Speakers & Facilitators
Alison M. De La Cruz
Alison M. De La Cruz is an executive arts leader, producer, facilitator, educator, multi-disciplinary theatre artist, contemporary ritualist & cultural space instigator. DeLa has over thirty years of experience as a facilitator and training deviser, and has worked with the Network of Ensemble Theaters (where they serve as Member of the Board of Directors) and the Theatre Communications Group. De La Cruz leads at the intersections of dramaturgy, adaptation, youth development, generative processes, community organizing, dialogue, workforce investment and playwriting with over 10 Youth Arts productions by Shakespeare Center Los Angeles, About Productions and East West Players. Their individual artistic work has been presented at the Smithsonian Institution, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts; Asian Arts Initiative, Kirk Douglas Theatre, Highways Performance Space, and East West Players.
De La Cruz has also been a featured speaker at national convenings for Art Change US: Arts Equity Summit, Grant Makers
Amy Smith
Amy Smith is a dance, theater artist, educator, and facilitator who works to dismantle oppressive structures in non-profit organizations and other groups so that artists and low income folks can achieve collective liberation. She does this through financial well-being workshops, one-on-one work with clients giving financial advice and doing tax preparation, consulting with arts organizations, co-facilitating anti-racism sessions with co-facilitators of color, and as a dance and theater educator. Amy co-founded, co-directed, and performed with Headlong, a dance theater non-profit that transformed into a community arts organization over 25 years. She left Headlong in 2019 to pursue her freelance work. She leads financial well-being workshops through Creative Capital, Assets for Artists, and in many other settings. She holds a BA from Wesleyan University and has been greatly affected by her learning as part of artEquity’s National Facilitator Training and other anti-oppression trainings.
Anna Sheiderman
Anna Shneiderman is an artist, entrepreneur and cultural strategist. After an early career in public school teaching, Anna co-founded Ragged Wing Ensemble, a multidisciplinary theater company and The Flight Deck, a shared performance venue in downtown Oakland, CA. She has also worked on incubator programs for creative entrepreneurs and research projects on alternative arts business models. Through these platforms, she has provided physical, organizational and educational space for artists to imagine, create, build capacity and strengthen community. Anna is fiercely committed to shifting conditions so that under-resourced artists can thrive. Her current work is to forge a cooperative and regenerative economy for the arts, deeply rooted in racial justice and a sense of place.
Brad Erickson
Brad Erickson has served for 17 years as executive director of Theatre Bay Area (TBA)—one of the nation’s largest regional performing arts service organizations. Under Brad's tenure, TBA has expanded its programming, and enhanced its impact and reputation nationwide. Brad has spearheaded groundbreaking national initiatives such as “Intrinsic Impact,” focusing on the deeply-felt impact of the art experience, and “Triple Play,” exploring the “triangular relationship” between artists, audiences and theatre organizations. Partnering with artEquity, Brad led TBA to launch Theatres Advancing Social Change (TASC) an initiative to advance equity, diversity and inclusion in the Bay Area’s theatre sector. Brad is also an award-winning playwright and actor. He received a BFA in Acting from Chicago's Goodman School of Drama (now The Theatre School at DePaul University).
Daniel Park
Daniel Park is a queer and bi-racial, theatre/performance artist based in Philadelphia. Park is the co-founder of the worker-cooperative Obvious Agency, and the Project Coordinator with the U.S. Federation of Worker Cooperatives. Since moving to Philadelphia in 2014 Daniel Park has become a leader for radical thought in the local creative ecosystem and has self-produced multiple major works, created commissions for institutions such as the Barnes Foundation and Moore College of Art and Design, taught anti-oppressive creation methodology at the University of the Arts, and collaborated with local companies including The Bearded Ladies, Orbiter 3, and Applied Mechanics. Deeply tied to his artistic practice, Daniel is also an activist and organizer, focusing on racial and labor justice in the cultural sector. He has provided his services as a facilitator and consultant nationally with organizations such as The PA Governor’s Commission on Asian American Affairs, ArtPlace America, and Headlong Dance Theatre. Daniel also acts as the membership and engagement coordinator with Philadelphia Asian Performing Artists, a community group that brings together folks of pan-Asian descent involved in the performing arts.
Emily DeDakis
Dr Emily DeDakis (she/her) is a Greek-American writer, producer and dramaturg, hailing from the Southeast U.S. and based in Belfast. She works with Accidental (an independent fringe theatre) and Fighting Words (a creative writing centre for young people). As a dramaturg, she has developed dozens of scripts and performances including immersive, 24-hour, multimedia, verbatim and dance theatre. Emily is a member of LMDA and the Dramaturgs’ Network (UK/Ireland) and often works with foolsFURY and Golden Thread (San Francisco). Emily’s writing has appeared in numerous publications and on BBC radio and television; she often collaborates with sonic artists on sound/text pieces.
