+ Wendy Batiste-Johnson

Board of Directors

Wendy Batiste-Johnson has over 17 years of experience driving sales growth in the retail and real estate industry. Wendy has held a fulfilling career as an entrepreneur & as a local executive leading teams and exceeding business needs. Currently, Wendy has focused her time, knowledge and resources on community efforts in the region, and serves on the board of directors for Henry Ford Macomb Hospital, Macomb Community College, and the Community Foundation of Southeast Michigan, and she continues to contribute to the board at Detroit Public Theatre. Wendy earned a Bachelor of Science degree at Cornell University, and also has completed a business certificate for Women in Leadership at Cornell University SC Johnson School of Business. Wendy is married and has two children.

+ Courtney Burkett

Producing Artistic Director

See bio above under "Staff."

+ Sarah Clare Corporandy

Producing Artistic Director

See bio above under "Staff."

+ Debbie Erb

Board of Directors

Debbie sits on the board of the Fred A. and Barbara M. Erb Family Foundation and is a Trustee at Beaumont Health System, and is on the Beaumont Royal Oak advisory committee. Debbie is a member of the Detroit Institute of Arts Women’s Committee and past president of the Woman’s National Farm & Garden Association, Bloomfield Hills Branch. Debbie served as the founding Board Chair of Detroit Public Theatre and she and her husband are longtime patrons of The Stratford Festival in Stratford, Ontario.

+ Nina Essman

Board of Directors

Nina is a General Manager and Producer on Broadway and Off Broadway, and a partner at 321 Theatrical Management. Nina is currently represented on Broadway by Wicked (North America & Worldwide). Past credits include What the Constitution Means to Me, The SpongeBob Musical, Fun Home, War Paint, Oh, Hello on Broadway, Fully Committed, If/Then, Peter and the Starcatcher, Bring It On, Sister Act, Next to Normal, The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee, The Graduate, Man of La Mancha, Bat Boy: The Musical, The Improbable Theatre’s Lifegame, and Disney’s The Lion King. She was a Producer on Fun Home (2015 Tony Awards Best Musical winner) and The Vagina Monologues. Nina is a member of the Broadway League serving on the Executive Committee, Board of Governors, Labor Committee, International Committee, and Government Relations Committee. She is a founding board member and Chair of the Detroit Public Theatre. Nina attended Smith College and received a B.A. from Colorado College and a J.D. from Cardozo School of Law at Yeshiva University

+ Susan Gordon

Board Vice Chair, Treasurer

Susan is the founder and managing partner of Strategic Growth Group, a strategy firm focused on accelerating financial and operational sustainability for mission-driven organizations. Prior to forming Strategic Growth Group, Susan developed the advisory practice for Mission Throttle, a social impact firm that invests in, advises and supports the social sector. During Susan's tenure at Mission Throttle, the firm provided services to leading foundations in Southeast Michigan, including W.K. Kellogg Foundation, Kresge Foundation, Ralph J. Wilson, Jr Foundation, and Michigan Health Endowment Fund, and to a diverse group of mission-driven organizations. Susan has served clients in a broad range of social sectors, including early childhood, workforce development, mental health, food injustice, and youth services.

Over the past 30 years, Susan has had an extensive career working with several leading international consulting firms and Fortune 500 companies. Susan leverages her background in management consulting and corporate strategy to make a difference for mission driven organizations. She is most interested in utilizing her corporate expertise to assist mission-driven organizations achieve financial stability and enhanced social impact. Susan is keenly aware of the financial challenges that mission-driven organizations encounter, focusing her attention and passion on identifying market gaps and creating innovative revenue models.

Susan serves on the board of Jewish Vocational Services. She is a frequent lecturer at professional forums, and is a former Adjunct Finance Professor at Walsh College.

+ Noah Haidle

Board of Directors

Noah Haidle is a playwright and screenwriter whose work has been produced in New York at Lincoln Center, Roundabout, MCC, and Rattlestick Playwrights Theatre. Regionally, his plays have been produced at Goodman Theatre, South Coast Repertory, Huntington, Long Wharf, Woolly Mammoth, and the Williamstown Theatre Festival. He is the recipient of three Lincoln Center Le Compte Du Nuoy Awards, a Helen Merrill Award, the Claire Tow Award, and an NEA/TCG theatre residency grant.  His plays are published by Methuen in London, Suhrkamp in Berlin, Nordiska in Copenhagen, and in New York by Dramatists Play Service and Overlook Press. Stand Up Guys, his first produced screenplay, starred Al Pacino, Christopher Walken and Alan Arkin. Mr. Haidle is a graduate of Princeton University and The Juilliard School.

