Shows & Events

Martha Brigham has performed at La Jolla Playhouse, San Francisco Playhouse, Aurora Theatre Company, Shotgun Players, Jewel Theatre Company, Central Works, and Marin Theatre Company. Her more recent theatre credits include Gloria at American Conservatory Theatre, Cry It Out with Just Theatre (soon to be remounted at Aurora), and Patricia Cotter's World Premiere of The Daughters at San Fransisco Playhouse. Her film credits include Children of Sorrow, The Man in the Red Suit, and The Empire Builders.   Brigham graduated from the Lee Strasberg Theatre and Film Institute as well as studying with Steppenwolf West under alumni Tom Irwin and LA’s comedy improv group, The Groundlings. (She/Her/Hers) @marthb89

Margo Hall (Exit Strategy, Trouble In Mind; Global Age Project director) has performed and directed in theaters throughout the San Francisco Bay Area. She was last seen onstage in Skeleton Crew, a co-production with Marin Theatre Company and Theatreworks. She recently directed BARBECUE (which she also starred in) for San Francisco Playhouse and Brownsville, b-side for tray for Shotgun Players. Her writing credits include The People’s Temple at Berkeley Repertory Theater, which won the 2005 Will Glickman Playwright Award for best new play in the Bay Area, and Be Bop Baby, a Musical Memoir, a semi-autobiographical piece at Z Space in San Francisco, featuring the Marcus Shelby 15-piece orchestra. She is a founding member of the award-winning, San Francisco-based multi-cultural ensemble Campo Santo, and has directed, performed and collaborated on new plays with artists such as Naomi Iizuka, Jessica Hagedorn, Philip Kan Gotanda, and Octavio Solis.

Leigh Rondon-Davis (they/them) is a performer, visual artist, and dramaturg from both New York City and the Bay Area. They attended Wellesley College and was a member of Oakland's Laney College Fusion Theatre Project. Rondon-Davis’ stage credits include Crowded Fire Theater, Cutting Ball Theater, FaultLine Theater, Variance Festival, The Curran, and Magic Theatre, Shotgun Players, and Ubuntu Theater Project. They currently work for and is a Company Member at Ubuntu Theater Project in Oakland and Shotgun Players in Berkeley.

Carlos Aguirre

James Ard
barewiretheatre.com | Podcast

Phil Wong
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M. Graham Smith
M. Graham Smith is a San Francisco-based Director, Educator and Producer. He has been an O’Neill/NNPN National Directing Fellow, Oregon Shakespeare Festival FAIR Fellow and is a proud Resident Artist at SF’s Crowded Fire. He grew up outside of New York City and has been based in San Francisco for the last fourteen years. He’s directed in New York City, Philadelphia, Los Angeles, Portland Oregon, Washington DC, and venues in San Francisco. He directed the West Coast Premiere of Jerry Springer: The Opera in SF and Truffaldino Says No at Shotgun Players, winning Best Director for the Bay Area Critics Circle.  Recent credits include the World Premiere of Obie winner Christopher Chen’s Home Invasion in SF, Deal with the Dragon at ACT’s Costume Shop & Edinburgh Fringe, Mia Chung’s You for Me for You at Crowded Fire, and James Ijames’ WHITE at Shotgun. He spent five years as Producer of Aurora Theatre’s new play development program and festival The Global Age Project. He teaches in A.C.T.'s actor-training programs, Berkeley Rep School of Theatre and at Barcelona’s premiere Meisner Technique program in Spain. You can visit him online at www.MGrahamSmith.com

Molly Smith Metzler
Molly Smith Metzler (playwright) is the author of Cry it Out, Elemeno Pea, The May Queen, Carve, Close Up Space and Training Wisteria. Her regional credits include: Northlight Theatre, Actors Theatre of Louisville, South Coast Repertory, Boston Playwrights’ Theatre, The Eugene O'Neill Theater Center, Chautauqua Theater Company, City Theatre, PlayMakers Repertory Company, Geva Theatre Center, Mixed Blood Theatre Company and more. In New York City: Manhattan Theatre Club (MTC). Metzler’s awards include the Lecomte du Nouy Prize from Lincoln Center, the Harold and Mimi Steinberg National Student Playwriting Award from The Kennedy Center, the Association for Theatre in Higher Education's David Mark Cohen National Playwriting Award, the Mark Twain Prize for Comic Playwriting and a finalist nod for the Susan Smith Blackburn Prize. She is a proud alumna of the Ars Nova Play Group, the Dorothy Strelsin New American Writers Group at Primary Stages and the Cherry Lane Mentor Project. In television, Metzler has written for Casual (Hulu), Orange Is the New Black (Netflix), Codes of Conduct (HBO), and is currently a writer/producer on Shameless (Showtime). She is also a screenwriter, currently adapting Ali Benjamin’s award-winning novel The Thing About Jellyfish into a film for OddLot Entertainment with Made Up Stories and Pacific Standard (Reese Witherspoon’s company). Metzler was educated at the State University of New York at Geneseo, Boston University, New York University’s Tisch School for the Arts and the Juilliard School. She lives in Los Angeles and Kingston, N.Y.

Molly Aaronson-Gelb
Molly Aaronson-Gelb (Director) is the founder and Co-Artistic Director of Just Theater, for whom she directed We Are Proud to Present... (TBA Award for Outstanding Direction), A Maze (TBA Finalist for Outstanding Direction), Down A Little Dirt Road, Take Me To The Bridge, Far Away, The World Is Round, and Three Plays About Your Mom. Other directing credits include Spring Awakening (CenterREP), Living Together in the Norman Conquests Trilogy (Shotgun Players), the premiere of Blastosphere by Aaron Loeb and Geetha Reddy (Central Works), Aaron Loeb's First Person Shooter (Capital Stage) and Oliver! (Berkeley Playhouse). She has also directed for Crowded Fire, the SF Fringe Festival, and the Hangar Theater in Ithaca, NY. She has worked as an assistant director at Berkeley Rep, ACT, Cal Shakes, and The Women's Project, is a member of the Lincoln Center Director's Lab, and holds an MA in Performance Studies from Northwestern University. She is the Drama teacher at the College Preparatory School in Oakland and the Mother of a theater-loving four-year-old.

