IRONDALE - Key Persons
Job Titles:
- Program Advisor and Co - Producer of to Protect
- TPSU Consulting Project Director
Barbara Chen is a program advisor and co-producer of To Protect, Serve and Understand, working closely with its creator and Irondale Ensemble executive director and founding artist facilitators to expand TPSU. She is a former civilian director of the NYPD, and held major communications roles there, at Bloomberg Philanthropies and Columbia University. Barbara provides strategic communications and content to mission-driven organizations including city government and nonprofits, focused on enhancing community engagement and social justice. She is on the steering committee of 30x30, a national initiative aimed at increasing and improving the representation of women in law enforcement, and is an alumna of Columbia Business School's Police Management Institute, and the Minority Writers Seminar hosted by the Freedom Forum Institute at Vanderbilt University. Previously she worked at ABC News and was New York chapter vice president of the national Asian American Journalists Association.
Job Titles:
- Member of the Board of Trustees
Job Titles:
- Founding Member
- Member of the Board of Trustees
Crystal-Marie (she/her) is a theatre artist based in NYC. Working primarily in ensemble theatre bringing new and unknown works to life. A creator with many titles; Improviser, Devisor, Director, Teacher, Human. Originally from Tennessee, she grew up on a first-generation farm and found herself with a theatre degree from the University of Tennessee. She continues to study and train with a Brooklyn-based ensemble, Letter of Marque Theater Co, and works as a Teaching Artist around the city with Irondale Ensemble Project, Curated Care, and Brooklyn Arts Exchange. Visit her website Crystal-MarieAlberson.com to learn about the latest shenanigans!
Job Titles:
- Technical Assistant
- Technical Assistant at Irondale Center
Dominic Galiotto is a Technical Assistant at Irondale Center. He is currently studying at Hofstra University for his degree in Theatre Arts...
Read more dominic@irondale.
Dominic Galiotto is a Technical Assistant at Irondale Center. He is currently studying at Hofstra University for his degree in Theatre Arts. He has worked on the construction of sets and lighting for shows including but not limited to: The Maids, The Revolutionists, Three Penny Opera, and Rumors.
Emilio Maxwell Cerci is a Director and Lighting Designer who has been a member of the Irondale Company for 6 years in many different capacities. He currently resides at The Space at Irondale as the Production Manager and Resident Lighting Designer. He has ventured through all different types of New York City theater in several different positions including but not limited to Sleep No More (Off-Broadway), Hadestown (Broadway), Frankie & Johnny in the Clair De Lune (Broadway), Wolfpack at NYCFringe Festival, The Four of Us at NYCFringe, Spring Awakening at The Space at Irondale, and many many more.
Job Titles:
- Member of the Board of Trustees
Hilarie Blumenthal has been a member of Irondale since 1989, first as its Lighting Designer and then for the past 30 years as its Costume Designer. She has designed costumes for Off-Off-Broadway, dance, regional opera, and television, including Equity Library Theatre; Peterborough Players in New Hampshire; Berkshire Opera in Lenox, Massachusetts; St. Marks Church and DTW. She enjoys working in an organic and collaborative nature with the Ensemble, and having the ability to contribute her ideas to the concept of each production. She is a graduate of Bennington College, where she majored in theater design. When not designing for Irondale, she designs and creates original jewelry utilizing vintage elements, which she sells - along with a line of curated vintage clothing and accessories - under the name of Honor and Blume. She has an Etsy store and an online shop, as well as a "brick and mortar" shop in Nyack, New York.
Job Titles:
- Member of the Board of Trustees
Job Titles:
- Executive Assistant / Ensemble Member
Jacqueline is an actress/writer/director originally from rural Maine. She studied at the Gaiety School of acting in Dublin, Ireland and received her BA in Theatre & Dance from Manhattanville College in 2017 where she graduated Magna Cumme Laude. After graduation she moved to Brooklyn where she began working as a theatre artist. Jacqueline originally started working with Irondale as an assistant dramaturge in 2020 during the development of the Radio/Podcast version of Mother Courage and Her Children. When the pandemic ended and Irondale began performing live again, she joined the acting company, playing the role of Katrin in Mother Courage Live. Jacqueline is also the assistant to the executive director and manages the Irondale administrative office.
