Board of Directors
The Strand is always on a lookout for dedicated community members who'd like to join our Board! If you are interested in learning more about a Board membership, or wish to contribute as an advisor, please contact the Executive Director, Elena Kostakis at elena@strand-theater.org
Shernā Ann Johnson
Shernā
Ann Johnson is a
professional editor and writer born and raised in Baltimore, Md. She holds a
bachelor's in journalism and a minor in business/liberal arts from Penn State
University and a master's in professional writing (creative writing concentration)
from Towson University. An emerging playwright, S. Ann's first penned play The XX Chromosome Genome
Project debuted at The Strand Theater Company's Friends & Neighbors
Festival in 2010. The multicultural choreopoem went on to entertain
audiences in Wilmington, Del, Philadelphia, Washington, D.C. and New York City,
where its Off Off Broadway production took home the Best Audience Award at the
2011 Downtown Urban Theater Festival.
S. Ann's other works include Sick Stories, Gentle Granddaddy (play), The Soda Jerk Sit-Ins (one-act play) and B-Roll, a web series currently in development.A performing artist, S. Ann's acting credits include For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide When The Rainbow Is Enuf, The Bubbly Black Girl Sheds Her Chameleon Skin and The XX Chromosome Genome Project.
She currently works as a Web Producer for CBS Baltimore.
S. Ann's other works include Sick Stories, Gentle Granddaddy (play), The Soda Jerk Sit-Ins (one-act play) and B-Roll, a web series currently in development.A performing artist, S. Ann's acting credits include For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide When The Rainbow Is Enuf, The Bubbly Black Girl Sheds Her Chameleon Skin and The XX Chromosome Genome Project.
She currently works as a Web Producer for CBS Baltimore.
Bari Hochwald
Bari received her Bachelor of Fine Arts in acting from Syracuse University and completed graduate studies at the American Repertory Institute for Advanced Theatre Training at Harvard University where she received her professional status as a member of Actor’s Equity.
In 2005 Bari co-founded Florence International Theatre Company which she ran as Producing Artistic Director for 4 seasons. In Florence she developed educational and community programming including annual participation in both the European Union’sDay of Memory for the Holocaust, Eve Ensler’s V-Day for Ending Violence Against Women and the Creative Campus Global Initiative for university students. This programming placed hundreds of students from various universities studying in Florence under her guidance on projects ranging from theatrical production to multi-disciplinary theme-based events such as Stereotypes which explored the questions of identity and communication in Florence social populations.
In 2010 Bari returned to the states where she founded The Global Theatre Project, a 501(c)3 not-for-profit. The mission of The GTP is based on the experiences, observations and lessons she learned while abroad. The main focus of which is the identification and engaged experience of global citizenship. As Artistic Director of The GTP, her directing includes The GTP’s inaugural event and first West Coast presentation of Being Harold Pinter in support of The Belarus Free Theatre with Ed Harris and James Cromwell, and the US premiere of A Stubborn Woman: a Theatrical Memorandum on Anna Politkovskaya by Stefano Massini which was performed bilingually (originally staged for Estate Firenze Festival, Florence).
In 2005 Bari co-founded Florence International Theatre Company which she ran as Producing Artistic Director for 4 seasons. In Florence she developed educational and community programming including annual participation in both the European Union’sDay of Memory for the Holocaust, Eve Ensler’s V-Day for Ending Violence Against Women and the Creative Campus Global Initiative for university students. This programming placed hundreds of students from various universities studying in Florence under her guidance on projects ranging from theatrical production to multi-disciplinary theme-based events such as Stereotypes which explored the questions of identity and communication in Florence social populations.
In 2010 Bari returned to the states where she founded The Global Theatre Project, a 501(c)3 not-for-profit. The mission of The GTP is based on the experiences, observations and lessons she learned while abroad. The main focus of which is the identification and engaged experience of global citizenship. As Artistic Director of The GTP, her directing includes The GTP’s inaugural event and first West Coast presentation of Being Harold Pinter in support of The Belarus Free Theatre with Ed Harris and James Cromwell, and the US premiere of A Stubborn Woman: a Theatrical Memorandum on Anna Politkovskaya by Stefano Massini which was performed bilingually (originally staged for Estate Firenze Festival, Florence).
Susan McCully
Susan McCully is a scholar of feminist theatre and a dramaturg, as well as a playwright and performer. She is the Artistic Director for GRRL Parts, the University of Maryland, Baltimore County’s (UMBC) festival of new plays by women. Her plays Cyber Becomes Electra, Inexcusable Fantasies and Leah’s Dybbuk have played at colleges, universities and fringe festivals across the U.S. and abroad including University of Toronto, University of Exeter, the Kolibri Pince in Budapest. Inexcusable Fantasies was invited to the Prague and the New York Fringe Festival in 2013. Her play Voracious premiered at UMBC in November 2015.
Eve Muson
Eve Muson’s directing credits include Kerrmoor (Interrobang Theatre/Strand Theater), Inexcusable Fantasies (Strand Theater, Prague Festival Fringe, FringeNYC), Speech & Debate and Las Meninas (RepStage), Venus, Big River, and Peter Pan (Olney Theatre Center,) and many productions at Boston Playwrights Theatre, WordBRIDGE Laboratory, American Stage Festival, and Edinburgh Festival Fringe. She is the Principal Director for Grrl Parts, the University of Maryland, Baltimore County’s (UMBC) festival of new plays by women. For this annual project, Eve has directed commissioned works by Sheila Callaghan, Tanya Saracho, Lucy Thurber, Ellen McLaughlin and Timberlake Wertenbaker. She has directed dozens of university productions including Leah’s Dybbuk, Two Gentlemen of Verona, Gum, and many new plays and devised works. She has been twice cited for Outstanding Direction by the Kennedy Center/American College Theatre Festival for her work on Un Tango En La Noche (Boston University) and Las Meninas (UMBC). She is an Associate Professor of Theatre and Director of the BFA Acting program at UMBC.
