GAN-e-meed Addresses Work/Life Balance for Women in Theatre 9/12

GAN-e-meed Theatre Project's second season of Career Labs for Women in Theatre begins on September 12 with Balancing Act: The Work/Life Continuum, a panel discussion.

Co-produced by StageSource, the panel features an impressive group of successful professional women: Veronique Le Melle, Executive Director of The Boston Center for the Arts; Jennie Israel, Actress, Educator and Founding Member of Actors' Shakespeare Project; and Ilana Brownstein, Playwright, Professor, and Founder of the recently established Playwrights' Commons. This lively, insightful, articulate, educated, and experienced panel will be moderated by Julie A. Hennrikus, Executive Director of StageSource.

"This is an issue that kept arising at StageSource's Boston Theatre Conference, so I know I'm not the only one frustrated with juggling!" laughs Jen Lewis, Director of Career Labs. "Theatre people often chose to stay in Boston because we want to have family, hobbies, relationships- a life! And don't forget the need to pay the bills, eat healthy and sleep 8 hours per night. Combining all that with the time-consuming, poorly-paid, variably-scheduled theatre world is incredibly tough. Everyone finds their own way to make it work, and in this Career Lab we'll explore the issue with successful women in different places in their lives and careers. There are no "one-size" solutions, but maybe they have found some tricks I haven't yet!"

Launched mid-way through last season, The Career Labs, a successful quarterly event fills an essential slot in GAN-e-meed's mission to advance the role of women in theatre. The Career Labs provide an opportunity for women in theatre to address challenges, celebrate successes, create community, develop skill sets, and build an on-going dialogue.

The Career Labs is generously hosted by The Boston Center for the Arts.

The successful Career Labs, a series of workshops and panel discussions continues in 2011-12 with Balancing Act: the Work-Life Continuum on September 12; Perfecting Your Pitch on November 8; Negotiation for Women in Theatre in April 2012; and Building Your Community and Network on June 3, 2012. Co-sponsored by StageSource, all Career Labs are generously hosted by the Boston Center for the Arts. Further networking opportunities will be available during the oft-demanded Women in Theatre Networking Nights, beginning October 6.

About The Career Labs

Balancing gender inequity in theatre employment plays an essential role in GAN-e-meed's mission. The Career Labs, a quarterly workshop series, offers women in theatre tangible, essential learning opportunities to advance their careers, create networking opportunities, and develop skill sets. The Career Labs addresses topics vital to all theatre professionals. This season's Labs include Balancing Act: The Work/Life Continuum (featuring panelists Veronique Le Melle of the BCA, Jennie Israel of Actors' Shakespeare Project, Ilana Brownstein of Playwights' Common and moderator Julie Hennrikus of StageSource), Perfecting Your Pitch (featuring guest speaker Robbie Samuels), Negotiation for Women in Theatre, and Building Your Community & Network.

The Career Labs 2011-2012 season is co-produced with StageSource and generously hosted by the Boston Center for the Arts.

About GAN-e-meed Theatre Project

GAN-e-meed Theatre Project is a mission-driven non-profit theatre company that advances the role of women in theatre. GAN-e-meed supports their mission through a production season of relevant plays, networking nights for women in theatre, and The Career Labs, a series of workshops supporting the unique challenges, skill-sets, and successes of women in theatre. For more information please visit www.GANemeed.org.

About StageSource

StageSource provides leadership and services to advance the art of theatre in the Greater Boston region. Our mission is to unite theatre artists, theatre companies, and related organizations in vision and goals that inspire and empower our community to realize its greatest artistic potential. www.stagesource.org
About Boston Center for the Arts

The Boston Center for the Arts (BCA) is a not-for-profit performing and visual arts complex that supports working artists to create, perform and exhibit new works; builds new audiences; and connects art to community. The BCA serves arts audiences through exhibitions, live performances and community events, and supports artists through affordable studio, rehearsal and performance space on our historic South End site. The BCA's two-acre campus is home to hundreds of working artists, as well as several nonprofit arts and educational groups that provide a wide spectrum of services. To learn more, please visit www.bcaonline.org.
Prominent Staff and Participant Bios