​Cameron Swartzell
Cameron has been the Technical Director of the Aurora Theatre Company for the last 7 years, covering 39 full productions. A Bay Area native and graduate of Cal State Hayward, he is grateful to have been able to make a career of his love of puzzle solving, engineering, and building in the ever challenging technical theatre world.   

​Ulises Alcala has designed costumes for various theatre groups in the Bay Area. From 2005 to 2015 he designed for the San Francisco Opera Center’s Merola Program, including The Marriage of Figaro, L’Elisir D’Amour, Don Giovanni and Don Pasquale.  Recent projects include The Winter's Tale at Santa Cruz Shakespeare, The Good Person of Szechuan and Quixote Nuevo at California Shakespeare Theatre, and The Merry Wives of Windsor at The Oregon Shakespeare Festival.  Upcoming productions include A Bull in a China Shop at Aurora Theatre Company, The Cake at Repertory Theatre of St. Louis and Bernhardt/ Hamlet at The Oregon Shakespeare Festival.

Amy Bobeda is an artist currently finishing her MFA in creative writing and poetics at Naropa University in Boulder Colorado. She spent many years working on wigs and hair at the Aurora while also the Hair and Makeup Supervisor at Berkeley Rep. She is the founder of the Wisdom Body Collective, an artist's collective rooted in the divine feminine. She now works primarily in mythology, collage, and video poetics rooted in her life of theatrical practice.

Callie Floor
Since coming to the Bay Area in 1987, she has designed for many theaters, including  ACT, Berkeley Repertory Theatre, Marin Theatre Company, Magic Theatre, San Francisco Mime Troupe, California Shakespeare Theatre, West Bay Opera, Zaccho Dance Theatre,  Word for Word and San Francisco Opera Merola Program. 
Ms. Floor earned her BFA from the University of Utah and her Higher Diploma in Theatre Design from the Slade School of Fine Art, University College, London. She is the Costume Rentals Supervisor for ACT and resident designer for California Revels.

Carlos Aguirre A.K.A. INFINITE (actor, musician, vocal percussionist, educator), has been performing both as an actor and hip hop artist in the Bay Area for over 19 years. He has shared the stage with The Roots, Erykah Badu, Black Eyed Peas, Mary J. Blige, Jam Master Jay, L.L. Cool J, Macy Gray and George Clinton among others. He is currently producing his original rap and beatbox adaptation of Edgar Allen Poe’s The Tell Tale Heart. Carlos shares his experience by teaching at various schools and at-risk environments throughout the Bay Area.

Alicia Piemme Nelson is an award-winning San Francisco/Bay Area based physical actor and teaching artist. She hails from San Jose, CA where she grew up playing imagination games in her backyard, and faithfully wearing her favorite pair of All Stars. She was raised by well-known Bay Area actor, director, and creator Karen Altree Piemme of Red Ladder Theatre Company, and found her love of performance at a young age thanks to her mother's inspiration. Originally a ballet dancer, she eventually turned to musical theatre, and finally found that her heart lies in physical comedy.

Dan Wolf is a rapper, playwright, director, actor, and teacher. His work crosses artistic and cultural borders to combine theatrical performance with the themes, language, music, history, politics, and aesthetics reflected in the hip hop generation. He recently featured on the Undercover Presents tribute album to A Tribe Called Quest’s “Midnight Marauders.” As part of the Resident Playwrights Initiative at the Playwright Foundation, Wolf is developing Curren$y - a theatrical rap show inspired by Shakespeare’s Merchant of Venice. As the Artistic Director of Sound in the Silence, Wolf works with an international group of partners, artists, students, and participants to create immersive performance experiences at locations such as memorial sites and community centers.

Phil Wong is an actor, director, comedian, musician, teaching artist, and rapper born and raised in the Bay Area. He’s a resident artist with the San Francisco Shakespeare Festival, and his influences range from MF DOOM to Guo Maoqian, Slim Shady to Stephen Sondheim. Wong’s recent stage credits include Cutting Ball Theatre, Shotgun Players, Word for Word, Killing My Lobster, Ray of Light, and TheatreWorks.

Elton Bradman’s (Music and Sound Design) recent composer/sound designer credits include UC Berkeley’s radio play Snowflakes, Or Rare White People; Shotgun Players’ Kill Move Paradise; Marin Theatre Company’s How I Learned What I Learned and The Who & The What; African-American Shakespeare Company’s productions of Black Eagles, A Streetcar Named Desire, and Richard III; ACT’s Medea and TiJean and His Brothers; Bay Area Children’s Theater’s production of A Year with Frog & Toad; Santa Cruz Shakespeare productions of Comedy of Errors and Pride & Prejudice; Faultline Theater Company’s Where the Boys Are; and Skeleton Crew at Geffen Playhouse.

Melissa Hillman is the former Artistic Director of Impact Theatre in Berkeley, a small professional company that specializes in new plays by emerging playwrights and reimagined classics. She been blogging, as Bitter Gertrude, about culture, equity, and the arts since 2013. Melissa is a PwD, a PhD, and a lifelong educator & theatremaker. In addition to writing, she works as a consultant for both individuals and organizations in DEIB (diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging; specializing in performing arts and education) and dramaturgy. Specialties include Shakespeare, new play development, Ancient Greek drama, and critical analysis. Her interests outside the world of theatre and lit include history, especially Medieval and Renaissance Europe, with a particular interest in popular culture and culinary history. She’s also a D&D DM, a Rancho Obi-Wan volunteer, an avid baker, and a gamer! Melissa and her husband are members of The 501st Legion. She lives in Albany with her husband and their son and daughter.

A first-generation American of Spanish and Salvadoran descent, Christian Cagigal splits his time between San Francisco and New York City: Magician at Speakeasy Magick at the McKittrick Hotel in NYC, Co-Producer for Odd Salon NYC, Owner of the San Francisco Ghost Hunt, and Co-Founder of Fog City Magic Fest. Cagigal has twice been named a Finalist for the Theatre Bay Area Award for Best Solo Performer, recipient of a Mastermind Award by the SF Weekly, and five-time winner of the Best Magician of the Bay Award by the San Francisco Bay Guardian.
His previous shows include the popular Pandora Experiment, the long-running OBSCURA, the secretive happenings of The Collection, and the critically acclaimed Now and at the Hour which has been seen in New York, Montréal, Chicago, New Orleans, Minneapolis and San Francisco – all shows originally produced by EXIT Theatre. Christian can also be seen in the independent, power-pop, musical film, Fruit Fly written and directed by H.P. Mendoza.

