hip-hop generation plays from all over the world and now appears annually in New York, Chicago, DC and San Francisco/Oakland. He directed Will Power's hit show Flow at New York Theatre Workshop, as well as the bilingual Representa at the the San Francisco International Arts Festival. Mr. Hoch is the recipient of a 2006 Creative Capital Grant and the 2007 Sundance Theatre Lab’s Playwright-In-Residence. He sits on the board of Theatre Communications Group and the Hip-Hop Theatre Festival. Look out for Danny Hoch’s new epic play Till The Break Of Dawn, opening Sept 2007 in New York produced by The Culture Project at Abrons Arts Center.

Melanie Joseph is the founder and producing artistic director of The Foundry Theatre in New York City. Ms. Joseph has produced and/or directed twelve new works for The Foundry, which have been awarded 8 Obie Awards and 3 Drama Desk Nominations. The Foundry itself was honored with a special Obie Award in 2001 for “its overall contribution to Off-Broadway theatre and creating cutting edge works.” In the spring of '07 the company received TCG's Peter Zeisler Award in recognition of “innovative practice and dedication to freedom of expression.” Joseph has commissioned and developed new works with such artists as Kirk Lynn, Alice Tuan, Carl Hancock Rux, Rinde Eckert, W. David Hancock and is currently developing new works with David Greenspan and Brazil's Teatro da Vertigem. She is also the curator of The Foundry’s public dialogues which bring artists together with thinkers from other fields to investigate the workings of a changing polis. Notable events include A Conversation on Hope; Never Again: A Town Meeting on War Crimes and Genocide and the ongoing FOODWATERSHELTER NYC series for which the company was cited by The Village Voice for “engaging artists in some of the thorniest issues of the world we inhabit.” Joseph is the recipient of the Skirball Kennis’ national T.I.M.E. Individual Artist prize and the League of Professional Theatre Women’s Lucille Lortel Award for Artistic Producing. She holds a B.A. in Literature and Political Science from the University of Western Ontario and in '94 received a post-baccalaureate degree in pre-medicine from City University of New York. She serves on the Board of Trustees for Theatre Communications Group (TCG) and is the U.S. President of the International Theatre Institute (ITI).

Rachel Kraft joined the Lookingglass Theatre Company as executive director in September 2005, bringing almost 20 years experience in the arts. For 12 seasons she served as director of development at the Goodman Theatre, in addition to past key roles at the Arts and Business Council, Northlight Theatre and the Chicago Dance Coalition. Rachel is a new trustee of the Jewish Women's Foundation in Chicago, an active member of the Alumnae Council of the Chicago Foundation for Women, and a charter board member of the Kindling Group, a not-for-profit organization that creates documentary programming about important social, civic and historical issues.

Martha Lavey is an ensemble member and the artistic director of Steppenwolf Theatre Company and has appeared at Steppenwolf in Love-Lies-Bleeding, Lost Land, I Never Sang for My Father, The House of Lily, Valparaiso, The Memory of Water, The Designated Mourner, Supple in Combat, Time of My Life, A Clockwork Orange, Talking Heads, SLAVS!, Picasso at the Lapin Agile, Ghost in the Machine, A Summer Remembered, Love Letters, Aunt Dan and Lemon and Savages. Elsewhere in Chicago, Ms. Lavey has performed at the Goodman, Victory Gardens, Northlight, and Remains theatres, in New York at the Women's Project and Productions, and at the Kennedy Center in Washington, DC. Lavey has served on grants panels for the National Endowment for the Arts, Theatre Communications Group and the City Arts Panel of Chicago. She holds a doctorate in Performance Studies from Northwestern University and is a member of the National Advisory Council for the School of Communication at Northwestern. She is a recipient of the Sarah Siddons Award, an Alumni Merit Award from Northwestern University, and a Leadership award from the League of Chicago Theatres.