+ Sarah Prues

Board of Directors

Sarah is the founder and principal of Prues Hecker, LLC, a Grosse Pointe-based fundraising, event management and consulting firm. She is a recognized community leader and convener, dynamically connecting thought leaders and change agents throughout the region’s business, nonprofit and political sectors. Sarah brings her expertise to board memberships and advisory roles with several Southeast Michigan organizations, including Samaritas, Michigan Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, Detroit Public Theatre, and Detroit Entertainment District Association. She is a past member of the Detroit Institute of Arts (DIA) Founders Junior Council and the Detroit Historical Society Advisory Board.

+ David Jaffe

Board Chair

David Jaffe is a theatre lover, lawyer and businessperson at Jaffe Counsel in Birmingham, where he provides strategic counsel to business owners, CEOs and senior leaders, and serves as an independent director.

David spent 24 years at Guardian Industries Corp., where he was Vice President and General Counsel. He has been Chief Counsel of Stoneridge, Inc., a partner at Honigman Miller Schwartz and Cohn, a law clerk to Justice William Rehnquist at the U.S. Supreme Court, and a theatre tech person at The Roeper School and The University of Chicago.

David’s non-profit board leadership experience includes The Roeper School, Cranbrook Academy of Art and Museum, JVS, Music Hall, Jesuit Program for Living and Learning, and American Jewish Committee.

David has been married for over 30 years to another fervent DPT supporter, Erica Peresman, and they have two splendid adult children.

+ Nakia Johnson

Board of Directors

Nakia Johnson is a results-oriented leader with a demonstrated record of success across a diverse set of industries. In her current role as Head of Regulatory Strategy & Compliance Operations at Google, she is responsible for establishing a new service offering in technical support focused on ensuring regulatory readiness across the consumer product portfolio. With expertise in global strategy, operations, and regulatory compliance, she has excelled in managing complex and unprecedented challenges in dynamic environments throughout her career across academia, pharma, government, and tech. An alumna of the University of Michigan, she enjoys contributing to arts and culture initiatives in Southeastern Michigan, enthusiastically attending events and engaging in board service. She balances her pursuits through spending quality time with her spouse, their beloved canine companions, and a vibrant community of family and friends.

+ Sonya Mays

Board of Directors

Sonya is a proud graduate of Detroit Renaissance High School and has been Treasurer of the Board of Education since 2016. Trained as an attorney, she is an experienced finance and real estate professional and currently leads Develop Detroit, one of Detroit’s most prominent community housing and real estate development nonprofits. Under her leadership, Develop Detroit has invested over $65 million in Detroit neighborhoods and was recently highlighted on CBS 60 Minutes.

+ Devon Meier

Board of Directors

Devon grew up on the west side of Michigan, attended University of Michigan for her Bachelor’s Degree in English and RC Drama, and received her Master’s Degree in Arts Management from Carnegie Mellon University. She began her career in arts management, working for the CRLT Theatre Program at UofM.

Devon has spent the last 16 years working in the philanthropy field. She has worked with St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, senior living foundations in Metro Washington DC, and Jewish Family Services of Washtenaw County. Currently, she is the director of donor engagement for the Presbyterian Villages of Michigan Foundation.

In her free time, Devon enjoys spending time at the theatre - - as an actor, producer, and attendee. She lives in Novi with her husband, Mark, and their two fur babies – Bella and Cocoa.

+ Felicia Eisenberg Molnar

Board of Directors

Felicia Eisenberg Molnar has worked in nonprofit communications for more than 20 years with organizations ranging from the Israel Museum in Jerusalem to the Getty Conservation Institute and Cranbrook Academy of Art and Art Museum, where she served for 12 years as the Director of Communications and Marketing. She has worked directly with the Advancement staff of the Cranbrook Educational Community and the boards of governance and is well connected to many of the city of Detroit’s philanthropists and foundations. She holds a Master of Science degree from Drexel University in Nonprofit Administration. Felicia has authored two books and is the mother of two children. She is a big fan and supporter of the performing arts.