Robert Hurwitt, former drama critic for the San Francisco Chronicle, and before that the San Francisco Examiner and the East Bay Express, is interviewed by Richard Wolinsky.
Robert Hurwitt retired in April 2016 after a long and distinguished career as a critic and theater reviewer. Born as a “red diaper baby” and growing up in New York City’s suburbs, his love of theater began early. After moving to San Francisco and working as a free-lance writer, he was hired by the Express and later the Examiner — and when the Examiner was bought by Hearst, the San Francisco Chronicle, where he spent several years as the single most important critic in the region.

Sam Hurwitt is a freelance arts journalist who writes regularly about theater for Theatre Bay Area and the Marin Independent Journal and has written for American Theatre, San Francisco Chronicle, San Francisco Examiner, Kichen Sink, Variety, East Bay Express, Austin Chronicle, Pacific Sun, Budapest Sun and other publications. His fiction has been published in Fourteen Hills, The Misfit Library, Defunkt and the Doubleday anthology Voices of the Xiled.  

Rulan Tangen's work explores movement as an evolving language of global Indigenous relation building,  rooted in inclusion of diverse cosmologies from her own experience and those of the artists with whom  she creates. Her contemporary dance practice strives to serve as functional ritual for transformation and healing, animating of decolonizing process, integrating concurrent universes of ancient futurities in the moment of now, expressing energetic connection with all relations – human and beyond. As Founding Artistic Director/Choreographer of DANCING EARTH, she has passionately cultivated successive generations of Indigenous contemporary performing artists as cultural ambassadors and conduits for social change She is recipient of 2018-19  Kennedy Center Citizen Artist award for Service, Justice, Freedom, Courage, and Gratitude - and is grateful for all that roots her, for the dreaming and doing of Dancing Earth : moving, shaking and stomping the world into renewal. She is honored to join Aurora Connects, in a cyberspace conversation rooted in Ohlone lands of East Bay. As  we approach Indigenous Peoples Day, as a woman of Kampampangan/Norweigian and mixed heritage, she considers  how to be a helpful ally to local Native land stewards. Thus, she will be donating her honoraria for this event to  Sogorea Te' Land Trust - an urban Indigenous women-led land trust that facilitates the return of Indigenous land to Indigenous people by  requesting an optional land tax of Bay Area residents. www.sogoreate-landtrust.org

Michael J. Asberry appeared on Aurora's stage in Exit Strategy and Satellites. He recently performed in When We Were Colored with the Sacramento Theatre Company; Sweat with Capital Stage Company; and A Midsummer Night’s Dream with the San Francisco Shakespeare Festival. Film and television credits include San Andreas (Warner Brothers); Chance (Hulu); Trauma (NBC); Nash Bridges (CBS), and voiceover for Pixar Animation, Pine Sol, and the video game Watchdogs 2. To my family, my friends and my colleagues, I am truly grateful. Artists: Let’s keep making people laugh, cry, think, and DO... Spread Love.

Khalia Davis is a multidisciplinary artist from the San Francisco/Bay Area now living in New York with a passion for children’s entertainment and desire for content creation. BA in Theater Arts from the University of Southern California.

Recent: Directed the world premiere musical, She Persisted: The Musical by Deborah Wicks La Puma and Adam Tobin based on the popular children’s book by Chelsea Clinton with Bay Area Children’s Theatre. Directed the world premiere play for the very young, Pillowland by Barbara Zinn Krieger with New York City Children’s Theater and the Bay Area Premiere, Judy Moody and Stink and the Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad Treasure Hunt by Allison Gregory, a part of the seven TYA company co-commission with Bay Area Children’s Theatre.

Khalia currently teaches with New York City Children’s Theater, the Atlantic Acting School through NYU, for their after school programs as a director and choreographer, and for the Disney Theatrical Group leading music and movement workshops and facilitating audience and community engagement. As a professional movement coordinator, she has devised new works with Bay Area Children’s Theater including creating choreography for the award-nominated world premiere production, THE DAY THE CRAYONS QUIT; launching the award-winning young performers group, Advanced Performers for Bay Area Children’s Theatre as their lead choreographer, earning Best Choreography for Honk Jr. at the Junior Theater Festival in Atlanta; New York City Children’s Theater and Atlantic Acting School’s teen conservatory and high school residency program, Staging Success. She is also a director/actor/teaching artist for the nationally-known arts education organization The Story Pirates. As an Equity performer, she has worked regionally with Bay Area Children’s Theatre (Resident Artist), Live Source Theater Group, TheatreWorks Silicon Valley, Aurora Theatre, and California Shakespeare Theater just to name a few. Awards: Emerging Leader in TYA Fellow 2019, RHE Scholarship nominated 2016, Titan Award Finalist 2014. Tours: Gold Rush The Musical, Rock The Block, Ladybug Girl, and Bumblebee Boy The Musical. To learn more about Ms. Davis, check her out at www.khaliashdavis.com!   

Patrick Dooley, Founding Artistic Director of Shotgun Players
Patrick started Shotgun Players in 1992 in the basement of a pizza parlor with a few friends and a desire to make great theatre that was also affordable. Before that he received a B.A. in English from James Madison University, in Virginia. While there, he cut his theatre teeth as a founding member of the American Shakespeare Center. Since then, Patrick has directed over 40 plays and overseen the production of nearly 100 others. In 2007, he led an effort to make the Ashby Stage the first 100% solar-powered theater in America. He is married and has three beautiful daughters.

Johanna Pfaelzer is delighted to join Berkeley Rep, and honored to serve as its fourth artistic director. She recently spent 12 years as the artistic director of New York Stage and Film (NYSAF), a New York City-based organization dedicated to the development of new works for theatre, film, and television. NYSAF is known for providing a rigorous and nurturing environment for writers, directors, and other artists to realize work that has gone on to production at the highest levels of the profession. Notable works that were developed under Johanna’s leadership include the 2016 Tony Award winners Hamilton by Lin-Manuel Miranda, and The Humans by Stephen Karam, The Wolves by Sarah DeLappe, Junk and The Invisible Hand by Ayad Akhtar, A 24-Decade History of Popular Music by Taylor Mac, Hadestown by Anaïs Mitchell, The Homecoming Queen by Ngozi Anyanwu, The Great Leap by Lauren Yee, John Patrick Shanley’s Pulitzer- and Tony-Award-winning Doubt, The Fortress of Solitude by Michael Friedman and Itamar Moses, The Jacksonian by Beth Henley, and Green Day’s American Idiot.