Robert H. Leonard teaches directing and performance skills in the Department of Theatre Arts at Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, VA. Mr. Leonard heads the MFA programs in Stage Management, and in Directing and Public Dialogue at Tech. Leonard is the founding artistic director of The Road Company, a theatre ensemble based in Johnson City, TN. From 1975-1998, The Road Company ensemble created more than two dozen original plays reflecting the history and issues of the Upper Tennessee Valley and Central Appalachia. He has also directed new plays written independently by Jo Carson, Rebecca Ranson, Ken Jenkins, Barbara Carlisle, and Russell Davis. He is co-director of the Community Arts Network (CAN), the information and communication resource for the field of community-based art making. He is the lead author of "PERFORMING COMMUNITIES: Grassroots Ensemble Theaters Deeply Rooted in Eight U.S. Communities" (New Village Press), also published online at www.communityarts.net. He is a founding member of the Network of Ensemble Theaters (NET) - the national coalition of ensemble theatres - and currently serves on NET's board of directors. Leonard is a founding member of Alternate ROOTS (Regional Organization of Theaters - South) and has served on its executive committee for many years, filling the offices of chair, treasurer, secretary and regional representative. He is on the training faculty of Resources for Social Change, a program of Alternate ROOTS. He is a graduate of the College of Letters at Wesleyan University.

Todd London is in his twelfth season as artistic director of New Dramatists, the nation’s premier center for the support and development of playwrights. In that role he has worked closely with more than a hundred of America’s leading playwrights and advocated nationally and internationally for hundreds more. A former managing editor of American Theatre magazine and the author of "The Artistic Home," published by Theatre Communications Group (TCG), he has written, edited, and/or contributed to eleven books. His magazine essays and articles on the theatre have been translated for publication in Russia, North and South Africa, Scandinavia, Serbia, and Roumania. Todd won the prestigious George Jean Nathan Award for Dramatic Criticism for his essays in American Theatre and a Milestone Award for his first novel, The World’s Room, published by Steerforth Press. In 2001 he accepted a special Tony® Honor on behalf of New Dramatists. In 2005 he represented New Dramatists at the Obie Awards, where the organization was honored with the Ross Wetzsteon Award for excellence. Todd serves on the faculty of Yale School of Drama and as project director of Theatre Development Fund’s (TDF) Playwrights Project. Before coming to New Dramatists, he was guest literary director of the American Repertory Theatre and visiting lecturer of dramatic arts at Harvard. A former chair of the New York State Council on the Arts theatre panel and National Endowment for the Arts panelist, he serves on the boards of Theatre Communications Group (TCG), The John Golden Fund, and The Talking Band. He holds an M.F.A. in directing from Boston University and a Ph.D in Literary Studies from the American University. He has two sons, Guthrie and Grisha, and lives in Brooklyn with playwright Karen Hartman.

Abel López is associate producing director of GALA Hispanic Theatre, and serves as president of the board of directors of the American Arts Alliance, National Association of Latino Arts and Culture, and the Helen Hayes Awards. He is also immediate past president of Theatre Communications Group (TCG). Mr. López is also vice president of Americans for the Arts, chair of the Creative Communities Initiative of the Community Foundation of the National Capital Region, and Chair-Emeritus of the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities. He serves on the board of directors of the Association of Performing Arts Presenters, In Series, Black Women's Playwrights Group, and Alliance for Inclusion in the Arts. He is a member of the Kennedy Center Community Board, Latino Advisory Board of the Museum of American History of the Smithsonian Institution, Advisory Committee of The Playwrights Forum, and the Community Council of the public radio station WAMU. He is past president of the board of directors of the Mid Atlantic Arts Foundation.

Marc Masterson is the artistic director of Actors Theatre of Louisville, KY. Mr. Masterson is an award-winning director specializing in new work and innovative productions of the classics. Recent Humana Festival directing credits include the premieres of The Unseen, Natural Selection, The Shaker Chair, After Ashley, and plays by Melanie Marnich, Russell Davis, Charles Mee, and Richard Dresser. Other credits include Mary’s Wedding, The Crucible, Betrayal, As You Like It, and MacBeth. As a producer, Masterson has strengthened Actors' ties with Louisville through innovative educational and community based programs. Previously, he served as producing director of City Theatre for 20 years with distinguished experience as a leader in the cultural community of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

Benjamin Moore is the managing director of Seattle Repertory Theatre. Mr. Moore came to Seattle Rep in December 1985 following a 15-year association with the American Conservatory Theater in San Francisco where he held the positions of production director, general manager, and managing director. Moore has led Seattle Rep through compliance for a National Arts Stabilization grant, construction of the Leo K. Theatre, Seattle Rep's second stage, and 21 operating cycles with no accumulated deficit. Mr. Moore was the chairman of the Seattle Arts Commission in 1989, and served on the Washington State Arts Commission from 2001 to 2007. He has been the chair of the I.A.T.S.E. Local 15 Health and Welfare Trust since 1994 and is currently serving a term on the board of the Seattle Chamber of Commerce. He has served as a peer panelist and evaluator for the National Endowment for the Arts and as a consultant for The Bush Foundation in Minneapolis. He received a Senior Fellowship and a B.A. from Dartmouth College and an M.F.A. in Arts Administration from Yale University School of Drama.