+ Dominique Morisseau

Executive Artistic Producer

See bio above under "Staff."

+ Christie Peck

Board of Directors

With over thirty-five years of diversified experience as both a grantseeker and a grantmaker, Christie Peck has served as chief advancement officer for major non-profits across the country including Vice President for Development at the Detroit Symphony Orchestra; Regional Director of Development at University of Michigan’s Ross School of Business; and Director of Development at the Detroit Zoological Society, The Institute of Contemporary Art in Boston, the New York Shakespeare Festival and Circle Repertory Company. As principal consultant for Christine S. Peck & Associates, Christie also served as Interim Director of Development and on-site campaign counsel for the well-known civil and human rights organization, Focus: HOPE, and served other clients including the Detroit Historical Museum, The Roeper School, Belle Isle Women’s Committee and Alternatives for Girls. Currently, Christie serves as secretary for The Peck Foundation (www.peckfoundation.org) and trustee for Stratford's Festival of America. She began her career at Baltimore's Center Stage which continues to hold a special place in her heart.

Christie has a B.A. from Sarah Lawrence College and a Masters in Music (voice) from The Peabody Conservatory in Baltimore. She is married and has two sons.

+ Angelique Power

Board of Directors

Angelique Power is the President & CEO of the Detroit-based Skillman Foundation, a private independent foundation that puts all its resources toward brilliant Detroit youth—their justice, their power, and their promise. With assets over $600 million, The Skillman Foundation provides approximately $24 million in grants annually.

Prior to The Skillman Foundation, Power was President of the Chicago-based Field Foundation. During her tenure, she designed a journey with staff, board, and nonprofit partners to center racial justice, changing how it funds and who it funds, created accountability structures for community to review its work, rethought metrics, created heatmaps that illustrate the design of inequity within Chicago, and updated its investment policy.

Power co-founded Enrich Chicago, dedicated to anti-racism organizing, and helped to found Just Action, a collaborative of 200+ organizations and individuals focused on helping institutions activate their 2020 racial equity statements. Additionally, she led a COVID Mapping Project with over 20 foundations, community partners, and nonprofits with an interactive planning tool to aid in systems change to solve for the racial disparities found in the pandemic. Power also co- conceptualized, with former Chicago Bear Israel Idonije, the nation’s first collaborative community workspace dedicated to social impact entitled The Impact House.

+ Allan Rothfeder

Board of Directors

Allan Rothfeder is a highly respected executive with expertise in finance and administration, mergers and acquisitions, and business operations. He is the President of G & R Management Company, a consulting company specializing in management, finance and human resources.     Mr. Rothfeder formerly served, at various times, as a Director, Executive Vice President, Chief Operating Officer and Chief Financial Officer of Grace & Wild, Inc., a company he also co-founded. Mr. Rothfeder served in a similar capacity at Grace Broadcasting, Inc., which acquired and operated radio stations across the United States. He also managed Studio Center Realty, L.P., a real estate development which he cofounded in 1984.   Prior to joining Grace Broadcasting, Mr. Rothfeder was Vice President-Finance and Administration of the Cable Television Division of Capital Cities Communications, Inc. Before joining Capital Cities, Mr. Rothfeder was a CPA at Coopers & Lybrand.   Mr. Rothfeder has been a lover of live theater beginning during his high school years when he rode the bus from his NJ home to see Broadway productions.  He was honored to be selected to lead the audit team at Coopers and Lybrand servicing the Shubert Organization account and interacting with its Board.  He is very excited to continue his involvement as a member of the DPT board.

+ Peter Van Dyke

Board Secretary

Peter Van Dyke is CEO of VVK, a public relations and creative agency based in Detroit, with an office in Charleston, SC, serving clients nationally. He oversees business strategy and growth for VVK’s 15-person team, as well as leads public relations services for the company, which range from local nonprofits to national corporations. Prior to forming VVVK with his partners Jamie Kaye Walters and Michael Sherman, Peter served as CEO of Van Dyke Horn Public Relations for six years. Peter and his partner Marilyn Horn acquired this firm, formerly named Berg Muirhead Associates, from its founders after 10 years of working for the agency. Under Peter’s leadership, Van Dyke Horn opened an office in Lansing, doubled its staff size and tripled its revenues.

