Board of Directors

Raquel Almazan, President

Raquel was born in Madrid – Spain, is also of Costa Rican descent and has lived most of her life in the U.S. As an interdisciplinary artist she holds an M.F.A. in Playwriting from Columbia University – Deans Fellowship recipient. B.F.A. in Theatre from University of Florida/New World School of the Arts Conservatory where she developed work as a writer, director, actor and dramaturge. Almazan is the Artistic Director of LA LUCHA ARTS, producing several of her original works, including LATIN IS AMERICA play cycle and lecture-performance, a collection of bi-lingual works in dedication to each Latin American country. Select play credits include: La Paloma Prisoner (workshop: Signature Theatre off Broadway – readings: La Mama ETC, INTAR, Labyrinth Theatre Company and The Lark). CAFÉ (recipient of Kennedy Center’s Latinidad Award, Columbia Stages workshop directed by Elena Araoz). La Migra Taco Truck and Dar a Luz (off Broadway NYC Theatre Row, Aspen Stage, New Theatre-FL). El Oido De un Pais (New Theatre-FL). Junkyard Food (Louis O’Gerrits Theatre). Watermelon (Lone Star Co., off Broadway reading). She was awarded a Professional Development residency with the Eugene O’Neill Center Playwrights Conference 2015 and is a Core Apprentice Writer with The Playwrights’ Center 2015-16. As an Activist Artist, she participates at social- political conferences, including the United Nations, (two time Aspen Institute Panelist), National Women’s Studies Conference, Alternate Roots, International Women’s Playwrights Conference-Stockholm, Bodies In Transit Articulating the Americas and Beyond with the Hemispheric Institute Conference and in Rome, Italy for World Theatre Day at the Performing Gender and Violence in Contemporary National and Transnational Contexts Conference. Performed an original monologue for Hillary Clinton’s Women’s Forum. Playwright for Here to Be Seen: Women in Justice, collaboration with formerly incarcerated women & DA’s Re-entry task force. Arts Educator/Facilitator to thousands of youth/ young adults: with The International Theatre Collaboration summer program at Columbia University, facilitator with Art Spring organization to incarcerated women in prison, Brooklyn Academy of Music, Repertorio Espanol, Epic Theatre and Joker with Theatre of the Oppressed NYC. With LEAP, directed NYC Public school students off Broadway at New World Stages. With Manhattan Theatre Club and Educational Play Productions, she performs throughout NYC Schools. For Theatre East she founded the educational New Rites Arts Program. She is a proud member of The Dramatist Guild, SAG-AFTRA, League of Professional Theatre Women, NALIP, Chicago Dramatist Network, and the Hispanic Organization of Latin Actors. She is a Founding member of LA Cooperativa of Latina/o Theatre Artists NYC.

Wessam Badawi

Sam is a NYC native raised in the Bronx now residing in Brooklyn, except for a short stint in Buffalo, NY where he obtained his Bachelors of Science in Business Administration with concentrations in Marketing and Finance.  He is currently an MBA candidate at the NYU Stern School of Business Langone Program specializing in Strategy, Finance and Economics.  Professionally, Sam has spent over 10 years working in the banking industry at Citibank, where he focused on Strategy, Finance and Risk Management.  Throughout his career he has launched firm-wide forecasting and risk mitigation tools and has helped to devise strategies to manage costs overseas and established a metrics based risk insights platform to stay on top of the latest risks.  Sam enjoys the outdoors, practices Krav Maga, is an amateur photographer, and is an avid traveler.  He has visited Egypt, India, Greece, Peru, Germany, with many more on the list!  Sam is a firm believer in arts education at a young age as it helps to build vital skills such as confidence and presentation ability that carry forward into adulthood.  Sam is also a firm believer in Independent Theater, the laboratory that allows new and exciting works to surface in the world!

Brian Berk

Brian is a New York City native, having grown up in the Riverdale section of the Bronx.

He is a co-founder of SpotCo Advertising, a design and advertising agency specializing in the marketing of Broadway shows and live-entertainment.  He planned and managed the company—starting with its initial incorporation and growing it into a dynamic, full-service entertainment advertising, marketing, and branding agency with a staff of 120 and revenues in excess of $70 million.  Brian held the position of Chief Financial Officer of SpotCo for over 20 years.  Prior to founding SpotCo, Brian worked in many capacities for various non-profit arts organizations, including the Roundabout Theater Company, Ensemble Studio Theater, Arts at St Ann’s, and The Center for Traditional Music and Dance.

He attended the University of Pennsylvania, graduating with a Bachelor of Arts in Psychology. He is an avid foodie and enjoys discovering new restaurants throughout the city. Brian lives in Chelsea with his partner, Ray, and their two cats adopted from a shelter—Aloysius and Peabody.

