Ariel Craft

Artistic Director

Ariel Craft is a Bay Area director, generative theater-maker, and arts administrator. Directing credits include The Mineola Twins and Phèdre (Theatre Bay Area Award, Outstanding Direction of a Play) at Cutting Ball Theater, Dry Land at Shotgun Players, an acclaimed adaptation of Kate Chopin’s feminist novella The Awakening and a radical re-imagining of Federico Garcia Lorca’s Blood Wedding. Ariel has directed for Bay Area companies such as Impact Theatre, The Custom Made Theatre Co., Wily West Productions, the San Francisco Olympians Festival, and the San Francisco Girls Chorus. She holds a BFA with Honors from New York University where she studied directing and multidisciplinary theatre-making at the Playwrights Horizons Theater School. Ariel was awarded an Artistic Fellowship at the American Conservatory Theater following her graduation. Assistant direction credits include American Conservatory Theater’s remount of Joel Grey and George C. Wolfe’s Tony-winning production of The Normal Heart by Larry Kramer and Phantom Limb Company’s 69°S, directed by Sophie Hunter at the Brooklyn Academy of Music. Ariel was also awarded Theatre Bay Area’s Titan Award.

Paige Rogers

Co-Founder

co-founded Cutting Ball Theater in 1999 where she took nearly two years to create Antigone, workshopping the piece at the Grotowski Institute in Poland and collaborating with translator Daniel Sullivan. Paige also took a long process to create Tontlawald, a play based on an Estonian fairy tale, with playwright Eugenie Chan, co-director Annie Paladino and choreographer Laura Arrington. She has also directed Life is a Dream with David and Asher Sinaiko in the father/son roles, The Wasps by Guy Zimmerman and Maria Irene Fornes’ Mud. As an actor, she was last seen onstage in Eugenie Chan’s plays Bone to Pick and Diadem. Some of her favorite roles at Cutting Ball include Mrs. Smith in The Bald Soprano, Ellie in The Vomit Talk of Ghosts and Kate in Taming of the Shrew, for which she was voted “Best Actress in San Francisco” by the SF Weekly’s annual reader’s poll. Rogers has been seen onstage with Berkeley Opera, Lamplighters, Sonoma County Repertory Theatre, California Shakespeare Theater, The Kennedy Center, McCarter Theatre, Trinity Repertory Company and Oregon Shakespeare Festival. She has a B.A. in English and Theater from Princeton University and attended drama school at Trinity Rep Conservatory.

Rob Melrose

Founding Artistic Director

Rob is a co-founder of the Cutting Ball Theater and is currently the Artistic Director of The Alley Theatre. His directing credits include: Frankenstein – Playing with Fire, Happy Days, Pen,Julius Caesar – with the Acting Company (The Guthrie Theater); Pericles (The Public Theater); Troilus and Cressida (Oregon Shakespeare Festival – in association with the Public Theater); Much Ado About Nothing (The Old Globe); An Accident (World Premiere, Magic Theatre); Happy Days (PlayMakers Rep); The Creature (World Premiere, BATCC Award for direction, Black Box Theatre), as well as works at Actors’ Collective and Crowded Fire Theater, among others. His directing credits at Cutting Ball include Ondine (World Premiere); Pelleas & Melisande; the Bay Area Premiere of Will Eno’s Lady Grey (in ever lower light); Bone to Pick and Diadem (World Premiere); The Taming of the Shrew; Macbeth; Hamletmachine; As You Like It; The Vomit Talk of Ghosts (World Premiere); Helen of Troy (World Premiere); and Drowning Room (World Premiere). He is a recipient of the NEA / TCG Career Development Program award for directors. He has taught at Stanford University, UC Berkeley, USF, the University of Rhode Island, and Marin Academy. He has a B.A. in English and Theater from Princeton University and an M.F.A. in directing from the Yale School of Drama.