Peter is a Detroit resident and deeply involved in serving his local community. He serves as chair of the board of visitors for Wayne State University’s College of Fine, Performing and Communication Arts, and on the executive committee of Detroit Public Theatre. He is also on the honorary board for the Detroit Artists Market, where he served as chair.

+ Jamie Kaye Walters

Board of Directors

Jamie Kaye Walters is the COO of VVK PR + Creative. A longtime theatre lover, Jamie was the creative services and programming director at WDIV-Local 4, leading a team of 35 marketing, production, graphic design, and digital content creating professionals. During her broadcasting career, she produced 40-plus programs, led community engagement campaigns, and oversaw production of live entertainment, documentary, and political programs including the nationally syndicated “America’s Thanksgiving Parade,” Sunday morning’s “Flashpoint,” the daytime talk show “Live in the D,” and the annual “The Ford Fireworks.”

Jamie is graduate of the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor and has received awards and acknowledgements from Crain’s Detroit Business’s “40 under Forty,” The Michigan Chronicle’s “Woman of Excellence,” Promax, Michigan Association of Broadcasters, and the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences (Michigan Emmy chapter).

+ Boyd White, III

Board of Directors

Boyd White III is a member of Dykema's Products and Professional Liability Litigation Group in the Detroit office. Mr. White is experienced in all aspects of commercial litigation including discovery, trial pleadings, depositions, preparation of witnesses for trial and conducting trials.

Immediately prior to joining Dykema, Mr. White served as an Assistant Prosecuting Attorney in the Office of the Oakland County Prosecutor, where he tried 20 cases to verdict including both bench and jury trials. A 2011 graduate of the National Institute of Trial Advocacy (NITA) Midwest Trial Training Program, Mr. White also completed three additional trial training programs. Mr. White earned a Bachelor of Theatre Arts degree from the University of Michigan and his law degree from the University of Toledo College of Law. In addition to serving on the Board of Detroit Public Theatre, he serves on the Board of Neighborhood Services Organization (NSO), and is the Executive Director of Youth Ministry at International Gospel Center Church.

Recognized by The Legal 500 United States for Transport: Rail and Road – Litigation and Regulation, 2021, Mr. White was also named to the 2021 Best Lawyers "Ones to Watch" list for Product Liability Litigation - Defendants, and recognized in Michigan Super Lawyers® as a Rising Star for Business Litigation, Class Action/Mass Torts and Personal Injury - Products: Defense, 2014-Present.

+ Sarah Winkler

Producing Artistic Director

See bio above under "Staff."

+ Zak Berkman

Advisory Board - Producing Director at People’s Light & Theatre, PA

Zak is Producing Director at People’s Light & Theatre, as well as a playwright, director, and dramaturg. Prior to joining People’s Light in September, 2011, Zak was co-founder and Executive Director of Artistic Programming with Epic Theatre Ensemble, an OBIE, Drama League, and Lucille Lortel award-winning artist-run company in New York City. During his ten years of leadership, Epic gained a distinguished reputation for developing new work and cultivating diverse, new audiences. The company’s numerous Off-Broadway premieres include Sarah Ruhl’s Passion Play, No Child... by Nilaja Sun, Palace of the End by Judith Thompson, and Hannah and Martin by Kate Fodor. Epic also produced the widely acclaimed New York revival of JB Priestley’s Time and the Conways. His own plays include Beauty on the Vine, A Breath Short of Breathing, and The Harassment of Iris Malloy. Beauty on the Vine has been produced in New York and Chicago, published by Dramatist Play Service, and starred Olivia Wilde and David Strathairn. Zak also co-adapted Antigone and The Visit for Epic’s nationally recognized Arts-In-Education residencies at public high schools throughout NYC. Berkman is a former scriptwriter for NBC’s Days of our Lives.

+ Celia Keenan-Bolger

Advisory Board - three-time TONY Nominated Actress and native Detroiter

Keenan-Bolger is a three-time TONY Award-nominated actress and an alumna of the Mosaic Youth Theatre of Detroit and the Detroit School of Arts High School (formerly the Detroit High School for the Fine and Performing Arts). She is a graduate of the University of Michigan’s musical theatre performance program. Just a few of Celia’s Broadway credits include The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee, Les Miserables, Peter and the Starcatcher, and The Glass Menagerie. Keenan-Bolger recently starred in the Lincoln Center production of Sarah Ruhl’s The Oldest Boy at the Mitzi E. Newhouse Theater.