Randi Berry,  Executive Director

Randi Berry has an arts advocacy, theater and real estate background that spans over 20 years. She is a founding member and co-Artistic Director of Wreckio Ensemble, www.wreckio.com, a collective theater company that has been producing original work in New York City since 2000. Randi also specializes in contract review and real estate due diligence. She was Director of Operations for CBRE’s Investment Sales team for five years and then ran her own consulting business working on many of the largest commercial real estate transactions in history. Randi’s real estate work parlayed into Wreckio receiving free rehearsal for over a decade. Randi is the Executive Director of IndieSpace, which creates permanent real estate solutions for the indie theater community (www.indiespace.org). Randi is a board member of the League of Independent Theater and Chair of the Real Estate Committee.  She has secured a 5,000 sf rehearsal space for The League and has piloted a program pairing theater companies with schools that exchanges free rehearsal space for educational theater workshops. Randi is a member of the Network of Ensemble Theaters and The League of Professional Theatre Women. She was named an Indie Theater Person of the Year in 2013, An Indie Theater Hero and Influencer and was inducted into the Indie Theater Hall of Fame in 2014. Randi was an Indie Theater Leading Light in 2015 and was given a citation for Service to her community by the NY City Council in 2018. Randi lives in Astoria with her husband Sam and her son, Eli.

randi@indietheaterfund.org

Brea Clemons, Operations Manager

Brea is the newest member of The Indie Theater Fund and is joining the team as our Operations Manager. Brea’s background is in Theatre, Non-Profit Administration, and Commercial Real Estate. Always a lover of the performing arts, Brea first got professionally involved with theatre in 2015 at The Coterie in Kansas City. The work she did during her time there grew her passion for stage management and since then she has stage managed for companies all over the country including; Music Theatre Kansas City, The Oklahoma City Philharmonic, The Beijing Normal Experimental Dance Company, and the regional premiere of Pasek & Paul’s James & The Giant Peach. In addition to her work onstage Brea has spent many years working in special events and has helped execute a wide a variety of fundraisers and programs such as the Norman Women’s Resource Center’s annual Drag Pageant-Miss STI, the Broadway Cares fundraiser-Applause for the Cause, and the Broadway Teaching Group’s summer 2019 Broadway Teachers Workshop. From 2017 to 2019 Brea served as the Recruitment Coordinator for Design & Production for the University of Oklahoma’s Helmerich School of Drama. During her time with the school she helped recruit, audition, and welcome over 200 new students into the University’s theatrical B.F.A programs. Since February 2020 Brea has been working as the Assistant Director of Operations for Abramson Brothers Incorporated- a commercial real estate firm in midtown Manhattan. Brea is a graduate of The University of Oklahoma, with a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Stage Management with a minor in Non-profit Administration. She was recognized as an OU Scholar and graduated with honors. In 2019 Brea and a team of five other theatre artists participated in the ASTC Venue Renovation Challenge. They were commended for their design and were chosen as finalist to present at the United States Institute for Theatre Technology National Conference. Brea was awarded a Certificate of Excellence in Arts Administration from the KCACTF executive committee in 2018 and went on to be one of nine LORT APSIRE Leadership Fellows at the Kennedy Center later that spring. During her time in D.C she studied and workshopped alongside arts administration leaders from Arena Stage, Ford’s Theatre, Woolly Mammoth, and the Yale School of Drama.

Dechelle Damien

Dechelle Damien is currently the Director of Human Resources at Serengeti Asset Management, a value-driven investment firm. Prior to joining Serengeti, she worked on CB Richard Ellis’ Investment Properties team for a decade. As a project manager & executive assistant, she helped support the Vice Chairmen to become the “Top Producers” for the company worldwide and the “Top US Real Estate Investment Broker” for many yearsShe is SHRM-CP certified in Human Resources and has certifications in Essentials and Principals of Project Management.

As an artist, Dechelle is a founding member & co-Artistic Director of Wreckio Ensemble, a collective theater company that produces original and innovative works on social issues in New York City since 2000. Wreckio Ensemble has received residency programs from HorseTrade and chashama, with the later, creating a piece that toured to Dublin, Ireland. She’s performed with dancers from the Frankfurt Ballet and toured Germany with two original productions. She’s also performed in the NY Fringe Festival, Wonderland Festival, American Living Room Festival, and Florida Dance Festival.

Dechelle is a first-generation Cuban American born and raised in Miami, FL. She’s a Board Co-Chair of Our World Neighborhood Charter School – Parent Teacher Organization. She’s a graduate of New World School of the Arts and currently lives in Astoria, NY with her husband Carlos, her daughter Alexis, and her dog Milo.

Marty Linsky

Marty has been on the faculty at the Harvard Kennedy School since 1982. In 2002, he co-founded a leadership consulting practice, which was eventually sold to the staff. A graduate of Williams College and Harvard Law School, he was Assistant Minority Leader of the Massachusetts House, writer for The Boston Globe, Editor of The Real Paper, and Chief Secretary to Massachusetts Governor Bill Weld. He has authored or co-authored over a dozen books and chapters, including the best-selling “Leadership on the Line”. Marty has three married children, and three grandchildren. His wife, Lynn Staley, was Newsweek’s Design Director and is now a successful painter. Marty ran nine marathons, exercises daily, roots for the Red Sox, enjoys good drink and vegetarian food (rewards for exercising), spends as much time as possible in Italy, is into decluttering, trying to figure out the next life chapter, hanging with friends and family, working on his baseball card (25,000+) collection, and, of course, going to theater.

