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Roadside's Advisory Board
An important part of Roadside’s structure is its National Advisory Board of leading theater practitioners and scholars. The board meets quarterly via the internet and in-person when opportunities present themselves. Theater is a collaborative art, and we are gratified by the generous support of these individuals. |
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| Jan Cohen-Cruz is a scholar and practitioner of activist and community- based performance. An Associate Professor at New York University's Tisch School of the Arts Drama Department, she directs the Office of Community Connections, through which Tisch School of the Arts students do community-based art internships; coordinates the Drama Department's minor in applied theatre; and has a joint appointment in the School's Department of Art and Public Policy. Grounded in the resistant theatre of the late 60s, early 70s, she was a member of the NYC Street Theatre/Jonah Project, and has been a freelance practitioner of the techniques of Augusto Boal since bringing him to the U.S. in 1989. Eclectic in her application of the arts to social situations, she is also versed in techniques grounded in storytelling and in the adaptation of existing texts. From 1995-97, she co-directed the Tisch School of the Arts' AmeriCorps project (President Clinton's domestic Peace Corps) focusing on violence reduction through the arts. She co-edited Playing Boal: Theatre, Therapy, Activism (1994) and A Boal Companion: Dialogues on Theatre and Cultural Politics (2006), with Mady Schutzman; edited Radical Street Performance: An International Anthology (1998); and wrote Local Acts: Community-based Performance in the United States (2005). Her essays have appeared in numerous national publications. | |||
| Michael Keck is a composer, playwright, and performer whose music has been featured at the Kennedy Center, Mark Taper Forum, Arena Stage, Cincinnati Playhouse, The Oregon Shakespeare Festival, Alliance Theater, Milwaukee Repertory, Indiana Repertory, Portland Center Stage, and many other American theaters. International credits include the National Theater of Croatia, the Barbican Theatre Center, and Bristol Old Vic. As an actor, Mr. Keck has performed in productions at the McCarter Theater, Berkeley Rep, La MAMA, primary Stages in NYC, and others. He is co-author, composer, and host of the Holidays for Children video series, and frequently tours his solo performance of Voices in the Rain . A teaching artist, he designs and facilitates creative writing and performance workshops in universities, community centers, schools, and correctional facilities. He serves on the Advisory Board of the Prison Creative arts Project at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI; and on panels for the PEN Prison Creative Writing Program, the National Endowment for the Arts, the New York State Arts Council, Georgia Council for the Arts, and Meet The Composer. |
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| Robert Leonard is Professor of Theater Arts at Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, Virginia, where he heads MFA programs in Stage Management and in Directing and Public Dialogue. His programs focus specifically on ensemble processes, collaborative creation of new work, and community partnerships. He is the founding artistic director of The Road Company, a theater ensemble based in Johnson City, Tennessee. Under his direction from 1972-1998, The Road Company created more than two dozen original plays reflecting the history and issues of the Upper Tennessee Valley and Central Appalachia. An arts organizer with a career-long commitment to the development of a strong southeastern network of community-based professional performing organizations, Mr. Leonard is a founding member of Alternate ROOTS (Regional Organization of Theaters - South) and the Network of Ensemble Theaters (NET), the national coalition of ensemble based theaters. He is co-director of the Community Arts Network (CAN), which fosters critical dialogue and serves as an information and communication resource for the field of community-based art making. CAN is a partnership between the Department of Theatre Arts and Art in the Public Interest (API), a Web-based arts organization. He is serving in his fifth year on the national board of Theatre Communications Group (TCG). |  Bob Leonard, Professor of Theater Arts, Virginia Tech |
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| Bill Rauch co-founded Cornerstone Theater Company, a multi-ethnic, ensemble-based theater which commissions and produces new plays that combine the artistry of professional and community collaborators, and served as artistic director from 1986 to 2006. By making theater with and for people of many ages, cultures and levels of theatrical experience, Cornerstone builds bridges between and within diverse communities in its home city of Los Angeles and nationwide. Mr. Rauch directed over 40 of the company's productions, including the majority of its community collaborations. He has also directed world premieres at Yale Rep, South Coast Rep, The Taper, Guthrie, Oregon Shakespeare Festival, and many other theaters. For his directorial efforts, he received L.A. Weekly, Connecticut Critics circle, Drama-Logue, Garland, and Helen Hayes Awards, and has been twice nominated for the Ovation Award for Best Director. From 1992 to 1998, he served on the Board of Directors of Theatre Communications Group, the national service organization for non-profit theater (two years as a member of the Executive Committee). Currently Claire Trevor Professor of Drama at the UC Irvine, he graduated from Harvard College in 1984 where he received the Louis Sudler Prize for outstanding graduating artist. He has lectured extensively about community-based art and Cornerstone’s methodology. | |||
| Rosalba Rolón, a playwright, director, and performer, worked extensively with Latino theaters in New York City prior to founding Pregones Theater in 1979, where she now serves as the ensemble company’s artistic director. Born and reared in Puerto Rico, her artistic leadership fostered the development of an original Pregones’ repertory grounded in Puerto Rican traditions and popular artistic expressions that challenge static perceptions of culture. As a dramaturg and director, Ms. Rolón favors the art of literary stage adaptation, working from short stories, novels, and periodicals by Latino, Spanish, Caribbean, and Latin American writers. Her credits include The Red Rose, for which she won the 2006 Best Director’s ACE Award and Betsy, which she co-directed with Dudley Cocke in a Pregones-Roadside collaboration. Other productions include The Wedding March, based on the book Silent Dancing by Judith Ortiz; The Blackout, based on the short story The Night We Became People by Jose Luis Gonzalez; and San Miguel Amarra Tu Perro, a collection of poems, testimonies, letters, and periodicals from turn-of-the-century Puerto Rican patriots. Her commitment to the development of Puerto Rican/Latino theater has earned her national recognition and multiple awards. She is currently involved in an international collaboration involving eight countries, is chair of the board of directors of the National Association of Latino Arts and Culture, and is a member of the national board of Theatre Communications Group. |
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| Edward Wemytewa of Zuni, New Mexico is the founding director of Idiwanan an Chawe (Children of the Middle Place), the first and only Zuni language theater. He is an elected member of the Zuni Tribal Council, a playwright, performer, and visual artist whose prize winning paintings and sculpture have been exhibited in museums in Arizona and New Mexico. When the Zuni Pueblo reclaimed its schools from the federal Bureau of Indian Affairs in the late seventies, Mr. Wemytewa worked with the Zuni school district to develop a Zuni language and cultural enrichment curriculum that involved the development of a Zuni alphabet. He grew-up in a traditional Zuni household, learning stories and songs from Pueblo elders, studied fine art at the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque and at the Santa Fe Art Institute, and has taught grassroots theater at Arizona State University. He is co-editor of the award-winning book Journeys Home: Revealing a Zuni-Appalachia Collaboration. | |||
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