Brad Erickson serves as executive director for Theatre Bay Area, one of the nation’s largest regional performing arts service organizations, with more than 320 theatre and dance company members and some 2,200 individual members. For thirteen years, Erickson has led the organization’s efforts to support, promote, and advocate for the region’s vibrant theatre and dance community. Under Erickson’s leadership, Theatre Bay Area has gained a national reputation for innovative programs and services for the field, and their nationwide study on the intrinsic impact of the theatre experience on the audience is a leading example. For six years Erickson served as president of Californians for the Arts (CFTA) and California Arts Advocates (CAA). He currently serves as Treasurer of both CFTA and CAA and as California State Captain for Americans for the Arts, and is the past Chair of the State Arts Action Network. Also a playwright, Erickson’s plays have won several awards and have been produced in theaters from San Francisco to Indianapolis. Erickson received a BFA in acting from the Goodman School of Drama (now The Theatre School) at DePaul University.

Courtney Flores is a Bay Area Native who has worked as a Freelance Theatre Costume Designer for sixteen years. She has designed both in and around the San Francisco Bay Area as well as outside of California. She believes in the art of collaboration with fellow theatre designers and artists and is inspired by sharing ideas and creating a world together, rather than alone.

Through her work in design, she has had the opportunity to work in other paths in Theatre, such as becoming a Co-Founding Member of the Bay Area Latino Theatre Artists Network. Courtney also served for three years as a member of the Latinx Theatre Commons and has since transitioned to the Latinx Theatre Commons Advisory Committee.  Also, she co-developed with Scenic Designer Regina Garcia, an online journal series on Howlround.com, called La Esquinita, which profiled Latina/o Theatre Designers and Technicians. Courtney is currently an Adjunct Lecturer at California State University East Bay, where she currently teaches classes in Costume Design and Theatre as well as working as Production Administrative Support Assistant for the Theatre and Dance Department at CSUEB. Her most recent project is working with La Gente: The Latinx Theatre Design Network, which is a collaborative of Latinx Theatre Designers and Technicians working together to create a website to showcase their work and their importance in the Theatre landscape.

Marissa Keltie has worked as an actor at Aurora Theatre, Jewel Theatre, Symmetry Theatre, Magic Theatre, Marin Theatre Company, Cal Shakes, Shotgun Players, Crowded Fire, Custom Made, Central Works, California Theatre Center, San Francisco Playhouse, Berkeley Playhouse, & Impact Theatre.

Jasmine Milan Williams is thankful and grateful for her gift and ability of storytelling! Her recent work includes: Bull in a China Shop by Bryna Turner( Aurora Theatre), Inked Baby by Christina Anderson (Crowded Fire Theater Company), The Last Sermon of Sister Imani ( Theater First), and Waafrika (Theater First). Companies she has shared space with include:Campo Santo(Company Member) ,Theater First, Those Woman Production company, African American Shakespeare Company, and New Conservatory Theater Company. She thanks her family and friends for always encouraging her to follow her dreams, and standing behind an artist that works to change the world through her art!

“Its and Artist Duty to Reflect the Times.”- Nina Simone.

Craig Marker is a San Francisco Bay Area actor. Aurora credits include The Shape of Things (2002), The Persians (2004), and Fifth of July (2015). Other credits include his roles as King Henry VIII and James I in Anne Boleyn and Nick Bright in Invisible Hand at Marin Theatre Company, Frederick Fellows in Noises Off at San Francisco Playhouse, and Alcippe in The Liar at Center REPertory Company. Marker has performed for California Shakespeare Theater, San Jose Repertory Theatre, Portland Center Stage, La Jolla Playhouse, Berkeley Repertory Theatre, The San Francisco Shakespeare Festival, TheatreWorks, Shotgun Players, Barbican Theatre (UK), Birmingham Repertory Theatre (UK), Edinburgh Fringe Festival (UK), and the Cyprus International Festival of Greek Drama. Marker is a graduate of Cal State East Bay’s theatre program and is a proud member of Actors’ Equity Association. For more information visit www.craig-marker.com.

Jeanette Marker | Bio Coming Soon

Michael Torres was last seen at Aurora in 2019's The Importance of Being Earnest. He co-founded Campo Santo in 1996, where he originated roles for Dave Eggers, Denis Johnson, Jose Rivera, Jessica Hagedorn, Octavio Solis and more. In ‘96, he co-founded Campo Santo where he originated roles for Dave Eggers, Denis Johnson, Jose Rivera, Jessica Hagedorn, Octavio Solis and more. An award winning actor, Michael has played at The Shotgun Players, Crowded Fire, Word for Word, Berkeley Repertory, Teatro Campesino, California Shakespeare Theatre,The Magic, TheatreFirst among others and has toured the U.S.A. and Europe in shows. Recently, he co-directed with Elena Wright The Farm by Jon Tracy for TheatreFirst. Film wise, you can see him in About Cherry as Po and as Crow in The Other Barrio. Michael is the Chair of the Laney College Theatre Arts Department where he founded The Fusion Theatre Project.  Michael holds a BA from San Francisco State and an MFA from the University of California at San Diego.

Rafael Jesús González, born in the bicultural/bilingual setting of El Paso, Texas/Juárez, Chihuahua, attended the University of Texas El Paso, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, & the University of Oregon. Professor Emeritus of Creative Writing & Literature, he has taught at the University of Oregon, Western State College of Colorado, Central Washington State University, the University of Texas at El Paso, and Laney College, Oakland (where he founded the Mexican and Latin American Studies Dept.) He has thrice been nominated for a Pushcart Prize. He was Poet in Residence at the Oakland Museum of California and the Oakland Public Library under the Poets & Writers “Writers on Site” award in 1996. He served as contributing editor for The Montserrat Review and received the Annual Dragonfly Press Award for Literary Achievement in 2002 & 2012. In 2003 he was honored by the National Council of Teachers of English & Annenberg/CPB for his writing. In 2013 he received the César E. Chávez Lifetime Award. The City of Berkeley honored him with a Lifetime Achievement Award in 2015 and was named the City of Berkeley's first Poet Laureate in 2017.