+ Christopher Burney

Advisory Board - Associate Artistic Director at Second Stage Theatre, NYC

Christopher Burney serves as both the Associate Artistic Director of NewYork’s Second Stage Theatre and Curator of 2ST Uptown. He has worked with Second Stage since 1997. At Second Stage, he has shepherded productions of Bachelorette, By the Way, Meet Vera Stark, Trust, the Pulitzer Prize-winning Next to Normal, Becky Shaw, and Let Me Down Easy (conceived, written and performed by Anna Deavere Smith). While at Second Stage he has worked with such writers as Douglas Carter Beane, Paul Weitz, Craig Lucas, Lanford Wilson, William Finn, Stephen Sondheim, Sam Shepard, David Ives, Kenneth Lonergan, Albert Innuarto, Cheryl West, Martin Sherman, Wallace Shawn, Jason Miller, Wendy Kesselman, August Wilson, William Finn, Michael John LaChiusa and Stephen Sondheim. He has worked with many leading directors such as Trip Cullman, Peter Dubois, Mark Brokaw, Scott Ellis, Michael Greif, Gary Hines, James Lapine, Marion McClinton, and Kathleen Marshall. As curator for 2ST Uptown he has developed numerous emerging writers and directors including Rajiv Joseph, Marisa Wegrzyn, Roberto Aguirre Sacasa, Brooke Berman, Adam Bock, Carly Mensch, Trip Cullman and Joe Calarco, among others.

Christopher worked from 1991-1997 at The Lincoln Center Theater as the Assistant to the Director of Musical Theatre. He has consulted for organizations including the Philadelphia Theatre Initiative, the Kesselring Prize, the KurtWeill Foundation, The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and the Jerome Fellowship. He teaches at Columbia University in the School of the Arts and has lectured at Barnard College, The Einhorn School for the Performing Arts at Primary Stages, The Juilliard School, Bard College, The Boston School of Music, Marymount Manhattan College and the New England Theatre Conference. Christopher is a graduate of Brandeis University, B.A., and Columbia University, M.F.A.

+ Kathleen Chalfant

Advisory Board - TONY Nominated Actress

Kathleen Chalfant is an award-winning stage, film, and television actress recognized for both her high level of artistry and her deep involvement with social and cultural issues. Chalfant earned a TONY nomination for her role in the New York premiere of Angels in America, and won Drama Desk, OBIE, Lucille Lortel and Outer Critics Circle awards for starring in the original Broadway production of Wit.

Chalfant’s other New York stage credits include the New York premiere of Racing Demon, M. Butterfly, Spalding Gray: Stories Left to Tell, Talking Heads (for which she won a second OBIE Award), Great Expectations, Guantanamo, and Henry V at the New York Shakespeare Festival. Her film work includes Tony Gilroy’s Duplicity, Whit Stillman’s The Last Days of Disco and Bill Condon’s Kinsey. Her most recent television work includes House of Cards and The Affair.

In addition to her Drama Desk, OBIE, and Lucile Lortel honors, Chalfant has received the Drama League and Sidney Kingsley Awards for her body of work, as well as a 1996 OBIE Award for Sustained Excellence of Performance. A founding member of the Women’s Project, Chalfant is a board member of The Vineyard Theatre and Broadway Cares/ Equity Fights AIDS, and an advisory board member of the NewYork Foundation for the Arts. Chalfant has served as Artist in Residence at the Weill College of Medicine of Cornell University (2005 -- 2006) and a Beineke Fellow at the Yale School of Drama (spring 2006, fall 2008, fall 2010). She was awarded an honorary Doctorate of Humane Letters from the Cooper Union in June 2010.