Jeremy Aluma
Jeremy Aluma is a Jewish-American theatre director of Iraqi descent. He founded the international Four Clowns and was Artistic Director for 7 seasons. Aluma’s the Executive Director of Alliance for Jewish Theatre. Directing credits include: Abraham & Isaac (MuBe Cultural Theatre, São Paulo, Brazil); Pinocchio (South Coast Repertory); Sublimity (Theatre Row, NYC); Chad Deity (Theater on the Lake, Chicago); Crumble (Sacred Fools); The Last Days of Judas Iscariot (Urban Theatre Movement); and Henry’s Potato (REDCAT). His show, Four Clowns toured to La MaMa (NYC), Exit Theatre (San Francisco), Chicago, Phoenix, and Las Vegas. MFA in Directing, The Theatre School. jeremyaluma.com
Joshua Waterstone
Joshua Waterstone is a director, arts producer/administrator, actor, fight choreographer and educator based in the San Francisco Bay Area. In the ensemble theatre world he is an Associate Artist with FoolsFURY worked as staff on Build From Here and has worked as Ensemble Manager/ Production Manager/ Education Manager with Ragged Wing Ensemble and as an ensemble member of Fly By Theatre. Joshua is committed to having the uncomfortable conversations, to learning, listening, identifying, describing and dismantling racism in himself and society. Joshua holds an MFA in Directing for Stage and Screen from the Johnny Carson School of Theatre and Film, a member of Theatre Bay Areas Cohort: Theatres Advancing Social Change, The Society of American Fight Directors and an Associate-Member of the Society of Directors and Choreographers.
Kristina Wong
Kristina Wong was featured in the New York Times’ Off Color series “highlighting artists of color who use humor to make smart social statements about the sometimes subtle, sometimes obvious ways that race plays out in America today.” She is a performance artist, comedian, writer and elected representative who has been presented internationally across North America, the UK, Hong Kong and Africa. She’s been a guest on late night shows on Comedy Central and FX, and an actor on film and TV. Her work has been awarded with grants from Creative Capital, The MAP Fund, Center for Cultural Innovation, National Performance Network, a COLA Master Artist Fellowship from the Los Angeles Department of Cultural Affairs, as well as eight Los Angeles Artist-in-Residence awards. Center Theatre Group honored her as the 2019 Sherwood Award recipient for her exceptional contribution to the Los Angeles theatre landscape and her work as an innovative and adventurous artist. Her newest performance project is “Kristina Wong for Public Office”– a simultaneous real life stint in Public Office and show. In her most blurry performance piece yet, Kristina currently serves as the elected representative of Wilshire Center Koreatown Sub-district 5 Neighborhood Council.
Pamela Capalad
I'm a CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER™ and I've been in the financial services industry since 2008 (perfect time to join, I know), and spent 7 years at wealth management firms (if you're really curious where, check out my linkedin). I started doing Brunch & Budget full time in 2015. I'm based in Brooklyn, NY and serve clients virtually in the New York City area and across the country.
Shafer Mazow
Stephen Shafer Mazow, Managing Director at Z Space, is a writer, theater artist, fundraiser, and activist living in San Francisco and working in program development and strategic initiatives at the intersection of art, science, and social justice. Prior to joining Z Space, Shafer was Senior Grants Manager at the Exploratorium and Director of Institutional Giving and Strategy at American Conservatory Theater (A.C.T.). He serves on the Board of the National Queer Theater, leads the trans and gender-non-conforming advocacy and empathy project IPFreely, and has helped to establish space-sharing initiatives for performing artists, community-based theater programs, and research and action initiatives to address gender equity in the non-profit theater field. Shafer holds a B.A. in English from Wellesley College and a M.F.A. in English and Creative Writing from Mills College. His work has appeared in the Berkeley Fiction Review, 580 Split, and the zines Found and Brood. In his early days in San Francisco, Shafer performed stand-up and sketch comedy throughout the Bay Area and was a founding member of the comedy troupe, This Side of Butch.
Tracy Francis
Tracy Cameron Francis is a first-generation Egyptian-American director and producer who has directed and developed work in New York at Atlantic Theatre Co, NYTW, HERE, The Culture Project, NY Fringe Festival, Red Bull Theatre, Noor Theatre, NY Arab Comedy Festival, and others. Internationally at the Falaki Theatre (Egypt), Ubumuntu Festival (Rwanda) and LaMama Umbria ( Italy). She wes a 2017 Theatre Communications Group Rising Leader of Color fellow, a core member of Theatre Without Borders and currently serves on the steering committee for the newly formed Middle East and North African Theatre Makers Alliance . She is a member of the Lincoln Center Director’s Lab and an associate member of SDC. She currently serves as the Artistic Director of Boom Arts in Portland, Oregon focusing on socially engaged international work.