James Carpenter is an Associate Artist with California Shakespeare Theater and a former Associate Artist with Berkeley Repertory Theatre. Former shows at Aurora include American Buffalo, John Gabriel Borkman, The Birthday Party. Other credits include: Magic Theatre, Marin Theatre Company, Mark Taper Forum, The Old Globe, the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, Yale Repertory Theatre, Santa Cruz Shakespeare, the Huntington Theatre Company, and Intiman Theatre. Screen credits include the feature films The Rainmaker and Metro, the independent films Singing and For the Coyotes, and the series Nash Bridges. Carpenter is the recipient of many San Francisco Bay Area Theatre Critics Circle Awards, including the 2007 Award for Excellence in the Arts and the 2013 Lifetime Achievement Award. In 2010, he was named a Ten Chimneys Foundation Lunt-Fontanne Fellow.

Cassandra Carpenter has been a professional Costume Designer in the Bay Area for over 25 years. Theatre credits include: American Conservatory Theatre School of Theatre productions, Berkeley Repertory Theatre, Marin Theatre Company, San Jose Repertory Company, San Jose Stage Company, The Magic Theatre, Word for Word, Aurora Theatre Company, San Fransisco Shakespeare Festival, Center Repertory Company, and Chanticleer( 2 operas). Dance design for : Smuin Ballets SF, Oberlin Dance Collective, Anne Bluthenthal Dancers. She has been on the costume staff of the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, Old Globe Theatre, Berkeley Rep, San Jose Rep and California Shakespeare Festival. Cassandra also operated her own independent costume studio; CMC&design in downtown San Fransisco from 1997 to 2016. Clients included: Smuin Ballets SF., San Fransisco Ballet, San Fransisco Opera, Macy's Passport, Baz Luhrman's La Boheme, Carousel du Roi a Horse Ballet, Jersey Boys, White Christmas (SF, LA,UK and Broadway) and many other commercial projects.  Film credits include several video games, music videos. Independent films:For the Coyotes ; SF Ballet 2018 New Works Festival promo film. Costume/Makeup design for Spartan Films: Green Ninja (original episodes);  SuperHero Party Clown;  2019 Breakfast (based on John Steinbeck short story).

(Lisjan Ohlone) Corrina Gould is the tribal spokesperson for the Confederated Villages of Lisjan/Ohlone. Born and raised in her ancestral homeland, the Ohlone territory of Huchiun, she is the mother of three and grandmother of four. Corrina has worked on preserving and protecting the ancient burial sites of her ancestors throughout the Bay Area for decades. She is a Co-Founder/Co-Director of the Sogorea Te’ Land Trust.

Eric Ting is an Obie Award-winning director, Artistic Director of California Shakespeare Theater and a proud member of SDC for more than a decade. He previously served as Long Wharf Theatre Associate Artistic Director. Recent credits include the world premiere of Sam Hunter’s Lewiston (Long Wharf Theatre), To Kill a Mockingbird (Cincinnati Playhouse), The World of Extreme Happiness (Manhattan Theatre Club / Goodman), Appropriate (Mark Taper Forum), Kimber Lee’s Brownsville Song (LWT / Philadelphia Theatre Co), A Great Wilderness (Williamstown), Nora Chipaumire’s Miriam (BAM Next Wave), Jackie Sibblies Drury’s We Are Proud to Present a Presentation… (world premiere, Soho Rep / Victory Gardens) and Rising Son (world premiere, Singapore Rep). Ting is a founding member of the artists’ collective INTELLIGENT BEASTS. Upcoming: Othello (Cal Shakes), Octavia E. Butler’s Parable of the Sower with Toshi Reagon (National Tour) and Branden Jacobs-Jenkins’ An Octoroon (Berkeley Rep). He is a receipient of a TCG New Generations fellowship, a Jerome & Roslyn Milstein Meyer Career Development Prize, a NEFA National Theatre Project grant, and (with Meiyin Wang) a MAP Fund Award. Additionally, he has served on grant panels including the Doris Duke Charitable Trust, Jerome and McKnight Foundations, NEA, TCG, PONY, Creative Work Fund and Alpert Awards.

Deborah Cullinan
Yerba Buena Center for the Arts (YBCA) CEO Deborah Cullinan is one of the nation’s leading thinkers on the pivotal role artists and arts organizations can play in shaping our social and political landscape, and has spent years mobilizing communities through arts and culture. Deborah is committed to revolutionizing the role art centers play in public life and during her tenure at YBCA, she has launched several bold new programs, engagement strategies, and civic coalitions. Prior to joining YBCA in 2013, she was the Executive Director of San Francisco’s Intersection for the Arts. She is a co-founder of CultureBank, co-chair of the San Francisco Arts Alliance, Vice Chair of the Yerba Buena Gardens Conservancy, and on the boards of the Community Arts Stabilization Trust and HumanMade. She is a Field Leader in Residence at Arizona State University’s National Accelerator for Cultural Innovation and a former Innovator in Residence at the Kauffman Foundation. She currently serves on Governor Gavin Newsom’s Jobs and Business Recovery Task Force.

Katherine Sanderlin has been Aurora's Development Director since April 2020. She has been out and proud since the age of 19. Before discovering a career in non-profit development, Katherine performed in over 140 theatrical productions in the US and abroad. As an educator, she taught human rights and social justice to elementary school students at the Ethical Culture Fieldston School. She lives with her wife Judi in San Francisco.

Amy Rachel
Born and raised in Central Florida, Amy had an idyllic childhood, except for having been misdiagnosed as a boy at birth. While she was always aware that she was different, she was in her 40s before she discovered precisely what it was and began to live authentically. Since coming out as a transgender lesbian woman, she rediscovered her passion for writing, and, thanks to the thriving LGBTQ+ community in Central Florida and beyond, begun learning about advocacy and activism. She is currently working within her church to move towards full inclusion and affirmation of all marginalized communities within the church, and is developing resources which other churches can use in their own efforts to reconcile with marginalized communities.

