RECORDINGS FROM PAST EVENTS
Facing Challenges & Difficulties featuring Oshoke Pamela Abalu
& Benjamin Scheuer
Wednesday, April 29th
12:30pm EDT
Oshoke Pamela Abalu is the co-founder of Love & Magic Company, a tech-forward consultancy. An architect and Crain’s 40 Under 40 honoree, she is reimagining the future of work through ecosystem innovations like “Inclusion & Symphony” and “Smiles Per Square Foot," where people and technology work side by side to improve lived experiences and amplify human potential.
Benjamin Scheuer is the writer and star of autobiographical solo show The Lion, which debuted off-Broadway in 2014 following runs in Edinburgh and London. His debut single, "I Am Samantha," was released March 31 2020, with more music to come throughout 2020.
Perspective & Purpose featuring Alton Fitzgerald White & Jennifer Ashley Tepper
Wednesday, May 6th
12:30pm EDT
Alton Fitzgerald White is a singer, actor and dancer who broke Broadway records with 4,308 performances as King Mufasa in The Lion King. He’s also the author of PRIDE: Mastering Life's Daily Performance and appeared in 2019's The Goldfinch.
Jennifer Ashley Tepper is producer of the musicals Be More Chill, Broadway Bounty Hunter, and Love In Hate Nation. She is also the Creative and Programming Director at Feinstein's/54 Below and the author of The Untold Stories of Broadway book series. Tepper was recently named recipient of a 2020 Lincoln Center Emerging Artist Award.
Just Freakin’ Positivity featuring Mark Fisher & Natasha Tsakos
Wednesday, May 13th
12:30pm EDT
Mark Fisher is the founder of Mark Fisher Fitness in New York, which has become a de facto fitness destination for Broadway actors. Their tagline, "Ridiculous Humans. Serious Fitness." sums up their style of innovative and fun workouts.
Natasha Tsakos is known for pioneering ways of integrating technology with live performance. She has created shows for the Discovery Channel, opened the G20 summit, Tribeca Film Festival, and performed at the Super Bowl with Cirque du Soleil. Natasha is currently developing her most epic production to date: a live multi-sensory experience that directly impacts the world in real time.
Adapting & Innovating featuring Sebastian Herscher, Matt Jozwiak & Emily Simoness
Wednesday, May 20th
12:30pm EDT
Sebastian Herscher is the CEO and co-founder of Parallux and a PhD Candidate at the NYU Future Reality Lab. Parallux delivers world-class immersive experiences to mass audiences, and its mission is to help people experience breathtaking new worlds together in a powerfully social and immersive way.
At only 31, Matt Jozwiak has already been in the food industry almost half his life. His first big break came when he decided to move to France and train under his mentor, Pierre Orsi. By 27, Jozwiak was named a chef de partie at the world-renowned fine dining restaurant Eleven Madison Park in New York City. But for Jozwiak, the true recipe for success is less about making a name for himself in the culinary world — and more about giving back to the community. After seeing first-hand the amount of nutritious, high-quality food that goes to waste in restaurants, Jozwiak left Eleven Madison Park to launch the food justice non profit RethinkFood NYC.
Emily Simoness is the founder and executive director of SPACE on Ryder Farm, a nonprofit artist residency program committed to supporting and developing artists and their work. Housed on 130 acres of organic farmland in Brewster, NY, SPACE has quickly become one of the premier centers for new play development in the country.
The Urgency of Change featuring Jim Joseph, Dr. Desmond Upton Patton, and Edward Poteat
with guest host Felicia Fitzpatrick
Tuesday, June 16th
4:30pm EDT
Felicia Fitzpatrick is Playbill's social media director and the creator/host of call and response, a podcast that explores the intersection of blackness and performing arts. Her writings and musings have been featured in Teen Vogue, BuzzFeed, Zora, and more. She has moderated and participated in multiple panels for brands such as BroadwayCon, American Theatre Wing, and The Strand Bookstore. She is a TedxBroadway Young Professional Program alum and is the proud owner of NOW That's What I Call Music! albums 4, 7-8, 10 and 16.
Born and raised in the Bronx, Jim Joseph has worked in the New York City performing arts community for almost 30 years. He’s passionate about telling diverse stories and nurturing the next generation of arts leaders.
Dr. Desmond Upton Patton, Associate Dean for Innovation and Academic Affairs, founding director of the SAFE Lab and co-director of the Justice, Equity and Technology lab at Columbia School of Social Work, is a leading pioneer in the field of making AI empathetic, culturally sensitive and less biased. Through keynote presentations and interactive workshops, Desmond is helping organizations develop a better approach to diversity and inclusion that includes fairer practices that address the challenge of prejudice, rather than contribute to it. Also the founder of the SIM|ED tech incubator at Columbia University, Desmond’s research uses virtual reality to educate youth and policymakers about the ways social media can be used against them and how race plays a part.