Job Titles:
- Artistic Director
- Founding Member
- Member of the Board of Trustees
- Director of the Irondale Ensemble Project
Jim Niesen has served as Artistic Director of the Irondale Ensemble Project's since its founding in 1983, directing more than eighty plays among them nine by Brecht including the three play cycle Brecht in Exile and sixteen by Shakespeare most prominently the epic marathon 1599 - Henry V, Julius Caesar, As You Like It, and Hamlet - all performed in a single evening. Mr. Niesen created the Irondale production of YOU CAN'T WIN, which took the Grand Prix at the International Drama Festival in St. Petersburg, Russia. With Barbara Mackenzie-Wood he devised the theatre program for Global Camps a non-profit organization working with children affected by HIV/AIDS in developing African countries. In 2018 he was named a distinguished alumnus of Ohio University where he serves on the College of Fine Arts Leadership Council. In 2019 he was selected to be part of the US delegations to Santiago a Mil, the largest arts festival in Chile and the Joint Chinese US Theatre Conference in Shanghai. Mr. Niesen is listed in WHO'S WHO IN AMERICA and the BROOKLYN MAGAZINE named him one of the "100 Most Influential People in Brooklyn Culture." His articles on theater have been published in GESTUS and THEATER THREE. He is a contributor to the book AMERICAN DRAMATURGY and writes a weekly column on theatre: What's on Jim's Mind.
Job Titles:
- Member of the Board of Trustees
Kaya Blumenthal-Rothchild is a 2020 graduate from Connecticut College where she majored in Dance, and minored in Gender, Sexuality, and Intersectionality Studies. During her time at Conn Coll she had the opportunity to perform in many pieces and work with incredible artists including David Dorfman, Lisa Race, Heidi Henderson, Kate Weare, and the Merce Cunningham Trust. She also performed a piece choreographed by a fellow student at the Kennedy Center for the National Conference of the American College Dance Association. In addition, she completed a three-year research certificate program in Community Action and Public Policy. Kaya focused her studies on menstrual equity which she examined through both theoretical and movement based research. As a part of the research program she also tutored inmates at York Correctional Facility and worked in an after-school program for ESL students from a public New London middle school. Having grown up running around the sets and scaffolding of Irondale (thanks to her parents being the set and costume designers starting way before her birth) Kaya is incredibly grateful to join Irondale's team and support their critical programs and productions.
Job Titles:
- Chairman of the Board
- Member of the Irondale Ensemble
Ken Rothchild has been a member of the Irondale Ensemble since 1983; designing scenery for all its productions, save the very first. He has been a design assistant on a number of Broadway productions; has designed for film and television; at various regional theaters around the country; and for a number of international tours. He was an Adjunct professor at Manhattanville College for 20 years, designing over 40 productions in addition to teaching theater literature and the creative process. He also designed many productions at Jersey City State College. In addition to designing for Irondale, Ken served as its Director of Education for 13 years, then was later asked to join the Board of Trustees; he is currently the Board's Chairperson. Outside of Irondale he is a Trustee on the Village Board of Upper Nyack, NY; and Chief Operations Officer at H & Val J Rothschild, Inc, a property management company in Minnesota. He obtained his MFA from NYU's Tisch School of the Arts, and is a member of IATSE's Local USA829, the professional designers union.
Job Titles:
- Board Chair / Scenic Designer
Ken Rothchild has been a member of the Irondale Ensemble since 1983; designing scenery for all its productions, save the very first. He has been a design assistant on a number of Broadway productions; has designed for film and television; at various regional theaters around the country; and for a number of international tours. He was an Adjunct professor at Manhattanville College for 20 years, designing over 40 productions in addition to teaching theater literature and the creative process. He also designed many productions at Jersey City State College. In addition to designing for Irondale, Ken served as its Director of Education for 13 years, then was later asked to join the Board of Trustees; he is currently the Board's Chairperson. Outside of Irondale he is a Trustee on the Village Board of Upper Nyack, NY; and Chief Operations Officer at H & Val J Rothschild, Inc, a property management company in Minnesota. He obtained his MFA from NYU's Tisch School of the Arts, and is a member of IATSE's Local USA829, the professional designers union.