Kirsten Schlenger

Board Member

(Since 2018)

Ms. Schlenger found her calling in immigration after several years on Wall Street and a brief stint in San Francisco as a tax lawyer. She mistakenly thought her interest in languages (French, Mandarin, Ancient Greek, Latin) and things international (food, travel, music, literature) would be satisfied through an international tax practice. Instead, she learned from a pro bono asylum assignment that helping foreign nationals secure immigration status and pursue their dreams in the U.S. was her true passion. She employs a quick sense of humor to combat the Kafkaesque absurdity of the immigration bureaucracy. Ms. Schlenger is the founder and managing partner of Weaver Schlenger LLP. In 2013, Ms. Schlenger received the INBLF’s Alberto Lasheras Shine Memorial Award, for strengthening and advancing the goals of the network by founding and leading both the Immigration Practice Group and Women’s International Network of the INBLF. She is the first North American, as well as the first woman, to win this award. In 2005, Ms. Schlenger was named one of the “Top 50 Female Super Lawyers” in Northern California. Listed in Northern California Super Lawyers from 2004-2015 and 2017, Ms. Schlenger has earned the highest “AV” rating from the prestigious attorney rating organization, Martindale-Hubbell. Ms. Schlenger is listed in the International Corporate Immigration edition of Who’s Who Legal. Chambers & Partners USA has consistently recognized her and her firm, noting Ms. Schlengeris a “dynamic, tough and brilliant lawyer with a great depth of knowledge.”

Dave Yrueta

Board Member

(Since 2013)

Before settling on his current vocation as high-school mathematics teacher, Dave worked variously as a tradesman, manager and consultant in the construction industry, and as a location scout for film and television in San Francisco and Los Angeles. A longtime fan of Cutting Ball Theater, he’s thrilled to have the opportunity to actively support the company as a board member. He lives in the East Bay with his wife Kate, and two lovely daughters, Ava and Zoe.

Reva Rao

Board Member

(Since 2016)

Reva Rao is a Private Mortgage Banker with Wells Fargo Home Mortgage. Reva recently completed ten years at Wells Fargo. Prior to her current role, she served as the channel manager and lead for pricing in the Home Equity group. She joined Wells Fargo from Green Point mortgage and has also held senior roles at JPMorgan Chase, Citibank and National Australia Bank. Reva was on the board of the New Conservatory Theater in San Francisco to champion innovation through high quality education among youth and artists in the queer and allied communities and serves on the board of the Marin Indian Community. She holds a Bachelors of Arts from Delhi University, in New Delhi, India and a master’s degree in business administration in finance and marketing from University of New South Wales, in Sydney, Australia. Reva and her family live in Novato, CA.

Michelle Moy

Board Member

(Since 2018)

As a passionate and avid theater-goer, Michelle Moy is a Bay Area native who is interested in supporting the Cutting Ball Theater as a Board Member. Currently working as a management consultant for TCG Consulting, she assists companies with developing their strategies for their corporate travel programs. Formerly, Michelle served in various global operations and consulting roles based out of Los Angeles, Philadelphia, Boston, NY, and London and has volunteered with a variety of NGOs and nonprofits across multiple industries. Michelle has a Bachelors of Science in Biology with a Marine Science emphasis, from UCLA and a MBA from the Yale School of Management.

Diane Compagno Miller

Board Member

(Since 2018)

Diane Compagno Miller is a San Francisco native and works for Wells Fargo Bank. For the past fifteen years, she has had responsibility for all Wells Fargo Community Bank Properties. Miller is a Senior Vice President and Strategic Director managing a portfolio of over 5,900 different locations in thirty eight states. In this capacity she reviews all leases, expansion and consolidations to maintain the Bank’s retail portfolio including associated design/construction projects for the Company. Prior to Wells Fargo she worked in Advertising and Marketing arena. Miller holds a B.A. in English and History from University of Denver. She was accepted into Stanford Business School where she graduated with an MS and named a Sloan Fellow. Miller lives in San Francisco, has two daughters, a long standing contributor to SF Opera and Narrative Magazine along with a deep love for the theatre.

Laura Mason

Board Member

(Since 2015)

Laura is a Senior Interactive Producer at Apple. Prior to that role, she was the Director of Production at Decision Counsel, a Berkeley-based digital strategy firm. Back in 2011, she was the General Manager of The Cutting Ball Theater and has maintained a passion for the company’s mission and work ever since. Her background in the performing arts includes working for Houston Grand Opera in their young artist training program and as an independent Company and Stage Manager. She holds a degree in Theater Management from CalArts.