Amy has worked in IT since elementary school, where teachers would pull her out of class to help them with technical support, and is now an IT Director for a Fortune 500 company. She also has a passion for performing arts (not on stage, though), and has especially enjoyed opportunities to be part of the magic by performing different front-of-house duties for tent shows from Cirque du Soleil and Cavalia.

Leon Jones began his professional career in Berkeley Rep's production of Macbeth starring Frances McDormand and Conleth Hill. Jones went on to attend the performing arts high school, Oakland School for the Arts, for Acting and Musical theatre, performing in the productions of ...And Jesus Moonwalks Mississippi by Marcus Gardley as Damascus/Demeter, The Oresteia: Agamemnon as the Watchmen's Friend an original adaptation by Matthew Travisano, Hamlet by William Shakespeare as The First Play (Player King) and Rising by Elly Rokeach as Curly in the Theatre department's 2019 New Work Festival. Besides acting, Leon is the Founding Executive Director of Youth Uproar Theatre Company and Founding Artistic Director of Manifested Theatre Company.

Kinman Tong is currently a partner at Moss Adams LLP and has practiced public accounting since 2003. He serves a diverse spectrum of not-for-profit and governmental entities, providing assurance and consulting services to educational institutions, research organizations, foundations, community health centers, international non-governmental organizations, social welfare organizations, and ancillary health care entities. Kinman's passion for diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) has encouraged him to help launch several business resource groups (BRGs) at Moss Adams, including PRiDE and Asian BRGs. He currently serves on the firm's Inclusion & Diversity Advisory Board, with a mission is to foster an inclusive and diverse culture where everyone feels they belong and to be an anti-racist firm.  Kinman is excited to be the newest board member of the Aurora Theatre Company, where he hopes to bring his passion for not-for-profit, accounting and finance, DEI – and the arts. He is honored to be featured as one of the 2021 OUTstanding Voices in the San Francisco Business Times' Business of Pride.

Sarah Williams is Cal Shakes Managing Director after four years at Berkeley Repertory Theatre, where she served as the Associate Managing Director. In her role at Berkeley Rep, Sarah managed the administrative operations of The Ground Floor: Berkeley Rep’s Center for the Creation and Development of New Work, producing new play workshops, readings, and The Ground Floor’s cornerstone program, the Summer Residency Lab. In addition to supporting Berkeley Rep’s mainstage productions, Sarah produced many of Berkeley Rep’s special event productions including Mike Birbiglia’s The New One, The Second City’s Dysfunctional Holiday Revue and Left Leaning and Always Right, and Fran Lebowitz: In Conversation. In summer 2018, Sarah served as tour manager for Berkeley Rep’s production of Ain’t Too Proud – The Life and Times of The Temptations which played for five weeks to sold-out houses at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C. During her tenure at Berkeley Rep, Sarah managed the entitlement, development, and financing process for Berkeley Rep’s artist housing project, a seven-story mixed use building consisting of 45 apartments, classrooms, and production space.

Prior to Berkeley Rep, Williams served as the Associate Managing Director at Yale Repertory Theatre and held positions with the Huntington Theatre Company and Boston Symphony Orchestra. Sarah has served for five years on the League of Resident Theatres (LORT) Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion Committee, and serves on the board of Crowded Fire Theater in San Francisco. She holds a BA from Boston College and an MFA from Yale School of Drama where she was the recipient of the Morris J. Kaplan prize for recognition in theater management.

Shannon Davis is a San Francisco Bay Area-based Director/Artivis. Credits include New Native Theatre Company, American Conservatory Theatre, American Indian Community House, The American Repertory Theatre, Oregon Shakespeare Festival, Berkeley Rep, Brava Theater, Shotgun Players, CalShakes, TheaterWorks, Theatre Bay Area, San Francisco Playhouse, many others.

Steven Flores is a multidisciplinary artist: dancer, actor on stage and television (also a stuntman), painter, and puppet-maker.

Dena Martinez has over 30 years of national professional acting experience to her credits. She has toured nationally, with The San Francisco Mime Troupe, Culture Clash, and with the acclaimed El Teatro Campesino, where she was a company artist.
Her theater credits include: leading roles at California Shakespeare Company, Berkeley Rep., Word for Word, Campo Santo, San Jose Rep., San Jose Stage, B Street, Capital Stage, Magic Theater, Theaterworks, Pacific Rep, and Shotgun Players. She has workshopped and created many roles for national playwrights including Karen Zacharias, Beth Henley, Octavio Solis, Marcus Gardley, Caridad Svich, and Josefina Lopez.
She has starred in two children’s television series for PBS. Emmy award-winning You Can Choose and Short Stories and Tall Tales. Her voice over work includes Pixar and Coppola/Zoetrope Productions.
Dena is also a popular casting director, director, and instructor. She also coaches in the Tribal Belly Dance world. She has taught as SF Mecca Immersion and Tribal Fest where she brings theater to professional belly dances who perform in major rock and roll, tribal, electronica, and circus shows and concerts internationally.

Lavina Jadhwani is a Chicago based theater director and adapter with almost 15 years of facilitation experience: as a standardized patient for the Feinberg School of Medicine (where she role plays medical scenarios with and provides written and verbal feedback to medical students at Northwestern University), as a post show discussion moderator/audience engagement associate at theaters like Steppenwolf Theatre Company and Writers Theatre in Glencoe, and more. As a theater director and writer, her work has been featured at the Guthrie, Oregon Shakespeare Festival, Asolo Rep, and others.

A recent breast cancer survivor, Lavina was nominated by her hospital (Advocate Illinois Masonic) to be the honorary captain of the Chicago Bulls in October 2017. A seasoned voiceover artist, she recently helmed a campaign for Kaiser Permanente. She has years of experience in marketing and fundraising at local theaters like the Goodman, Silk Road Rising, and Chicago Children's Theatre. In 2020, Lavina was named "One of the Top Fifty People Who Really Perform for Chicago" by NewCity. In 2013, she was TimeOut Chicago's "Best Next Generation Stage Director."

Lavina is a first generation South Asian American who grew up in the suburbs of Chicago. She holds a BFA in Drama and Masters in Arts Management with Carnegie Mellon University and a MFA from the Theatre School at DePaul University. She is also an alum of the Illinois Mathematic and Science Academy.