Siobhan O’Neill, Secretary

Siobhan O’Neill is a founding partner of Ad Astra LIVE, a bi-coastal theatrical production company and producers of the For the Record series (LA, Palm Springs, Austin SXSW and New York, www.fortherecordlive.com). For almost a decade, Siobhan worked as a booking agent and director for two prominent commercial theatrical booking agencies in New York, overseeing national tours of Broadway and variety shows. Recently, Siobhan earned a Professional Certificate in Fundraising at NYU’s Heyman Center for Philanthropy and Fundraising and sits on the board of two other not-for-profit organizations: www.plgarts.org , www.befreeglobal.org. Siobhan is a graduate of Walnut Hill School of Performing Arts and Oberlin College and currently lives in the Prospect Lefferts Gardens section of Brooklyn with her husband and two sons.

Emeritus Board Members

Susan Bernfield

Susan Bernfield is the founder and artistic director of New Georges, an award-winning nonprofit theater company which produces ambitiously theatrical new plays downtown and provides an artistic home to some of the most adventurous theater artists (who are women) working today.  Since 1992, she has produced 38 new plays (including works by Eisa Davis, Sheila Callaghan, Jenny Schwartz, Lisa D’Amour, Diana Son, Heidi Schreck, Tracey Scott Wilson and Neena Beber), eleven festivals of new work, and countless works‑in‑progress in The Room, New Georges’ workspace for women theater artists.  Susan is also a playwright whose plays have been presented or developed at, among others, People’s Light & Theatre, O’Neill Playwrights Conference, EST, Soho Think Tank’s Ice Factory Festival, Playwrights Horizons, Magic Theatre, Adirondack Theatre Festival and, of course, New Georges, where her play STRETCH (a fantasia) premiered in 2008. She also serves on the boards of A.R.T./New York and The League of Professional Theatre Women.

Brad Burgess

Jess Chayes

Jess Chayes is a Brooklyn-based director and founding co-artistic director of The Assembly. With The Assembly, Jess has co-created and directed eight original productions. As a director, she has premiered works with Lesser America, New Georges, Ars Nova and Dutch Kills and has developed new plays with The Playwrights Center, NYTW, The Lark, The Civilians, and Labyrinth among others. Jess is a founding member and longtime co-facilitator of the New Georges Jam artists lab. Recent affiliations include: NYTW Usual Suspect, The Civilians R&D Group, The Soho Rep Writer/Director Lab, Associate Director on Peter and the Starcatcher (Brooks Atkinson Theater and New World Stages) and Misery (Broadhurst Theater).  As a producer, Jess has worked for The Civilians and The Public Theater and produced Julia Jarcho’s Obie-winning play Grimly Handsome. She also co-curated New Georges’ 2014 Jam on Toast Festival at Dixon Place. Jess is a proud graduate of Wesleyan University, and lives in Brooklyn with her husband Ben.

John Clancy

John Clancy is an OBIE award winning director and Executive Artistic Director of Clancy Productions, Inc. He is the founding Artistic Director of The Present Company, a leading Off-Off Broadway theatre company, and a founding Artistic Director of The New York International Fringe Festival, North America’s largest theater and performance festival. His plays have won The American Shorts Contest and The San Francisco Playwrights Center Dramarama, the Edinburgh Festival Fringe First and have been short-listed for the Julie Harris Playwrighting Award and the Actors Theatre of Louisville Heideman Award. Directing credits include Americana Absurdum, winner of an Edinburgh Festival Fringe First 2000, Cincinnati, winner of an Edinburgh Festival Fringe First 2002 and Adelaide Best of Fringe 2004, Horse Country, winner of an Edinburgh Festival Fringe First 2002, Scotsman Best of the Firsts 2002 and Adelaide Best of Fringe 2004 and Fatboy, Edinburgh Festival Fringe First 2004. He directed C.J. Hopkins’ screwmachine/ eyecandy: Or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Big Bob at the Edinburgh Fringe in 2005, garning him his 5th Fringe First in 4 years. In 2007, Clancy Productions was awarded the inaugural Edinburgh Festival Award by the Edinburgh International Festival and will present a new work at the arts festival in August of 08. John serves on the Advisory Council of The New York Theatre Experience, Inc., the city’s preeminent advocacy and resource center for downtown theater, and the Advisory Board of the 24:7 Theatre Festival in Manchester, England. He is a New York Theatre Workshop Usual Suspect and his writing has been published in Off, Edge, Village Voice, The Sunday Herald and The New York Times. He was awarded The New York Magazine Award in 1997 for ‘creativity, enterprise and vision’. In 2002 he was awarded a Glasgow Herald Angel for excellence in direction at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe. He lives on the Lower East Side with his wife, Nancy Walsh.

john@indietheaterfund.org