Kristin Kwasnik

Board Member

(Since 2018)

Kristin runs a Customer Success team at Salesforce.org, where she helps nonprofits and educational institutions drive mission impact through Salesforce technology. Prior to her time at Salesforce.org, she grew and developed Customer Success for nonprofits and foundations at Zendesk. Kristin is passionate about the theater – from the Bard to Broadway – and she believes in the truly transformational power of performing arts. She holds a B.A. in Sociology and South Asian Studies from Colgate University and, while still a proud New Jersey native, has called the Bay Area home for almost ten years.

Tom Lima

Board Member

(Since 2015)

Tom Lima is Senior Vice President and General Counsel at Gap Inc. He is a seasoned corporate lawyer currently leading a team of about 45 lawyers and other professionals in multiple legal and non-legal functions in San Francisco, Shanghai, London, Mexico City, and New York City. Prior to joining Gap Inc. in 1997, Tom was a business lawyer with Brobeck, Phleger & Harrison. He received a B.A. in Economics/Pre-Law from the University of the Pacific and a J.D. from the University of California, Hastings College of the Law.

Sarah Kowalczyk

Board Member

(Since 2016)

Sarah Kowalczyk is a Top Agent and Partner with McGuire Real Estate. Prior to McGuire, she worked as Vice President of her family business, SKY Chairs, multiplying the size of the company many times over by leading an expansion to the West Coast and Europe. Sarah has worked in numerous professional and volunteer leadership positions throughout her 25 years in the Bay Area. She has served on the Vestry of St. John’s church in Ross and as a Sunday School teacher. Sarah grew up in the Twin Cities, Minnesota and holds a BA in English from St. Olaf College in Northfield, Minnesota.

Rebecca Kurland

Board Member

(Since 2017)

Rebecca J. Kurland is an attorney who practiced business and transactional law in the San Francisco Bay Area for over 25 years, giving strategic legal guidance to clients in the health care, long term care and educational fields and structuring transactions and internal processes to comply with state and federal laws on: use and disclosure of health information (such as HIPAA); business arrangements among health care providers (state and federal anti-kickback and physician self-referral statutes); and tax exemption for non-profit organizations. Ms. Kurland graduated from the Boalt Hall School of Law at the University of California, Berkeley, and served as a law clerk to the Hon. D. Lowell Jensen of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California.

Mary-Kay Gamel

Board Member

(Since 2017)

Mary-Kay Gamel earned her PhD in Comparative Literature at UC Berkeley, studying Greek, Latin, and English literature and writing her dissertation on Ovid’s Metamorphoses. She taught Greek, Latin, theater and film at the University of California, Santa Cruz for forty-two years. In 1985 she had a career-changing experience when she wrote a translation of Euripides’ Medea for the stage and participated in the rehearsal process. Since then she has been involved (as translator/adaptor, director, dramaturg, and/or producer) in more than forty productions of ancient drama including Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides, Aristophanes, Plautus, Terence, Seneca, and Hrotsvit of Gandersheim, in Santa Cruz, across the U.S., and abroad. She has written widely on ancient Mediterranean drama in performance. She is at work on a volume on authenticity in staging Greek and Roman drama and plans to publish her adaptations with notes and video.

Sammantha Clegg

Board Member

(Since 2018)

Sammantha Clegg is a recent transplant to San Francisco from New York City. She is graduate of Barnard College and Fordham Law School. Samm has been practicing law in the financial services industry since 2009, including as an associate at Baker & Hostetler LLP and as global litigation counsel for Forex Capital Markets. In November 2017, Samm moved to the west coast to serve as litigation counsel for LendingClub, America’s largest online marketplace allowing borrowers to apply for personal loans, auto refinancing, and small business loans. Although Samm has not performed on the stage since her days of middle school musicals, she remains an avid fan of the theater—everything from Broadway to tiny blackbox theater. She previously served as a board member for Studio 42, promoting the company’s mission to produce the un-produceable.