Jennifer Nelson has served as Producing Artistic Director of the African Continuum Theatre in Washington DC for the past eleven years. She has worked in professional theatre for thirty-five years as an actress, administrator, educator, playwright, producer and director. She recently completed two terms as President of the League of Washington Theatres. Ms. Nelson produced twenty-six plays for African Continuum, including several world premieres. In addition to directing for African Continuum, she has directed at many theatres throughout the Washington area, including Ford’s, Round House, Woolly Mammoth, Everyman, Rep Stage, Theatre for the First Amendment, Source, Imagination Stage, Young Playwrights and Tsunami. Ms. Nelson has also directed at Manhattan Class Company in New York, the Taper and LATC in Los Angeles, Penumbra in Minnesota, Oregon Shakespeare and the Fulton in Pennsylvania. Her play, Torn from the Headlines was awarded the Helen Hayes Award for Most Outstanding New Play. She is a three-time winner of the Larry Neal Writers Award (for poetry and playwriting), a three-time grantee of the DC Commission on the Arts Individual Artist program as a poet and a playwright, and a recipient of the Mayor’s Arts Awards for Excellence in an Artistic Discipline. Ms. Nelson is an adjunct professor in theatre departments at George Washington University and has also taught at the American University, George Mason University and UCLA. She is a graduate of the University of California at Davis.

Paul Nicholson (treasurer) has been executive director of the Oregon Shakespeare Festival since 1995, having spent the prior 16 years as the Festival's general manager. A native New Zealander, Mr. Nicholson served for six years as the administrative director of Downstage Theatre, New Zealand's largest and longest-established professional theatre. Prior to becoming involved in professional theatre, Nicholson worked for ten years in the corporate world. He has a B.C.A. Honors degree (the New Zealand equivalent of an MBA) from Victoria University, Wellington, New Zealand. He has been a guest lecturer at Stanford University, Victoria University of Wellington and other education institutions, and has acted as a management consultant for many not-for-profit organizations. He is actively involved in arts advocacy efforts for the state of Oregon, and is currently the president of the Oregon Cultural Advocacy Coalition. He was a founding faculty member of the Western Arts Management Institute and since 1984 has been an adjunct professor at Southern Oregon University. He has also served on a number of panels for TCG and the National Endowment for the Arts. He is a past-chair of the Ashland Community Hospital Board of Directors, a member of the Southern Oregon University Advisory Board, a member and prior director of Rotary, has served on the board of directors of the Ashland Chamber of Commerce and has participated on many local committees and boards.

Rosalba Rolón (vice president) is a performer, director and dramaturg who worked extensively with Latino theaters in New York City prior to founding Pregones Theater in 1979, where she now serves as the Artistic Director. Born and reared in Puerto Rico, Ms. Rolón's artistic leadership fostered the development of an original Pregones' music theater repertory grounded in Puerto Rican/Latino traditions and contemporary artistic expressions. As a dramaturg and director, Rolón favors the art of literary stage adaptation, working from short stories, novels, and periodicals by Latino, Spanish, Caribbean, and Latin American writers. Her credits include The Beep (2007) and The Red Rose (2006) for which she won various ACE and HOLA Awards. Her adapted works include The Wedding March, The Blackout, Translated Woman, and Promise of a Love Song in collaboration with Roadside Theater and Junebug Productions, and which was recently published by TCG in an anthology of ensemble theaters. Her commitment to the development of Latino theater has earned her national recognition. Under her leadership, Pregones Theater recently conducted a capital campaign that enabled Pregones Theater to acquire two properties and build a new theater with an adjacent garden. She is currently involved in an international collaboration involving eight countries working to create an international virtual theater school. She is a Faculty at the Emerging Leadership Program of the annual Arts Presenters Conference in New York City and of the Leadership Institute of NALAC in San Antonio, TX, of which she is also the Immediate Past Chair of the Board. She is a site reporter for the National Endowment for the Arts and a theater panelist for the NYS Council for the Arts.