+ Aaron Dworkin

Named a 2005 MacArthur Fellow, President Obama’s first appointment to the National Council on the Arts and Governor Snyder’s appointment to the Michigan Council for Arts & Cultural Affairs, Aaron P. Dworkin served as dean of the University of Michigan’s School of Music, Theatre & Dance (SMTD), which is ranked among the top performing arts schools in the nation. He is currently a tenured full professor of arts leadership and entrepreneurship at SMTD as well as serving as a Professor of Entrepreneurial Studies at the Stephen M. Ross School of Business at the University of Michigan. In addition, Aaron is a successful social entrepreneur having founded The GinBo Cup which focuses on diversity in eSports as well as The Sphinx Organization, the leading arts organization with the mission of transforming lives through the power of diversity in the arts. He is the producer and host of AaronAsk, a weekly online mentoring show on creativity and leadership. As a successful writer, Aaron has authored The Entrepreneurial Artist: Lessons from Highly Successful Creatives published by Rowman & Littlefield, a science-fiction novel, Ethos: Rise of Malcolm published by MorganJames, as well as his memoir titled Uncommon Rhythm: A Black, White, Jewish, Jehovah’s Witness, Irish Catholic Adoptee’s Journey to Leadership released through Aquarius Press, a poetry collection, They Said I Wasn’t Really Black, and a children’s book The 1st Adventure of Chilli Pepperz. A lifelong musician, Aaron is a spoken-word performing artist represented by Jensen Artists with a current national tour of his American Rhapsody with a national consortium of orchestras. He has collaborated with a breadth of artists including Yo-Yo Ma, Damien Sneed, Anna Deveare Smith, Damian Woetzel, Lil Buck and others. His visual digital art project, Fractured History, has been exhibited at multiple galleries and museums to rave reviews. He recorded and produced two CDs, entitled Ebony Rhythm and Bar-Talk, in addition to writing, producing, and directing the independent film Deliberation.

+ Nicole Eisenberg

Nicole Eisenberg is a respected philanthropic leader in Detroit and nationally. Nicole serves on the Board of Directors at the Detroit Institute of Arts as Chairman of the Development Committee and on the Collections Committee. She is a trustee on the board of the College for Creative Studies and also serves on its Fashion Accessories Board. Nicole’s other board service includes Friends of the Arts at Detroit Country Day School and the National Board of GLAAD. Nicole has been honored for her work in various local and national publications, most notably being named “Detroiter of the Year” by Hour Magazine in their Philanthropy Issue. Nicole and her husband Stephen have deep ties to Detroit and the surrounding counties and have supported the University of Michigan Health System for many years with a focus on Mott and the Cardiovascular Center.

+ James Kuhl

Advisory Board - Artistic Director at Tipping Point Theatre, MI

James is honored to be in his seventh season as Tipping Point Theatre’s Producing Artistic Director. He received his BA in theatre from Alma College and his MFA in acting from Wayne State University. He completed the Purple Rose Apprentice program as well as a two-year internship with Alma College where he helped teach classes. He is a past winner of the Heck Rabi Playwriting Competition, a Wilde Award and Pulsar Award Nominee and has recently taught acting classes with Wayne State University and Eastern Michigan University. Tipping Point directing credits include The Outgoing Tide, Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike, Last of the Red Hot Lovers, The Mystery of Irma Vep, Murder at the Howard Johnsons, as well as directing the Hilberry Theatre’s production of August: Osage County. James has worked as an area actor with The Purple RoseTheatre Company, Williamston Theatre,The Michigan Shakespeare Festival, Boarshead Theatre, Spotlight Theatre, Croswell Opera House, and the Summer Studio Theatre in Illinois.

+ Ashley Lucas

Advisory Board - Professor of Theatre & Drama, the Residential College, the Penny Stamps School of Art & Design, and English Language and Literature at the University of Michigan