Eric Brown

Board Member

(Since 2010)

Eric is the principal of Brownbridge Strategies, a strategy and communications consulting firm that works with nonprofit organizations and charitable foundations. His clients include the Rockefeller Foundation, the MacArthur Foundation, the Irvine Foundation, and the San Francisco Foundation. Previously, he was the communications director for the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation in Menlo Park, California. In Washington DC, he was press secretary and speechwriter for Congresswoman Nydia M. Velazquez, a Member of Congress from New York City. His work has given him the opportunity to help nonprofit organizations in China, India, Africa, and Europe. As an actor in New York and Los Angeles, his credits include the Broadway production and national tour of On Golden Pond, the national tour of Pippin, a series regular gig on NBC’s Mama’s Family, and the lead in the feature film Private Lessons. Eric holds a bachelor’s degree in political science from the University of California at Berkeley and a Master of Liberal Arts from Stanford University.

Erik Blachford

Board Member

(Since 2010)

Currently a Venture Partner at Technology Crossover Ventures, Erik has served as CEO of Expedia, IAC Travel, Butterfield & Robinson, and Terrapass. He is an active private company investor, his boards include Zillow, Siteminder, Glassdoor, Varsity Tutors, Busbud, Liftopia, and Peloton Cycle. Non-profit boards include The Cutting Ball Theater, and the U.S. National Council of WWF. Erik holds an AB from Princeton University and an MBA from Columbia Business School.

Maya Herbsman

Associate Artistic Director

Maya Herbsman is a Bay Area raised director, playwright, intimacy choreographer and teaching artist. She received her BA in theater from Wesleyan University, where she was awarded the Rachel Henderson Memorial prize for excellence in directing. In the Bay Area, she has worked with Berkeley Repertory Theatre, Idiot String, We Players, New Conservatory Theatre Center, Z Space, Shotgun Players, Bay Area Children’s Theater, and TheaterFIRST. Recent directing credits include Medusa’s Tale, a radical reimagining of the myth, Nocturne, a new devised work, and Things I’ll Never Say, an original, immersive jukebox musical. Outside of her work at Cutting Ball, Maya teaches theater, dance, and creative storytelling to children 3-18 all over the Bay.

Carissa Ibert

General Manager

Carissa Ibert served as Executive Assistant to the Provost & Dean at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music prior to joining Cutting Ball Theater as General Manager. A San Francisco native, Carissa has been involved in theater for more than a decade. She received her MLitt in Dramaturgy and Playwriting from the University of Glasgow in Scotland and earned a bachelor’s degree from UC Santa Cruz. Carissa began her relationship with Cutting Ball Theater in 2013 as the Dramaturgy Fellow. She also worked as dramaturg on Antigone in the 2015-2016 season as well as Life is a Dream in the 2016-2017 season.

Liz Olson

Managing and Producing Director

Liz Olson is excited to be joining the Cutting Ball staff at their Managing and Producing Director. Most recently, she served as the Line Producer and General Manager of Tectonic Theater Project. Previously, she was the Producing Director of Studio 42, where she produced Ken Urban’s Wasps and worked on productions of Bekkah Brunstetter’s Miss Lilly Gets Boned and Gregory S. Moss’s Billy Witch. In the past, she has worked at NYU Skirball Center for the Performing Arts, NYTW, Playwrights Realm, and Two River Theater Company. Select Producing Credits include: Be A Good Little Widow (Wild Project), Couriers and Contrabands (TBG), Cygnus (WP’s Pipeline Festival, 2016 Kilroy List), and Reentry (American Records), which tours US Naval bases as part of their soldier reintegration training. This brings her full circle in life as she is a third generation Navy brat who now produces theater for the Navy. Time Warner Foundation Fellow of the 2014-2016 Producer’s Lab at the Women’s Project Theater, NYC; MBA in Public and Nonprofit Management, Boston University and BA/BBA, The College of William and Mary.

CBT

FOUNDERS

Rob Melrose

Paige Rogers

CBT

Staff

Ariel Craft

Liz Olson

Carissa Ibert

Maya Herbsman

CBT

Board

Erik Blachford

Eric Brown

Sammantha Clegg

Mary-Kay Gamel

Rebecca Kurland

Sarah Kowalczyk

Kristin Kwasnik

Tom Lima

Diane Compagno Miller

Michelle Moy

Reva Rao

Kirsten Schlenger

Dave Yrueta

Honorary Board

Board Emeritus