Michael Ross is in his fifth season as Managing Director at CENTERSTAGE, which completed its 29th consecutive year with a balanced budget and welcomed over 100,000 patrons last season. He previously held the same post for five years at Long Wharf Theatre, as well as various positions with National Arts Stabilization, Hartford Stage, and Alley Theatre during his career. He has served as a consultant to numerous arts organizations, including Eugene O’Neill Theater Center, Guthrie Theater, Chicago Shakespeare Theater, Crossroads Theatre Company, Puerto Rican Traveling Theatre, and Trinity Repertory Theatre. Additionally, he has served as a panelist for the NEA, Theatre Communications Group, Massachusetts Cultural Council, and New England Foundation for the Arts, and has been an adjunct professor at Yale School of Drama. He currently serves on the boards of Greater Baltimore Cultural Alliance, Baltimore Festival of the Arts (Artscape), and National Women’s Hall of Fame.

Olga Sanchez serves as artistic director for the Miracle Theatre Group’s Miracle MainStage and Bellas Artes companies. Olga is an actor, director, writer and artist-educator, originally from New York City, where received her BA in Theatre from Hunter College and served as a co-artistic director of the People's Playhouse. In Seattle, she served as a founder and the artistic director of Seattle Teatro Latino, for which she wrote and directed several pieces celebrating the beauty of Latino cultural heritage. Olga is a member of Los Norteños (and the new Los Porteños) writers group, for which she has produced and directed several events. Her original plays include Reuñión, a ritual play for Día de los Muertos, and Retratos Lindos, bilingual Latin American folktales for children, which toured Western Washington. Her screenplays include Yesler Way, an eight-episode telenovela, and Santiago, a Cuban love story. For Miracle Theatre Group, she has directed some of her favorite projects, including Nilo Cruz' Lorca in a Green Dress, for which she received a Portland Drama Critics’ DRAMMY award for Excellence in Direction. She most recently directed Dañel Malán’s Frida, un retablo (currently on national tour), and the world premiere of Joann Farías’ The Road to Xibalbá. Other world premiere productions she has directed for Miracle include Quiara Alegría Hudes’ The Adventures of Barrio Grrrl!, and Rubén Sierra’s When the Blues Chase Up a Rabbit. She co-wrote and directed Miracle’s adaptation of Spirits of the Ordinary with novelist Kathleen Alcalá. Olga is a member of the Lincoln Center Theatre Director’s Lab; her directorial work has been seen in Seattle, Portland, NYC, Martha's Vineyard, Peru, Venezuela and Cuba. As an actor, Olga has performed in NYC, Martha's Vineyard, Seattle, Los Angeles, London and Jerusalem; she will next appear in Mariela in the Desert by Karen Zacarías, at the Miracle. She is a co-founder of La Casa de Artes, a Seattle-based Latino arts and cultural organization. She is the creator of Miracle’s Pluma Nueva bilingual literary and performing arts workshops, Posada Milagro, Miracle’s community-based holiday program, and Cuentos y Teatro, Miracle’s Spanish-language summer acting camp for children. Olga holds a Masters in Human Development from Pacific Oaks College NW, with specialization in Bicultural Development.