Edward Poteat is a leading developer of affordable housing in the New York City metropolitan area. Currently, he is the Founder and President of Carthage Advisors, an affordable housing real estate firm that specializes in the redevelopment of older government subsidized properties.
The Future (of Broadway, but not just Broadway) featuring Sammi Cannold, Miral Kotb, and Marshall W. Mabry IV with guest host Casey Mink
Tuesday, June 30th
4:30pm EDT
Sammi Cannold is one of Forbes Magazine's 30 Under 30 in Hollywood & Entertainment, class of 2019. Credits include Evita (New York City Center), Endlings (New York Theatre Workshop, A.R.T.), Ragtime on Ellis Island, and Violet on a moving bus (A.R.T.). Upcoming projects include Carmen (Lincoln Center w. MasterVoices). Associate credits include the Broadway production of Natasha, Pierre... (dir. Rachel Chavkin). Sammi has served as a member of Cirque du Soleil's Creative Cognoscenti and a Sundance Institute Fellow. She holds a B.A. from Stanford University and an M.A. from Harvard University.
Miral Kotb is a female entrepreneur who used her lifelong love of dance and computer science to create the global dance sensation iLuminate. Since placing as finalists on America’s Got Talent, Kotb has programmed iLuminate’s patented technology for some of the biggest names in music, performed multiple shows in New York, and is preparing to take their show to the bright lights of the Las Vegas Strip. Miral continues to share her passion for technology at prominent speaking engagements while empowering young people to pursue opportunities in STEM/STEAM.
Marshall W. Mabry IV is an activist, playwright and performer from Atlanta. He’s a rising freshman majoring in Musical Theatre at the Boston Conservatory at Berklee. Marshall strives to leave every room brighter than he found it, especially for the young artists of color coming after him.
Casey Mink is the senior staff writer at Backstage Magazine and Backstage.com. There, she spends most of her time feature-writing and conducting interviews with actors, writers, directors, and other creatives across the performing arts industry, focusing largely on theater. She is a graduate of Hunter College in New York City, where she studied journalism and English. Her additional bylines can be found at Vanity Fair, Out Magazine, and TodayTix—and she would love to talk to you about women+ in theater.
Getting Everyone Onboard featuring Caroline Bragdon, Gardiner Comfort & Osh Ghanimah
Tuesday, July 14th
4:30pm EDT
Caroline Bragdon is the Director of Neighborhood Interventions for the Pest Control Services program at the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene. Ms. Bragdon works to develop and improve neighborhood level responses to rat infestation. She develops curricula and teaches urban Integrated Pest Management (IPM) for diverse audiences in New York City including building managers, custodians, gardeners, businesses and city employees. Currently, she is overseeing a large Neighborhood Rat Reduction program which includes three Boroughs and five agencies. In 2012, she published an article titled “Evaluation of a Neighborhood Rat-Management Program – New York City, 2007-2009” in the Centers for Disease Control Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report and in 2015 she published “Characteristics of the Built Environment and the Norway Rat” in the Journal of Environmental Health. Ms. Bragdon received a Bachelor’s degree in Community Health and Social Psychology from Tufts University and a Master’s degree in Public Health from Johns Hopkins University.
Gardiner Comfort is an actor, writer, and teacher who was born and raised in New York City. He holds an MFA in acting from the American Repertory Theater Acting Institute at Harvard University and has traveled the world as an actor in many productions, from Shakespeare to contemporary works. His original solo show THE ELEPHANT IN EVERY ROOM I ENTER, created with director Kel Haney, is about his life with Tourette Syndrome and has been performed at many theaters and educational institutions across the country. He is a theater professor at Queens College, a NYC tour guide, and is on the board of the NYC Chapter of the Tourette Association of America.