Rose Oser is a theater producer, playwright, and performer. ​She is currently the Associate Artistic Director of Z Space in San Francisco, where she produces plays and musicals, helps curate the rentals and co-productions, and manages the grant writing. Through artistic positions at Z Space and FaultLine Theater she has produced first workshops or world premiere productions by Rachel Bublitz, Karina Cochran, Barry Eitel, Vanessa Flores, Dan Giles, Jake Jeppson, Nayia Kuvetakis, Luna Malbroux, Adrienne Price, Savannah Reich, Kate E. Ryan, and Andrew Saito. She is the book writer of Tinderella: the modern musical (world premiere April 2018 co-produced by FaultLine Theater and Custom Made), which has garnered 9 SFBATCC nominations including Best Production and was named a TBA Finalist for Outstanding World Premiere Musical. She produces and hosts Tinder Disrupt, San Francisco’s longest running and most sexually successful PowerPoint dating show. She received the LMDA Bly Grant in 2018 to produce the first annual Problematic Play Festival at Z Space to interrogate the process of evaluating and selecting new work. She was the Co-Artistic Director of FaultLine Theater from 2016-2019 (recipient of Annette Lust Award in 2018), and worked as a grant writer for American Conservatory Theater from 2014-2017. She holds a BA in Rhetoric from University of California, Berkeley.

Trieu Tran is a stage, screen and television actor. Born in Vietnam, immigrated to Canada and raised in Boston, Massachusetts. He has dual citizenship with Canada and USA. He has appeared in numerous theatrical productions through the years. Notably, the role of Alan Strang in Equus (LADCC Nomination) with George Takei @EWP, the title role in Oedipus The King (Portland), The Legacy Codes (Dean Goodman Award) with TheatreWorks. Other favorites include: Rashomon, As You Like It, Merchant of Venice, Henry IV Part One (Hotspur), and the title role in Richard III. Film: Tropic Thunder, Trade of Innocents, How High, Hancock, Desperation, Last Call. TV:  Currently a series regular on Netflix’s Altered Carbon portraying the role of the fixer Mister Leung.  Others include: The Newsroom, Intruders, Men At Work, Quickdraw (Hulu), Malcolm in the Middle.  Uncle Ho To Uncle Sam is his first solo play written with co-author Robert Egan. Uncle Ho to Uncle Sam was first developed at the Ojai Playwrights Conference in 2011. It had its world premiere for Seattle ACT in Fall 2012 (Seattle Times Footlight Award/Gypsy Rose Nomination). Uncle Ho to Uncle Sam also had a run at The Kirk Douglas Theatre, Shakespeare Orange County, PlayMakers Rep (North Carolina). 

Trieu is an avid practitioner of Brazilian Jiu Jitsu. Mixed Martial Arts and Boston Redsox fanatic. A lover of Boston Terriers, especially his best friend Captain.

Tim Bond began his career in Seattle with Seattle Group Theatre in 1984 where he directed over 20 productions, many that were West Coast and World Premieres. He served as Associate Artistic Director and was also Director of The Group’s nationally recognized MultiCultural Playwrights Festival. Tim served his last five seasons at The Group as its Artistic Director from 1991–96. From 1996 to 2007, Tim was an Associate Artistic Director of Oregon Shakespeare Festival. While there Tim directed 12 productions for OSF, promoted equity and inclusion efforts throughout the company, and created the FAIR Program which cultivates the next generation of diverse theatre artists and administrators.

After 11 seasons at OSF Tim assumed the post of Producing Artistic Director at Syracuse Stage and the Syracuse University Department of Drama from 2007 to 2016. During his time in Upstate New York he directed 18 plays, produced over 100 plays and musicals, and fostered a number of new partnerships and co-productions between Syracuse Stage and other regional theatres nationally and internationally.

Over the last 35 years Tim has directed at many theatres including The Market Theatre (Johannesburg), Baxter Theatre Centre (Cape Town), Guthrie Theater (Minneapolis), Milwaukee Rep, The Wilma Theater (Philadelphia), Arena Stage (DC), GEVA Theatre Center (Rochester), Cleveland Play House, Indiana Rep, Actors Theatre of Louisville, PCPA (Santa Maria), Arizona Theatre Company, Portland Center Stage, Dallas Theater Center, Seattle Rep, A Contemporary Theatre (Seattle), Empty Space Theatre (Seattle), Paul Robeson Theatre, and Seattle Children’s Theatre.

Most recently Tim has had tenure as a full Professor at University of Washington’s School of Drama where he served the last two years as Head of the Professional Actor Training Program. He will conclude his tenure there this spring after directing Cabaret. He will direct The Children by Britain’s Lucy Kirkwood at Seattle Rep in February, will helm a workshop of a music-filled play inspired by the imagination of young Jimi Hendrix entitled The Boy Who Kissed The Sky written by Idris Goodwin at the Kennedy Center’s New Visions/New Voices Festival in May, and will direct Lynn Nottage’s Pulitzer Prize-winning play Sweat for the Guthrie Theater in July.

Tim’s production of Sweat at Dallas Theater Center in January was awarded a Dallas-Fort Worth Critics Forum Award for Outstanding Direction, and his production of Pass Over by Antoinette Nwandu received several Seattle theatre Gregory Award nominations this fall. Tim has also received two Backstage West Garland Awards for Outstanding Direction and two Syracuse Area Live Theatre (SALT) Awards for Outstanding Production and Director of the Year. He has served on the national boards of trustees for both Theatre Communications Group and ASSITEJ: The International Association of Theatre for Children and Young Audiences. His work as an organizational leader, teacher, and stage director has led him to South Africa, The Republic of the Congo, Beijing, Hong Kong, Japan, Mexico, Uzbekistan, Austria, France, England, and Belgium.

Tim received his BFA in Dramatic Arts from Howard University in 1980 and his MFA in Directing from the University of Washington in 1983.

Natalie Greene (Intimacy/Movement Director) is an artist and educator working at the intersection of dance, theater, and community engagement. Her choreography and intimacy work was last seen at the Aurora in The Children and has also appeared at Cal Shakes, Custom Made Theater, Portland Center Stage, and Shotgun Players. Natalie worked with the award-winning devised performance ensemble Mugwumpin for a decade and became Artistic Director in 2016. Her choreography has been presented by the California Academy of Sciences, San Francisco Airport, ODC Theater, Dance Mission Theater, San Francisco City Hall, and through schools, senior centers, and non-traditional performance spaces throughout the Bay Area.