Bartlett Sher has been Intiman’s Artistic Director since 2000. He received a 2006 Tony nomination for his direction of Awake and Sing! by Clifford Odets and 2005 Tony, Drama Desk and Outer Critic Circle nominations for his direction of The Light in the Piazza by Craig Lucas and Adam Guettel, both for Lincoln Center Theater. In 2006, he made his debut at the Metropolitan Opera with a new production of The Barber of Seville. His Intiman credits include the world premieres of Prayer for My Enemy and Singing Forest by Craig Lucas (both also at Long Wharf Theatre); Wilder’s The Skin of Our Teeth and Our Town; Chekhov’s Uncle Vanya and Three Sisters, both in new adaptations by Craig Lucas; the world premiere of Nickel and Dimed, Joan Holden’s adaptation of the nonfiction bestseller by Barbara Ehrenreich (also at Mark Taper Forum); The Dying Gaul by Craig Lucas; Goldoni’s The Servant of Two Masters; Kushner’s Homebody/Kabul; and Shakespeare’s Richard III, Titus Andronicus and Cymbeline, which was his Seattle directing debut. He directed a new production of Cymbeline in 2002, produced by Theatre for a New Audience, which was the first American Shakespeare production ever to be performed at the Royal Shakespeare Company. He received the Callaway Award for the production’s award-winning Off-Broadway run at the Lucille Lortel Theatre. For TFANA he has also directed the American premiere of Harley Granville-Barker’s Waste (2000 Best Play OBIE), Don Juan and Pericles. He made his opera-directing debut with Mourning Becomes Electra for Seattle Opera and New York City Opera. Mr. Sher was associate artistic director at Hartford Stage and company director at The Guthrie Theater under his mentor, Garland Wright. He currently serves on the board of Theatre Communications Group. His directing projects in 2008 include the first Broadway revival of Rodgers and Hammerstein’s South Pacific, which will be produced by Lincoln Center Theater, and the opera Roméo et Juliette, starring Anna Netrebko and Rolando Villazón, for the Salzburg Festival.

Timothy J. Shields (vice-president) has been managing director of Milwaukee Repertory Theater since 1998. Mr. Shields is currently a vice president of the League of Resident Theaters (LORT), the nationwide association of professional not-for-profit regional theatres and is the co-founder of Theatre Wisconsin, the statewide association of professional not-for-profit theatres, where he served as President for eight years. Mr. Shields has also served on the National Council for the Humanities at Alverno College (Milwaukee), and as a panel chair, a panelist, and site reporter for the National Endowment for the Arts. He is currently a Board member of the Latino Arts Board of the United Community Center in Milwaukee and of the Cultural Alliance of Greater Milwaukee. Prior to arriving at the Rep, he completed six seasons as managing director of Geva Theatre in Rochester, NY. Other professional experience includes administrative positions at McCarter Theatre Center, the Children’s Theatre Company, and at the Denver Center Theatre Company. He holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts (Drama/Production) degree from Carnegie-Mellon University.

Mark Shugoll is Chairman of the Arena Stage Board of Trustees. Dr. Shugoll serves on the boards of the Mason Arts Partnership at George Mason University, which includes the Theater of the First Amendment, and the Business Committee for the Arts (BCA). Professionally, Shugoll is CEO of Shugoll Research, a nationally known marketing research company and a leader in arts and entertainment research. Its clients include a prestigious roster of nonprofit theaters, symphony orchestras, opera companies, dance companies, performing arts centers, and choral groups. The company has worked for over 20 TCG member theaters. Under his leadership, Shugoll Research has been an active supporter of the arts. It has created a series of nationally known arts education programs including TheaterTrips! which underwrites theater tickets for students, and ArtSpeak! which brings great artists such as Brian Stokes Mitchell, Kristin Chenoweth, Audra McDonald, Marvin Hamlisch, and Stephen Schwartz into schools. Shugoll Research was named one of the "10 Best Companies Supporting the Arts in America" by the Business Committee for the Arts and Forbes magazine. The company and Dr. Shugoll has also been honored with the Business in the Arts Commitment Award (1998), the Business in the Arts Innovation Award (2000) the 2002 Washington Post Award for Innovative Leadership in the Theatre Community, the 2002 Council of American Survey Research Organizations Community Leadership Award for Promoting the Arts Through Research and School Outreach, and the 2003 Founders Award from the Cultural Alliance of Greater Washington. He is in great demand as a speaker and has delivered presentations at the TCG Fall Forum and the annual meetings of LORT, Dance USA, American Association of Museums, Association of Performing Arts Presenters, and Chorus America. He received his Ph. D. in Policy Analysis from American University (Washington, DC) and lives with his wife, a Signature Theatre trustee, in suburban Washington, DC.