Job Titles:
- Vice Chair of the Board of Trustees
Job Titles:
- Member of the Board of Trustees
Kimberly is a PR professional with deep media experience and resonant relationships with press influencers in the arts, culture, society, business, and fitness spaces. She has led accounts through strategic PR campaigns, yielding cover stories and placements in outlets like New York Times, Forbes, Wall Street Journal, Vogue, SHAPE, Allure, Good Housekeeping, Good Morning America, CBS This Morning, TODAY, and more. She links public relations, branding, and social media efforts into a constant and furious funnel of staying power and accountability and works to increase brand recognition with diligence and commitment. As a former professional dancer and performer, Kimberly sees and celebrates Irondale's work for the power art has to make change in the world, and works to amplify their work, mission, and legacy in traditional media, broadcast and beyond.
Job Titles:
- Member of the Board of Trustees
Job Titles:
- Member of the Board of Trustees
Job Titles:
- Member of the Board of Trustees
Maria Knapp spent a month with Irondale while working on her MFA thesis on Stage Management in 1997. Upon graduation, Terry and Jim said they had no idea how they would use her, but if she could live in NYC for $400 a week, they'd like her to come join them. Over the years Maria has moved from Stage Manager to General Manager to Managing Director.
Job Titles:
- Rental & Production Manager / Lighting Designer / Technical Director
Michael Galligan is an actor, producer, and teaching artist. He has taught with Irondale since 2017. Michael's theatrical work has been developed and performed at Irondale Center, The Deep End, The Tank, BCC, 59E59 Theater, the Upper Jay Art Center, and ZOO at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival ("...of considerable wit and guile," said The List of Solarplexus in a four-star review). Recent theater credits include: Missing 411: Into the Void (Upper Jay Art Center, Cincy Fringe 2021, FringePVD 2021), Exposure (Eugene O'Neill NPC, Rattlestick), Ocean Filibuster (Abrons Arts Center), Birdbrains (Deep End, Upper Jay Art Center), and more.
Job Titles:
- Ensemble Member / Teaching Artist / TPSU Facilitator
- Senior Acting Company Member
Michael-David Gordon is an Irondale Senior acting company member. Mr. Gordon has performed in all of Irondale's Off-Broadway productions since becoming a member in 1992; Working artist, director, arts educator and vocal coach for 35 years; Co-director of Irondale's Young Company; Co-facilitator of Irondale's 'To Protect, Serve And Understand'; Irondale: Much Ado About Nothing (Barrachio); Our Town (Stage Manager); Danton's Death (Danton); Color Between the Lines, a musical about The Abolitionist struggle in Brooklyn (Co-creator); The Seuss Show (Cat in the Hat); 1599 (Henry V, Julius Caesar, As You Like It, Hamlet); alice, Alice, ALICE! (Cheshire Cat); Mother Courage and Her Children (Yvette, Soldier, General). Apollo Theater - performer, arts educator. Company member of Theater For The New City's award- winning Street Theater since 1983. Tours: Dreamgirls, Hair, Freedom Train, Play To Win: The Jackie Robinson Story; Shame. Music: Michael - David Band (founder lead singer, composer); Apple Bonkers (Founder, lead vocalist); Pocket Band (Lead vocalist).
Job Titles:
- Ensemble Member / Senior Teaching Artist
Nolan Kennedy is an actor, musician, improviser, teaching artist, producer, Soundpainter, and playwright. He is a co-founder of Letter of Marque Theater Company and Brooklyn Improv Training, as well as a core member of Strike Anywhere Performance Ensemble and the Walter Thompson Orchestra. The 2022 production of Mother Courage and Her Children marks Nolan's return to the Irondale Ensemble after nearly a decade. Nolan received his B.F.A. in Acting from Illinois Wesleyan University. He also studied at Gaiety School in Dublin, Ireland. His improv training includes I.O., ComedySportz Chicago, and Improv Playhouse. His acting credits: in NYC: Pinocchio: the Story of a Puppet, Little Emo Mermaid, Double Falsehood, A Farce of Nature, Bully Me Down, Color Between the Lines, Julius Caesar, Peter Pan, London Cries, Macbeth Variations II, and Same River; in Chicago, IL: Private Lies, The Closeness of You, and Genius; in Austin, TX: The Bowie Project; in France: Rue Colbert, <<POP UP-Tours>>, <POP UP-Marseille>>, and Heroines; in Edinburgh, UK: Don't Feed the Cats. His playwriting credits include Prepared Fresh, This Little Piece, Gifts, Bully Me Down, and The Island is Full of Noises. He makes music with the dance-pop duo, Salon Man.