Osh Ghanimah has the distinct pleasure of serving as the Founder & President of Broadway For All and Director of Content Development for The Frederick Zollo Company. Osh is a Co-Producer of the upcoming Broadway musical, Sing Street, and has worked with The Public Theatre, The Guthrie Theater, American Repertory Theater, and Russia’s Moscow Art Theatre, among others. Select TV work includes: "High Maintenance," "The Good Fight," "Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt," "The Blacklist," "The Looming Tower." Film work includes All We Had, starring and directed by Katie Holmes. Osh holds BA and BS from Loyola University Chicago where he received a Presidential Scholarship and was recently honored with their Damen Award for alumni impact. He received an MFA from Harvard University where he served as a Guest Lecturer (Office of the Arts) and a Presidential Public Service Fellow (Office of the President). Osh is a Teach for America alumnus and trained teachers and leaders in NYC for five years. He began his public speaking career with TEDxBroadway and is a proud recipient of Artspace's Su Job Award for Education. @broadwayforall--
Personal Resilience featuring Arvind Ethan David, Amy E. Gallo, Brian Moreland & Rachelle Pereira with guest host Fern Lim
Tuesday, July 28th
4:30pm EDT
Arvind Ethan David is a producer and writer of films, television, comics, and theatre. On Broadway, David is a lead producer of Jagged Little Pill, one of only a handful of lead producers of color in the 2019-2020 season. In television, David was Executive Producer of the acclaimed BBC America/Netflix series Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency starring Elijah Wood. David has produced eight feature films, including the British hit comedy The Infidel and The Garden Of Evening Mists for HBO. David is a principal of Prodigal Entertainment, and a partner in Hatch Escapes, an escape room and table-top game business. David is also a writer, whose credits include the Stoker Award-Nominated Darkness Visible, which he is adapting for television for Intrepid Pictures (“Haunting of Hill House”) and is currently working on a series for Amazon, an original graphic novel for Clover Press and an adaptation of the best-selling YA series The Knights of the Borrowed Dark for Screen Ireland. Tomorrow, Wednesday, July 29 at 9PM EDT / 6PM PDT, David will premiere #WhileWeBreathe: A Night of Creative Protest, a YouTube Live production of new works by Hollywood and Broadway's greatest writers to benefit national not-for-profit organizations. David is a proud immigrant of Indian origin, the son of a refugee and currently resides in Los Angeles with his wife Janine N'jie David and their daughter Odetta.
Amy Gallo is an expert in conflict, communication, and workplace dynamics. She is the author of the HBR Guide to Dealing with Conflict, a how-to guidebook about handling conflict professionally and productively. In her role as a contributing editor at Harvard Business Review, Amy writes frequently about a range of topics with a focus on interpersonal dynamics, communicating ideas, leading and influencing people, and building your career. Amy is currently a co-host of HBR's Women at Work podcast, which is in its fifth season. Amy is on the faculty of the Emotional Intelligence Coaching Certification program. She taught at Brown University and is a graduate of both Brown and Yale University.
Brian Moreland is a creative lead commercial producer based in New York City. Brian is also one of 5 Black producers for Broadway, with a passion for universal stories, while blending marginalized people and topics with entertainment. Previous Broadway credits include: The Lifespan of a Fact with Daniel Radcliffe, Cherry Jones and Bobby Cannavale, Sea Wall/ A Life with Jake Gyllenhaal and Tom Sturridge, The Sound Inside with Mary-Louise Parker to name a few. Upcoming shows include American Buffalo with Sam Rockwell, Darren Criss and Laurence Fishburne, Thoughts of a Colored Man, and BLUE, starring Emmy $ Tony Winner Leslie Uggams and Emmy Winner Lynn Whitfield, directed by Tony Winner Phylicia Rashad! Brian is an active member of the Broadway community, volunteering his time for the Theatre Development Fund and the Broadway League.
Rachelle Pereira is the Co-Founder of EQUALibrium Group, a leadership and communication consulting firm dedicated to nurturing and building powerful modern leaders. In her 15 years as an executive coach, facilitator and educator, she has had the privilege of working with a diverse group of organizations, ranging from small start-ups to Fortune 100 companies. For all of her clients, she focuses on what she believes are the cornerstones to quality communication: empathy and curiosity. With this approach, she has taught surgeons how to apologize after medical errors; worked with human rights activists to help them stop fighting each other and instead fight for their cause; shown senior executives how they can get better financial results by demonstrating vulnerability; and helped entire organizations change the way they view and interact with their consumers. Recent clients include United Nations, Human Rights Watch, International Rescue Committee, Amazon, Sony Music Entertainment, Oneworld Alliance and NBC Universal.
Fern Lim is an overall artistic soul on a mission to brighten and deepen the energy of the world! She believes in the power of art to cultivate empathy and connection in what can be a painfully divisive world, and is an ardent supporter of the creators, dreamers, and change-makers both around us and within us. Fern is currently the Creative Director at RexPay (because even a healthcare mobile app can be filled with punny delight) and a co-producer of the quirky comedic series Human Telegraphs. In her spare time, she writes love notes to reality in a monthly newsletter titled “the little things.”