Jen Alison Lewis (Director of Career Labs and Publicity at GAN-e-meed Theatre Project) produced BOOBfest: Bringing On-Stage Opportunities to Babes and is returning to direct her winning pieces for The 1-Page Play Experiment with GAN-e-meed. She is a theatre director; actor on stage, screen and mic; acting coach; administrator; Mom; and President of the Friend of the Medford Family Network. Her acting work can currently be seen in new play readings at Boston Playwrights' and heard in countless online trainings. She holds a BFA from NYU and is a member of Actors' Equity Association, Screen Actors Guild, and StageSource.
SerahRose Roth (Executive Artistic Director of GAN-e-meed Theatre Project) is a passionate producer, director and educator, holistically mentoring young and old artists alike. She is a consultant for the inclusion of theatre education in the early childhood classroom. She has presented her early childhood pedagogy, PictureBook Plays, at the annual conferences for the National Association for the Education of the Young Child and Southern Early Childhood Association. She has developed and taught innovative educational programs for a variety of ages at New Repertory Theatre, Northlight Theatre, Yellow Taxi Productions, Boston Children's Museum, and Chicago Children's Museum. Directing credits include Hamlet (Newton South & North High Schools), Silence and Lucy Dreaming (GAN-e-meed), Electra (Newton South High School), Inherit the Wind and A Midsummer Night's Dream (Littleton High School). Acting credits include the title role in Hamlet (GAN-e-meed), Ophelia in Hamlet (First Folio Shakespeare and The Theatre Co-Op), Liz Mordan in Our Country's Good (The Theatre Co-Op), Aerosmith in Frodo-A-Go-Go: The Rings Recycled (The Free Associates), Cecily in The Importance of Being Earnest (Penobscot Theatre), and Thomasina Coverly in Arcadia (Brandeis University). SerahRose holds a BA in Theatre Arts from Brandeis University, an advanced certificate from Boston University's Institute for Non-Profit Management and Leadership, and particularly enjoys working with high school students as they discover the joys of speaking Shakespeare. She is the proud mother of a kindergartner who also loves the arts.
Julie A. Hennrikus (Executive Director of StageSource and Panel Moderator) is the Executive Director of StageSource, and an adjunct faculty at Emerson College's Performing Arts Department. She began her arts management career in small commercial theaters (the Next Move Theatre & Charles Playhouse) in Boston, working front of house, box office and in company management. In 1990 she oversaw the box office set up and operations for Mapplethorpe: The Perfect Moment at the ICA. In 1991 she was hired by Harvard University to create a box office for Sanders Theatre, an 1166 seat concert hall in Memorial Hall. After a renovation of Memorial Hall she was promoted to Program Manager, scheduling Sanders Theatre, Annenberg Hall, Lowell Hall and 16 other spaces. In 2004 she became the General Manager and Director of Marketing of Emerson Stage, the producing arm of the Department of Performing Arts at Emerson College. In February 2011 she became the Executive Director of StageSource. Julie is also a mystery writer, and on the board of the New England chapter of Sisters in Crime.
Veronique Le Melle (Panelist) In her two years as Executive Director of the Boston Center for the Arts, Veronique Le Melle has refocused, rearticulated and reinvigorated the organization around its mission of supporting working artists. Prior to her current position, Le Melle directed arts and cultural organizations such as the Louisiana Division of the Arts, Jamaica Center for Arts & Learning, Inc. (Queens, NY) and the Culture & Tourism Department at the Queens Borough President's Office. Ms. Le Melle also participated as a National Board Member of Grant Makers in the Arts and a Board member on the Arts Business Council and ArtTable. Since joining the organization in January 2009, Ms. Le Melle has revitalized the BCA mission by connecting it more fully to BCA programs, spearheaded initiatives to increase services for working artists and explored ways to connect with youth and community organizations in the South End.
Jennie Israel (Panelist) is a founding company member of The Actors' Shakespeare Project, where she served for five years as Associate Artistic Director and is currently the Casting Associate and a Resident Acting Company member. With ASP Jennie has played such roles as The Duchess in The Duchess of Malfi, Helena in Midsummer, Constance in King John, Helena in All's Well That Ends Well, Goneril in King Lear, Calpurnia / Trebonius / Pindarus in Julius Caesar, and Elizabeth in Richard III. Other local credits include Claire in Boston Marriage, Christine in Dollhouse and Dorine in Tartuffe at The New Repertory Theatre; Lady Macbeth in Macbeth and Phebe in As You Like It for Commonwealth Shakespeare Company; Les Liaisons Dangereuses at the Huntington Theatre; Living in Exile at the Vineyard Playhouse; Ruth in Table Manners and Living Together at Gloucester Stage Company, Molly Maguire at the Sugan Theatre; and Undine's Valediction, Summer, The Scarlet Letter, and Macbeth with Shakespeare & Company. Regional acting credits include Yale Repertory Theatre, Actors' Theatre of Louisville, The Greenwich Street Theatre, Lincoln Center Theatre, Theatre Building Chicago, Ohio Theatre Soho, Sun Valley Shakespeare Festival, and Chautauqua Theatre Festival. Film and television credits include Rudy for TriStar Pictures, Guiding Light, and Coming to Litchfield, an independent film. Most recently Jennie directed Measure for Measure at Harvard College where she also directed Romeo and Juliet in 2007. She is an artist-in-residence at Concord Academy where she has taught theatre courses and directed The Beaux' Stratagem, Macbeth and Chicago. In 1992 Jennie founded Chicago's Eclipse Theatre, still in existence today. Jennie has taught text, voice, stage dialects and acting at Bowdoin College, Boston College, SUNY/ Purchase, The Boston Conservatory, Harvard College, Concord Academy, Emerson College and is currently on the faculty of Ecole Internationale de Boston. In 2010 Jennie launched "Peaseblossoms, clothing for tots inspired by Will Shakespeare". Jennie has just returned from the 9th World Shakespeare Congress in Prague where she was invited with her colleagues from ASP to present a workshop on her work with incarcerated youth and Shakespeare's words. She holds an MFA in Acting from the Yale School of Drama.
Ilana Brownstein (Panelist) is a dramaturg and director specializing in new play development and local writers. She is the Founding Dramaturg at Playwrights' Commons, Director of New Work at Company One, and a professor of dramatic literature and dramaturgy at Boston University's School of Theatre. For seven years she was Literary Manager and dramaturg at The Huntington Theatre Company, where she created the Huntington Playwriting Fellows program and the Breaking Ground Festival; was production dramaturg for all season shows; edited the Limelight Literary Guide; and ushered new plays to premiere at the Huntington, around Boston, and on Broadway. She has worked dramaturgically with numerous playwrights, including Melinda Lopez, Lydia Diamond, John Shea, Kirsten Greenidge, Joyce Van Dyke, August
Wilson, Wendy Wasserstein, Lisa Kron, Theresa Rebeck, Naomi Iizuka, Mat Smart, Kristoffer Diaz, Aditi Kapil, and Sarah Schulman, among others. In 2008, she won the Elliott Hayes Award, an international prize given by Literary Managers & Dramaturgs of the Americas for innovation and excellence in dramaturgy; and in 2011 won LMDA's
Dramaturg-Driven Grant for her work with Playwrights' Commons. She holds an MFA in Dramaturgy & Dramatic Criticism from the Yale School of Drama, and a BA in Directing from The College of Wooster.