Job Titles:
- Marketing Director / Project Coordinator / Line Producer
Renata Soares (she/her) is a passionate theater maker with a B.A. in Arts Education (Theatre Studies) from the University of Brasilia (Brazil). Actor, director and producer, she's a graduate of the William Esper Acting Studio in New York City and has studied Physical Theatre in Brazil, Portugal and Greece. Selected NY acting credits include Patrick Marber's Closer, Savana Glacial by Brazilian playwright Jô Bilac, Breaking Up by Michael Cristofer and an all-women production of Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet. Selected nternational credits - Brazil: Levante-se, Menino Maluquinho - O Musical, RENT, Sem Pé Nem Cabeça; Portugal: Grand Opera Publique.
She joined the Irondale Ensemble Project staff in 2019 and was in the cast of The Good Soul of Setzuan in 2020. She is one of the minds behind On Women Festival and is extremely grateful for the creative family she has found at Irondale.
With a background in dance and martial arts, Renata is a certified Actor Combatant with the SAFD (recommended pass) and an Intimacy Coordinator with IPA. Since moving back to Brazil in early 2022, she started working as an Intimacy Coordinator for Amazon Brazil.
Job Titles:
- Secretary of the Board of Trustees
- Ensemble Member / Senior Teaching Artist
Rivka Rivera (she/her) is an award-winning Jew-Yo-Rican actor, playwright, and filmmaker. Her work explores the intersection of grief, capitalism, and human behavior and seeks to highlight the complex nuances that make being alive so damn spectacular.
A Brooklyn native, Rivka began working with Irondale in 2015 and is honored to call this company her artistic home. She has been a lead facilitator and co-director of TPSU since its inception. As a producer for the theater, she has worked on Not Normal, On Women Festival, and co-created ARTBuffet. Rivka is a lead STEAM teaching artist.
As an actress, Rivka can be seen in films like "Firelight" (ABC/HALLMARK) opposite Cuba Gooding Jr., the Sci-Fi Cult Favorite "The Circle" (NETFLIX), and most recently Peter Hedge's "The Same Storm." She also stars in the viral web series "Abandon All Hope" which she produced. Rivka has performed at Pittsburgh Irish & Classical Theater, EST, Dixon Place, LAByrinth Intensive Ensemble, and more.
Rivka's latest play THE MOURNERS about an estranged family forced together during Hurricane Maria was workshopped and awarded a NYFA/CITY CORPS Grant. As a filmmaker, her short about a real mushroom trip she took with her mother was featured in PAPER MAG. Rivka is a member of the Conch Shell Artist Collective for Caribbean Diaspora Writers and a proud alum of LaGuardia High School of the Performing Arts and Carnegie Mellon University.
Roni Sipp is an all around theater technician with a background in scenic design and lighting. She is currently the Production and Facilities Manager at JACK, and spent 6 years in many positions with Irondale. She is grateful to still be part of the ensemble, even if it is only part time! Some favorite credits include The Maids (Irondale), White on White (Hoi Polloi), Walking with Beckett (Irondale), Public Servant (TBTB), Spring Awakening (Irondale), The Hofstra Globe Project (Hofstra University) She does it all for her fat cat, Miyuki.
Job Titles:
- Treasurer of the Board of Trustees
Job Titles:
- Ensemble Member / Composer / Music Director
Sam Day Harmet is a mandolinist, multi-instrumentalist, composer, improviser, and music educator based in Brooklyn, NY. A musician of diverse tastes, Sam's projects range from deconstructive folk and jazz, to free improvisation, to left field electronic music, to Soundpainting and beyond. He has also written extensively in theater settings often composing material that blurs the lines between far flung styles and disciplines. His work has been called "wildly fresh" by Jazziz Magazine and "chic and eccentric" by The New York Times.
Around NYC, he can regularly be found performing with Astroturf Noise, La Banda Chuska, the Walter Thompson Orchestra, Karl Berger's Improvisers Orchestra, Erica Mancini, Salon Man, and numerous improvising musicians. His theater collaborators include Casual FreyDay, Letter of Marque Theater Company, and of course, the Irondale Ensemble. Favorite noise-making devices include the mandolin, guitar, tenor banjo, clarinet, electronics, and unlikely percussion objects.