Ashley Lucas is Professor of Theatre & Drama, the Residential College, the Penny Stamps School of Art & Design, and English Language and Literature at the University of Michigan (UM). For six years, she also served as Director of the Prison Creative Arts Project (PCAP) and is currently one of the faculty leads on a large-scale humanities archival project called Documenting Criminalization and Confinement. She holds a B.A. in Theater Studies and English from Yale University and a joint Ph.D. in Ethnic Studies and Theatre and Drama from the University of California, San Diego. She is a fellow of the Ford Foundation, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (UNC) Faculty Engaged Scholars Program, UNC’s Institute for Arts and Humanities, and UM’s Institute for the Humanities. Her research and teaching interests include U.S. Latina/o theatre, prison theatre, theatre for social change, and related topics in acting, playwriting, and comparative ethnic studies. Lucas is also the author of an ethnographic play about the families of prisoners entitled Doin’ Time: Through the Visiting Glass, which she has performed as a one-woman show throughout the U.S. and in Ireland, Brazil, and Canada. Her forthcoming book Prison Theatre and the Global Crisis of Incarceration (Bloomsbury, Sept. 2020) examines the ways in which incarcerated people use theatre to counteract the dehumanizing forces of the prison. Her scholarly publications include articles in the Journal of American Drama and Theatre, the Journal for the Study of Radicalism, Latin American Theater Review, American Music, and Revista de Literatura Contemporania de México. Together with sociologist Jodie Lawston, Lucas guest edited a special issue of the National Women’s Studies Association Journal on the topic of “Women and Criminal Justice: Policing, Prosecution, and Incarceration” (Summer 2008). Lucas and Lawston also collaborated on an edited volume entitled Razor Wire Women: Prisoners, Activists, Scholars, and Artists (SUNY Press 2011) and write a blog by the same title: http://razorwirewomen.wordpress.com. Lucas also runs the PCAP Brazil Exchange—an exchange program with the Universidade Federal do Estado do Rio de Janeiro and the Universidade do Estado de Santa Catarina—taking students to Rio and Florianópolis each summer to do theatre work inside prisons, hospitals, and favelas.

+ Maureen Martin

Advisory Board

+ Marsha Miro

Advisory Board - Founding Director of Museum of Contemporary Art, Detroit

Marsha was the art critic at The Detroit Free Press from 1974-1995. From 1995 she was the Architectural Historian at Cranbrook Educational Community in Bloomfield Hills. She was the Founding Director and Board President of MOCAD (Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit) from 2006.

+ Erik Rönmark

Advisory Board - Founding Director of Museum of Contemporary Art, Detroit

Erik came to the United States in 1996 to continue his musical education. A classical saxophonist by trade, Rönmark has extensive performing experience in both chamber music and orchestral settings. He has performed in the Detroit Symphony Orchestra on several occasions, as a guest in Detroit Chamber Winds and Strings, and regularly appears in the contemporary group New Music Detroit, of which he is also co-founder and Executive Director. Recently, Rönmark was featured with the Chamber Music Society of Detroit, culminating a national tour with the Pacifica String Quartet. A native of Sweden, Rönmark is a first-prize winner of both the Fischoff National Chamber Music Competition and the Coleman Chamber Music Competition. He is also the recipient of the American-Scandinavian Foundation’s award for establishing valuable relationships between Sweden and America. Using his diverse talents and skills within the music field, he has collaborated and assisted artists such as Karlheinz Stockhausen, Terry Riley, Matthew Barney, Shara Worden, and Branford Marsalis, and has commissioned and premiered over 30 new works for saxophone. Rönmark has been a part of the Detroit Symphony Orchestra administration since 2005. In his new role as General Manager, Rönmark combines his administrative experience with degrees in fine arts and music performance from Northern State University, SD and Bowling Green State University, OH, as well as a Doctorate of Musical Arts from the University of Michigan. He lives in Birmingham, MI with his wife Adrienne Rönmark, violinist with the Detroit Symphony Orchestra, and their three children.

+ Lisa Rothe

Advisory Board - Director of Off-Site Programs, Lark New Play Development Center, NYC

Lisa Rothe was recently nominated for SDC’s Joe A. Callaway Award for Direction for Hold These Truths by Jeanne Sakata.The play was also nominated for a Drama Desk award for Best Solo Performance by actor Joel de la Fuente (and produced by Epic Theatre Ensemble in NYC). The play has had productions at the Honolulu Theatre for Youth, the SoloNova Festival in NYC, Playmakers Repertory Theatre in NC and ACT in Seattle. Favorite recent work is Dear Elizabeth by Sarah Ruhl with People’s Light & Theatre Company, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof with Chautauqua Theater Company and Penelope by Ellen McLaughlin & Sarah Kirkland Snider with Playmakers Repertory Theatre. Along with composer Kim Sherman and librettist Margaret Vandenburg, Lisa has been developing a new opera about Ada Byron (Ada) by which was presented last spring as a part of the Center for Contemporary Opera’s Development Series.