Molly Smith has been a passionate leader in new play development for the past 30 years while at Arena Stage as well as Perseverance Theatre in Alaska, the theater she founded and led for 19 years. During ten seasons as Arena's Artistic Director, she has focused the repertory on American voices, making Arena the largest theater in North America focusing on American writers. She founded Arena's downstairs series, which has read and workshopped some sixty plays, half of which have gone on to full productions. Ms. Smith has commissioned or championed numerous world premieres including Paula Vogel's Pulitzer Prize-winning How I Learned to Drive and Mineola Twins, Tim Acito’s The Women of Brewster Place, Moises Kaufman’s 33 Variations, Charles Randolph-Wright's Blue, Zora Neale Hurston's lost American play Polk County and Passion Play, a cycle by Sarah Ruhl. Her directorial work has also been seen at the Shaw Festival in Canada, Berkeley Repertory Theatre, Trinity Repertory Company, Tarragon Theatre in Toronto, and Centaur Theatre in Montreal, and includes classics such as South Pacific, Mack and Mabel, Anna Christie and Cat on a Hot Tin Roof. Smith has served as Literary Advisor to the Sundance Theatre Lab and formed the Arena Stage Writers Council, comprised of leading American playwrights. An avid traveler, Ms. Smith brings artists of international renown to work at Arena Stage and serves as a member of the Board of the Theatre Communications Group as well as the Center for International Theatre Development. She directed two feature films, Raven's Blood and Making Contact, and received Honorary Doctorates from both Towson and American Universities.

Susan Trapnell is currently Director of Endowment Funding at ACT Theatre. Before assuming this position in spring of 2007, Susan had served as managing director from 1982 to 2000 and from 2004 to 2007. Susan spent two years as Executive Director of the Seattle Arts Commission (now the Office of Arts & Cultural Affairs) and one year as Managing Director of the Guthrie Theater in Minneapolis. She currently serves of the Board of Town Hall, Seattle and TCG. She is on the advisory board of ArtSpace and the University of Washington Drama School. She has served as President of the Washington State Arts Alliance, Vice Chair of the King County Arts Commission and on the Boards of the Downtown Seattle Association, Seattle Preparatory Academy, and the UMO Ensemble advisory council. Susan moved to Seattle in 1976 to work with the Bill Evans Dance Company where she became Managing Director in 1979. She holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in French from the University of North Carolina and has lived in Vienna, Austria; Lyons and Paris, France; and Guelma, Algeria. Susan is recipient of the Safeco Corporation Rudy Award and the Corporate Council of the Arts Unsung Hero Award.

Shay Wafer currently serves as the managing director of Cornerstone Theater Company. Ms. Wafer has held administrative positions with a number of not-for-profit arts organizations that focus on community outreach and arts-in-education programming. Formerly the managing director of LA Theatre Works, from 1996 to 1999 Wafer served as managing director of the St. Louis Black Repertory Company and was a founding partner of Crossroads Arts Academy and Theater in Los Angeles. She has worked as a marketing and development consultant for Center Theatre Group and in the marketing department at Yale Repertory Theatre. Other not-for-profit sector work includes, program director for the West Coast division of the Black Filmmaker Foundation, Charles Drew University of Medicine and Science and working as a consultant for numerous performing arts groups. A graduate of Howard University and Yale University, School of Drama, her current community activities are serving as the Co-chair of the Diversity Advisory Committee for Center Theatre Group. She has served as a grant panelist for the National Endowment for the Arts, TCG’s New Generations Program, The MAP Fund, Los Angeles Cultural Affairs Department, Culver City Arts Council and the Long Beach Arts Council. Prior to her work in theatre management she taught pre-school and kindergarten in Washington DC, Compton and Los Angeles.