Sam is an artist and educator with a background in educational programming and freelance production. He's been a company member with Irondale since 2014 and has acted in the ensemble's productions of Saint Joan of the Stockyards and 1599 Project. Sam is also a member of SlugFest Theater and has acted internationally with the company in their productions of Solarplexus: An Alternative Energy Play, BirdBrains, and Missing 411: Into the Void. As an educator and teaching artist, Sam has worked in schools across New York and Philadelphia, taught workshops for organizations including the Movement Theater Studio and University of the Arts, and currently during the summers, he serves as the Head Activities Specialist at Camp Winnebago in Maine. He received a B.A. in Theater and English from Bates College and an M.F.A. in devised performance from the Pig Iron School. He is proud to serve as Irondale's Director of Education.
Job Titles:
- Member of the Board of Trustees
Job Titles:
- Co - Founder
- Executive Director
- Founding Member
- Member of the Board of Trustees
Terry Greiss is a co-founder of Irondale, where he is also an actor and the Executive Director. He
has performed in more than 60 roles with the company, and he is a creator of most of Irondale's original works and education programs. He has conducted hundreds of workshops in public schools, prisons, theaters and professional training programs.
Terry was the Founding President of the Network of Ensemble Theatres and the Downtown Brooklyn Arts Alliance wher he continues to serve on its Board of Trustees. He was a panelist for the New York Foundation for the Arts, New York State Council on the Arts and the National Endowment for the Arts. In 2008 he was invited by the US Embassy to lecture and teach improvisation in Russia. He has taught at the New School, the University of Wisconsin Drama Center. In 2010 he was awarded Brooklyn Arts Exchange's Arts Education Award. From 2015-2020 he was an improvisation instructor for the Alan Alda Center for Communicating Science. In 2015, he created To Protect, Serve and Understand Irondale's improv training program for NYC police officers, designed to heal some of the tensions between officers and community members and provide real tools to improve communication and understanding.
Terry is a graduate of the New York (LaGuardia) High School for the Performing Arts and Sarah
Tim is excited to be a co-faciliator for Irondale's newest round of To Protect, Serve, and Understand (TPSU)! Tim started working with Irondale in the fall of 2020, in its virtual pandemic iteration of TPSU, which brings together local police and community members around food, dialogue, and improvisation, and he now facilitates with the in-person program. Tim is an educator, theatre artist, and researcher who works across the world to bridge cultural divides, promote civic engagement, and explore issues facing communities in innovative ways. In addition to TPSU, Tim uses theater tools to link students from different parts of the United States and the world to dialogue around cultural heritage, politics, and media literacy. Previously, Tim facilitated theater workshops in Jordan, Palestine, Germany, and around the US on topics such as refugee resettlement and fostering anti-racist college campuses. Tim earned his Master's of Education in International Education Policy from Harvard University and earned his Bachelor's in Political Science from Principia College.
Vicky was recently seen on stage as Mother Courage in Mother Courage and Her Children and as Alice in Irondale's fall 2021 production of alice…Alice…ALICE! Prior to that, she was the voice of Mother Courage in Irondale's pandemic podcast series The Mother Courage Radio Show. Among other productions in her checkered past are The Ghost of Sonata, The Real Inspector Hound, I can't Imagine tomorrow, The Cherry Orchard, The House of Blue Leaves, Old Times, Landscape, A Touch of the Poet, Side by Side by Sondheim, The Grass Harp, The Boys from Syracuse, and Carnival. Vicky is thrilled to be working with Irondale among such creative and generous artists. She is a graduate of the High School of Performing Arts and Denison University and attends Cornell University's Master of Fine Arts Program.
Victoria was born and raised in Argentina and received a B.A. in Theater and Film Studies from the University of Buenos Aires. She also studied Arts Administration at NYU's School of Professional Studies.
Read more victoria@irondale.
Victoria was born and raised in Argentina and received a B.A. in Theater and Film Studies from the University of Buenos Aires. She also studied Arts Administration at NYU's School of Professional Studies. Before joining Irondale, Victoria worked as a theater producer and grant writer. Earlier in her career, she joined the staff of a film magazine and planned on being a journalist, but she quickly realized she wanted to use her love of writing to help and work alongside talented artists. Fortunately, she found that and more at Irondale.