Lisa has workshopped, developed and directed over one hundred new plays and musicals, working with many award- winning writers. For the last four years, she has also been the Director of Offsite Programs and Partnerships at the Lark Play Development Center in NYC, where she deals with providing expanded opportunities for playwrights, aimed at advancing new work to production nationally and globally. Lisa has also taught and directed at many theatre programs around the country including NYU’s Graduate Acting Program,Yale School of Drama,The Juilliard School, Chautauqua Conservatory, and the Einhorn School of Performing Arts (ESPA) at Primary Stages. She is a graduate of NYU’s Graduate Acting Program and Director’s Lab, as well as a Drama League alum, Fox Fellow, member of the Women’s Project Director’s Lab and is currently serving on the boards of the League of Professional Theatre Women as the VP of Membership. One of her favorite organizations is Dr.Jane Aronson’s World Wide Orphan Foundation (WWO), where she has spent time in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia creating theatre with children and teens and for local communities.

+ Ron Russell

Advisory Board - Executive Director, Epic Theatre Ensemble, NYC

Ron Russell is an accomplished Off-Broadway director and the Executive Director and Co-Founder of the nationally recognized education leader Epic Theatre Ensemble. While working with leaders from England’s Royal Shakespeare Company, Brazil’s Theatre of the Oppressed, and political action leaders across the U.S., Ron has amassed an arsenal of tools for participant empowerment, communication, and improving personal practice. His singular training style is a result of 20 years experience conducting over 5,000 workshops with over 40,000 students, teachers, conference participants, and industry professionals. Ron’s work is always individualized and responsive to the group’s goals and dynamics, and has been recognized by the highest awards in his field, from the OBIE Awards to civic citations from Mayors Giuliani and Bloomberg.

+ Rachel Sussman

Advisory Board - Co-founder, The MITTEN Lab

Rachel Sussman is a Tony Award-nominated producer committed to cultivating dynamic, inclusive theatrical work through meaningful collaboration. She is a co-founder of The MITTEN Lab, an emerging theatre artist residency program in her native state of Michigan, as well as The Business of Broadway, a new educational venture designed to democratize commercial producing knowledge. She currently works as a Producer with Plate Spinner Productions in addition to working as an independent producer. Broadway and national tour: co-producer on Heidi Schreck's Pulitzer Prize finalist and Tony Award-nominated play, What the Constitution Means to Me. Other producing credits include: the Obie Award-winning production of The Woodsman (New World Stages/ 59E59), Saturday Night Seder (Story Course), The Peculiar Patriot (Audible Theater), and Eh Dah? Questions for My Father (Next Door at NYTW). In development: Suffragist by Shaina Taub, Devotion by Mark Sonnenblick. A past Women's Project Lab Time Warner Foundation Fellow, Rachel was the recipient of the 2019 Geraldine Stutz T. Fellowship in Creative Producing, founded by Hal Prince in conjunction with Columbia University. She is a graduate of the Commercial Theater Institute and a University Honors Scholar alumna of NYU Tisch. She is currently an Adjunct Assistant Professor in Theatre at Columbia University's School of the Arts. www.rachel-sussman.com

+ Heather Ann Thompson

Advisory Board

Dr. Heather Ann Thompson is a historian at the University of Michigan, and is the Pulitzer Prize and Bancroft Prize-winning author of Blood in the Water: The Attica Prison Uprising of 1971 and Its Legacy (Pantheon Books, 2016). Blood in the Water won the Ridenhour Prize, the J. Willard Hurst Prize, the Public Information Award from the New York Bar Association, the Law and Literature Prize from the New York County Bar Association, the Media for a Just Society Award from the National Council for Crime and Delinquency, and the book also received a rarely-given Honorable Mention for the Silver Gavel Award from the American Bar Association.

Blood in the Water was also long listed for the Cundill Prize in History, and was a finalist for the National Book Award as well as the Los Angeles Times Book Award. Upon its release Blood in the Water was prominently reviewed and profiled in the New York Times in four different sections, and Thompson herself was profiled in the highly-coveted “Talk” section in the New York Times Magazine. Blood in the Water ultimately landed on fourteen “Best of 2016” lists including the New York Times Most Notable Books of 2016 list, and ones published by Kirkus, Publishers Weekly, Newsweek, Christian Science Monitor, the Boston Globe, and others.