Kate Warner is thrilled to come to work every day as the artistic director of Dad's Garage Theatre Company. She serves as producer and motivational (read:ferocious) kitten-with-a-whip driving the theatre's ambitious and exciting artistic vision. She is dedicated to the creation of new theatre, attracting new audiences through innovative stage work and amazing comedy improv and genuinely entertaining anyone who walks through the door. Kate was Artistic Associate with Dad’s Garage from 2002 – 2004 before taking the reigns as Artistic Director in 2005. Her body of directorial work for Dad’s Garage includes: Debbie Does Dallas, The Rocky Horror Show, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, Reefer Madness, Skin and The Jammer. Kate has commissioned (and often directed) new work from playwrights such as Lisa Kron, Alice Tuan, Kyle Jarrow, Ross Maxwell, John Pierson, Steve Yockey, Heather Woodbury, Chay Yew and Greg Kotis as well as spearheaded the development of the Top Shelf series which focuses on new work from the Dads Garage artistic family. In the Dad’s Garage 2007-2008 season, Kate will also direct the regional premiere of Colorado by Peter Sinn Nachtreib and the world premiere of Song of The Dead: A Zombie Musical. Kate has amassed an impressive history as both a director and producer as the previous Managing Director/Artistic Associate with Atlanta's Theatrical Outfit, which in December of 2004 moved into its new $5.4 million home, a renovated downtown Atlanta landmark, thus completing an award-winning strategic plan. Kate enjoys long walks on the beach and Jameson’s Irish Whiskey (no ice) when she is not serving as a board member of Theatre Communications Group, the national service organization for non-profit theatres, a member of the CHRIS Kids Rainbow Advisory board, a member of the Kennesaw State University Theatre Advisory board, a member and facilitator of the Lincoln Center Theatre Directors' Lab in New York, a member and panelist of the Directors Lab West in Los Angeles, and a member of the Society for Stage Directors and Choreographers. And in the summer of 2004, Kate completed the Executive Program for Non-Profit Leaders in the Arts at Stanford Graduate School of Business and the New Artistic Leadership Institute with TCG/Dance USA at the McCarter Theatre. Recognition for Kate's recent local and national directing work includes a Suzi Bass Award for Best Director, Play 2006 and Best Director Readers’ Pick in Creative Loafing’s Best of Atlanta 2006. She is a graduate of Kalamazoo College, Kalamazoo, MI with degrees in Theatre and Anthropology.

Jeffrey Woodward (secretary) has been the managing director of Syracuse Stage since April 2008. Mr. Woodward has worked for McCarter Theatre Center, Hartford Stage, Northlight Theatre, the Mark Taper Forum and the Oregon Shakespeare Festival and served as a consultant to a number of organizations including the University of Chicago, Court Theatre and the Weston Playhouse. In 2001, under the sponsorship of the U.S. State Department, Woodward traveled to South Africa to serve as a management consultant to the Baxter Theatre Centre and the Grahamstown Festival. He is a trustee of Theatre Communications Group, ArtPride New Jersey (a statewide advocacy group for the arts), and is the Secretary for the League of Resident Theatres. He has served as panel chairman, panelist, and on-site evaluator for the NEA and a panelist for the NEA/TCG Theatre Residency Program for Playwrights, the Leading National Theatre Program for the Duke and Mellon foundations, and the Massachusetts Cultural Council.

ChayYew's plays include Porcelain, A Language of Their Own, Red, A Beautiful Country, Wonderland, Question 27 Question 28 and A Distant Shore. His adaptations include A Winter People (based on Chekhov’s The Cherry Orchard) and Lorca's The House of Bernarda Alba. His work has been produced at the Public Theatre, Royal Court Theatre (London), Mark Taper Forum, Manhattan Theatre Club, Wilma Theatre, Long Wharf Theatre, La Jolla Playhouse, Intiman Theatre, Portland Center Stage, East West Players, Cornerstone Theatre Company, Perseverance Theatre, Dad's Garage, Singapore Repertory Theatre and TheatreWorks Singapore. He is also the recipient of the London Fringe Award for Best Playwright and Best Play, George and Elisabeth Marton Playwriting Award, GLAAD Media Award, APGF Community Visibility Award, Made in America Award, AEA/SAG/AFTRA 2004 Diversity Honor, and Robert Chesley Award; he has also received grants from the Rockefeller MAP, McKnight Foundation and the TCG/Pew National Residency Program. His plays are published by Grove Press. As a director, his production credits include the Public Theater, New York Theatre Workshop, Humana Festival at Actors Theatre of Louisville, Kennedy Center, Mark Taper Forum, Cincinnati Playhouse, Empty Space, Portland Center Stage, Geva Theater Center, East West Players, Cornerstone Theatre Company, Theatre at Boston Court, Laguna Playhouse, National Asian American Theatre Company, Ma Yi Theatre Company, Highways Performance Space, Gala Hispanic Theatre, Singapore Repertory Theatre, Theatre Rhinoceros, Northwest Asian American Theatre, Asian American Theatre Company, Talk and Squawk, Smithsonian Institute, and University of California, San Diego. His opera credits include the world premieres of Osvaldo Golijov’s Ainadamar (co-production with Tanglewood Music Center, Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts and Los Angeles Philharmonic) and Rob Zuidam’s Rage D’Amors (Tanglewood).  He received an OBIE Award for Direction.  An alumnus of New Dramatists, he currently serves on the executive board of the Society of Stage Directors and Choreographers.