I've served as the Coordinator for the Valdez Theatre Conference for Prince William Sound College since 2003. Most of that time I lived in Valdez, becoming a part of that rich community of 4,000. I served on multiple Boards, most importantly fourteen years on the Advocates for Victims of Violence. I also spent almost two years on the City Council, a great experience I was forced to leave to care first for my father until his passing, now for my mother. I reside in San Francisco while also providing care in Anchorage and working for the college via distance. Thank goodness that cloning procedure went so smoothly.

I was born in Ithaca, New York, in 1970. I became an Alaskan, a high school student, and an actor in 1984 when mom became the first female English professor at the University of Alaska Anchorage. After getting the bug as a freshman, I neglected most of my other studies, finding ways to be in three productions at once throughout the rest of my time there. I also spent the summer of 1986 in London, attending almost forty plays… that pretty much sealed the deal on what I wanted to do with my life.

After graduating from East Anchorage High School, I attended the University of Alaska Anchorage. I had a tuition waiver and there was an excellent theatre program run my Michael Hood which I had been attending and admiring for years. I continued acting, but experienced a lot of performer's doubt, so my focus shifted to directing. Cool college highlights included the North American premiere of Seamus Heaney's The Cure at Troy, Peter Shaffer's Black Comedy, and John Guare's The Loveliest Afternoon of the Year.

While still an undergraduate, I took over and ran (into the ground) the Alaskan Rough Theatre Company, directing the world premiere of P. Shane Mitchell's The End of the Road, among other productions.

In 1994, I also began writing plays; playwright remains my favorite role in theatre. I developed The Making of Eye Contact, Domestic Companion, and Sand & Granite On Liberty at UAA, getting my essential early productions in a nurturing environment. Within a couple years, my plays were also getting staged by local companies, including the Eccentric Theatre Company and the now-defunct TOAST Theatre. I've been fortunate enough to have a little list of companies who've been kind enough to stage my work… read all about it on my CV. I've won national awards for my short comedies Bile in the Afterlife, In a Red Sea, The Peach, The Bus, Burning, The Fears of Harold Shivvers, and Domestic Companion.

After a brief stint in Los Angeles (great place but not for me), I moved to San Francisco, where I had a artistically invigorating four-year ride. I started off coordinating a play reading series for Footloose at Venue 9. From there, I was brought on board as the Literary Manager of Eureka Theatre. That led to an invitation to join the Board of the Playwrights Center of San Francisco. My second year, I formed Three Wise Monkeys Theatre Company with Aoise Stratford and the late Richard Bernier, as well as the Unidentified Theatre Company with Donna Trousdale, Katy Brown, and the late Christopher Jenkins. All the companies I worked with there were dedicated to new work by playwrights living in the Bay Area.

I also began working with the Rough Theatre Company on the Daytrippers Play-in-a-Day Festival. I took what I learned from them and created the Alaska Overnighters, a new works program that generated 300 new scripts by Alaskans over two decades. It's funny the long-ranging impact one's actions can have, and I'm grateful for what Jennifer Garagliano and Bradford Cooreman's Rough Theatre unwittingly did for Alaskan theatre artists.

I had started attending the Valdez Theatre Conference in 1995 and continued returning to Alaska every summer to participate after I left the state. I was planning on 2002 being my last year, though. They'd rejected my play submission for the third year in a row, after starting with five invitations, and they'd gotten my name wrong on the form letter. I knew it was just a Mail Merge error or whatever, but it felt like they didn't care about me or even know who I was.

When I walked into the Civic Center for the first reading on the first day, the PWSC President Jo Ann C. McDowell grabbed me by the shoulder and said, "Thank God you're here: we need you to be a panelist." One of the respondents for the Short Play Lab wasn't there yet; because there were awards, she felt it was very important that respondents see all the readings. When I came out of my morning readings, there was a pretty young volunteer handing everyone a photocopy of my headshot and bio, trumpeting how lucky everyone was that I was joining the Featured Artist staff. Pretty funny turnaround.

They were happy with my work and brought me back the next year on part-time to coordinate the Play Lab. Within a couple of weeks, the pressure was on to move to Valdez as the Theatre Conference Coordinator. After some hemming and hawing (San Francisco was very fun and very hard to leave), I moved to Valdez and took over running the most meaningful artistic event of my life.

I've enjoyed a diverse career filled with wonderful collaborators, too many to thank individually.

I'm a theatre hyphenate:
I'm primarily a producer,
But I've directed over 40 productions.
My favorite is watching plays I wrote,
But acting remains my first love.
I've painted and built and folded,
Promoted and begged, punched buttons,
And done whatever needs to be done.
S'been a great life in the theatre.