Elizabeth Carter returns to The Aurora Theatre Company as a director, after appearing several times on its stage.  She has had the great pleasure of directing Bondage (Alter Theatre) and since has directed King Lear (SF Shakespeare Festival), Feel the Spirit (Shotgun Players/Colt Couer), Every 28 Hours Plays and A Place To Belong (A.C.T), for colored girls who have considered suicide when the rainbow is enuf  (African American Shakespeare Company), From the Ground Up, Participants and Just One Day (TheatreFirst). She has directed for the California Shakespeare Theater Conservatory for nearly 20 years . Elizabeth is the inaugural SDCF Llloyd Richards New Futures Resident Artist at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival.

Regina Evans is an Abolitionist in the fight against Child Sex Trafficking, a Playwright and a Costume Designer.

Jonathan Luskin worked for 17years as an animator and technical director at Industrial Light and Magic, Colossal Pictures, UC Berkeley, and San Francisco State University, amoung others. He writes, produces, and directs for both film and theater. Jonathan has directed for many Bay Area Theater Companies, recieving the Goodman Choice Award for Directing for three productions. His plays have been produced by The Best of PlayGround, the Bay Area Playwrights Festival, and commissioned by the Magic Theatre. Jonathan is currently developing several full-length works for theater and film.

Jeunée Simon is an actor, director, and intimacy coordinator in the Bay Area. Recent credits include: La Ronde (Cutting Ball Theater), Men On Boats u/s (American Conservatory Theater), HeLa (TheatreFIRST), and When My Mama Was A Hittite (Magic Theatre). Simon is a proud recipient of the 2017 RHE Artistic Fellowship and a 2019 Directing Apprentice with PlayGround. She was last heard in Aurora’s audio production of Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye adapted by Lydia R. Diamond. jeuneesimon.com

Karen Chapple is an Urban planning and data scientist. Chapple recently left her position as professor and chair of city and regional planning at the University of California, Berkeley to join the University of Toronto and lead the School of Cities in the department of geography and planning. Renowned for her community engagement and innovative use of analytic methods including data science, Chapple’s research focuses on inequalities in the planning, structure and governance of regions in the U.S. and Latin America, with a focus on economic development and housing. She co-founded the Urban Displacement Project, an online research hub examining patterns of residential, commercial and industrial displacement, as well as policy and planning solutions. Chapple has been published widely and her recent books include Planning Sustainable Cities and Regions: Towards More Equitable Development (Routledge, 2015), winner of the John Friedmann Book Award from the American Collegiate Schools of Planning; Transit-Oriented Displacement or Community Dividends? Understanding the Effects of Smarter Growth on Communities (with Anastasia Loukaitou-Sideris, MIT Press, 2019); and Fragile Governance and Local Economic Development: Theory and Evidence from Peripheral Regions in Latin America (with Sergio Montero, Routledge, 2018). She holds a bachelor of arts in urban studies from Columbia University, a master of science in city and regional planning from the Pratt Institute and a PhD from Berkeley.

June A. Grant, RA, NOMA, is a visionary architect, Founder and Design Principal at blinkLAB architecture; a small trans-disciplinary design studio with projects bridging architectural form, urban economics, urban design, industrial design, furniture and digital fabrication. BlinkLAB applies their design-build skills towards the amplification of cultural narratives under-represented or erased. Since 2015, blinkLAB architecture has worked with Oakland’s neighborhood groups towards reclaiming of African-American public spaces for a more inclusive projective future.

Carolyn "C.J." Johnson is the Executive Director of the East Oakland Black Cultural Zone Collaborative. C.J. joined the East Oakland Black Cultural Zone Collaborative in 2019 with 30 years of experience in entrepreneurship and business management, non-profit operations, finance and commercial real estate. She has completed over $250 million in Investment Sales transactions and has leased hundreds of spaces throughout the bay area. Recently, CJ was the Broker for and Director of Commercial Real Estate at a leading Bay Area affordable housing developer. She is a native of Oakland, California.

Susan Moffat is the project director for the UC Berkeley Global Urban Humanities Initiative. She coordinates the academic program, organizes symposia, supports the development of publications, and conducts outreach across disciplines to faculty, graduate students, and the off-campus community. She is responsible for grant management, budgeting, fundraising, curriculum coordination, and communications.

Susan also teaches courses in the Initiative, including a course on Cities and Bodies, an interdisciplinary colloquium and a course on mapping and storytelling. Her research focuses on issues including perceptions of nature and culture in public space, parks, homelessness, and methods of spatial narratives. She has also has taught planning and leadership development at San Jose State University and UC Berkeley’s Center for Cities and Schools.

As a curator, Susan has mounted exhibitions on cartography and on the San Francisco Bay shoreline. Her oral history and mapping project, Atlas of the Albany Bulb, collects place-based stories from users of wild space at the urban edge, including unhoused people and artists, and was part of the SOMArts Cultural Center exhibition Refuge in Refuse: Homesteading Art and Culture Project. She also served as a consultant on the Detour audio tour of the Albany Bulb. She organized symposia including Mapping and Its Discontents and Art, Politics, and the City in Mexico and China; and, in collaboration with the Arts Research Center, Reimagining the Urban and Public Art/Housing Publics: Conversations on Art and Social Justice.

Susan has worked in the fields of affordable housing, environmental planning, land conservation and regional planning advocacy, and journalism. Her writing on Asian cities, ethnicity and place, and environmental issues has been published in The Wall Street Journal, the Los Angeles Times, Fortune, Planning, and the edited collection The Misread City: New Literary Los Angeles.

David Peters is a community advocate and organizer of the Black Liberation Walking Tour. The Black Liberation Walking Tour is a self-guided audio tour that transports the listener back in time to the height of West Oakland’s prosperity. Peters is a walking encyclopedia of knowledge about the Hoover-Foster neighborhood (Hoover-Durant being another name for the neighborhood). An accounting consultant, Peters grew up in Hoover-Foster and has collected numerous stories of the people who’ve called the area home for over a century to preserve the legacy of Oakland as an incubator of Black culture. Peters is a board member of Friends of Hoover/Durant Public Library, a group that’s been organizing to bring an Oakland Public Library branch back to the neighborhood.