Staff, Board & Partners - Junebug Productions

STAFF

John O’Neal, Founder and Artistic Director

Full-time since 1980

Since 1963, John O’Neal has been a leader in the field of artists working in community and a leading advocate of the view that “politics” and “art” are complementary, not opposing terms. His work as a writer, performer and director has taken him to audiences throughout North America, Europe and Africa. He is the founder and artistic director of Junebug Productions, the organizational successor to the Free Southern Theater of which O’Neal was also a co-founder and director. O’Neal was a Field Secretary of the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) and worked as an organizer with the United Church of Christ Committee for Racial Justice. O’Neal has authored twelve plays, several essays and poetry. He has numerous credits as an actor and has toured widely as the mythic character, Junebug Jabbo Jones, a character that was created by people involved in SNCC to symbolize the wisdom of common people. Since 1999, O’Neal’s main work has revolved around The Color Line Project, a community-based story collection project about the Civil Rights Movement. In 2002, O’Neal and his Color Line Project partner, Theresa Holden won the Ford Foundation Leadership for a Changing World Award for their joint work on the national Color Line Project.

Terry Scott, Managing/ Development Director

Terry Scott is currently an independent producer & media consultant for independent filmmakers and non-profit arts organizations with more than 10 years of working knowledge in commercial and non-profit management, marketing, and outreach. His clients have included the www.ActiveCitizenProject.com project, www.katrinaroadhome.org, www.changingtheframe.com & America Online BlackVoices.com, where he worked on strategic planning for the AOL/BlackVoices film platform, developing AOL/BV’s on line film festival, weekly online film series and creating new content streams in the division of Black filmmaking, new media and African Americans in the film industry in general. His multimedia career includes a stint as Senior Coordinator for StoryCorps, the award winning oral history project broadcast nationally on National Public Radio from 2006 through 2008 where he managed the StoryCorps MobileBooth recording studio national tour. From 2001-2005 he was the Director of Producer Services & Technology for National Black Programming Consortium, a funding resource organization for black programming on public television. At NBPC Terry served in the role of associate producer for many NBPC funded films broadcast on PBS, working closely with documentary producers to assist in bringing their projects to fruition.

A chief strategist for NBPC outreach projects for nationally broadcast PBS films, Terry produced premiere NYC screenings at Lincoln Center, Apollo Theater and the Schomburg Center for films such as A Place of Our Own, Citizen King, Chisholm ’72, Flag Wars, A Huey P. Newton Story, Ralph Ellison, and Parliament Funkadellic: One Nation Under a Groove, in addition to screenings in Los Angeles, New Orleans, and Washington DC. Terry also & founded & edited NBPC’s e-newsletter DigitalDrum. Terry also Co- produced the first NBPC film festival in New York and over the years developed extensive community partnerships with numerous NY and national organizations. Terry is the former Administrative Director for Elders Share the Arts, one of the premier intergenerational arts organizations in the country. Additionally, he has served as a panelist for numerous arts institutions including New York State Council on the Arts and is a media consultant for a number of independent producers and non profit arts organizations.

Kiyoko McCrae, Program/ Community Engagement Director

Since graduating from New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts with a BFA in Theatre Arts in 2001, Kiyoko McCrae has been working as an arts administrator, actor, theatre arts teacher and community organizer. As a student, McCrae was trained most notably by the performance artist Karen Finley and community-based arts professor, Jan Cohen-Cruz. Her performance credits include Juliet in Romeo and Juliet (La Mama Theatre); Mary Warren in The Crucible (Weathervane Theatre); Telephone Girl in Machinal (Currican Theatre) and Anatah in the world premier of Red Sky (Henry St. Settlement Theatre). She has taught theater at Children in the Classics, TIE—Theater in Education (London), and several other afterschool programs around the country. As a community organizer, McCrae has facilitated several environmental justice and anti-war campaigns at El Puente, a Latino community-based youth and arts education organization in Brooklyn, NY and United for Peace and Justice, the largest anti-war coalition in the United States.

Theresa Ripley Holden, Free Southern Theater Institute Planning Director

Theresa Ripley Holden, a performing arts manager, theater artist, teacher and organizer, is the co-Director of Holden & Arts Associates (formerly Western and Southern Arts Associates). Holden & Arts Associates (HAA), founded by Michael and Theresa Holden in 1983, provides a full range of management and booking services to the national and international professional performing arts field. Theresa is also the founder and Director of The Artist and Community Connection, a not-for-profit organization which offers organizing, planning and producing services to arts organizations, artists, arts companies and community based organizations. Theresa has served on NEA and Arts Partners Panels; undertaken site visits for the NEA and the Mid Atlantic Arts Foundation, and has served as a project director for several Arts Partners' projects. Theresa has planned and produced numerous community-based arts projects around the USA, including the "Untold Stories Festival" in Tempe, AZ, “The Exchange Project”, a cross cultural theater collaboration, “The Dayton Story Project”, and is currently the Project Director for Junebug Productions’ “The Color Line Project”. Prior to her work with HAA and ACC, Theresa taught theater at the university level for 10 years. She has continued teaching in numerous theater and community workshops around the country. Most recently she taught a graduate theater course at Arizona State University entitled "From Community to Stage” and taught a course for APAP’s Winter Institute. Theresa and her colleague, John O’Neal of Junebug Productions, have just been awarded the 2002 Leadership for a Changing World Award from the Ford Foundation for their work on “The Color Line Project”. They were the only artists to receive the award this year.

Danielle Miles, Web designer,

BOARD OF DIRECTORS

Wallace Young

Mary Howell

John M. O’Neal

Norbert Simmons

Theresa Holden

MK Wegmann

FREE SOUTHERN THEATER ADVISORY BOARD:

THE PHOENIX SQUAD

* Carol Bebelle, Director of the Ashé Cultural Arts Center

* Ron Bechet, Chair of the Xavier University Art Department

* James B. Borders, a Capacity-Building Consultant

* Theresa Holden, Managing Director, Junebug Productions

* Amy Koritz, Professor of English, Tulane University

* Barbara Hayley, Chair of the Tulane Department of Theatre and Dance

* Gilbert McCauley, Associate Professor, Theater, Univ. of Mass., Amherst

* John O’Neal, Artistic Director, Junebug Productions

* Mat Schwarzman, Director, Crossroads Project for Art, Learning and Community

* Susan Sillins, Independent Producer

* Fillipe Smith, Director African and African Diaspora Studies, Tulane

* Deanille Taylor, Dean of Humanities, Dillard University

* Carlton Turner, Artistic Director, M.U.G.A.B.E.E.

* MK Wegmann, President and CEO of the National Performance Network

PARTNERS

Artist Partners

Michael Keck (Composer, Sound Designer and Musical Director), a nationally acclaimed composer and musician, Michael co-created and performed in Junebug Production’s national tour of “Ain’t No Use In Going Home, Jodie’s Got your Gal and Gone”, and “Junebug/Jack” with Roadside Theater.

Steven Kent (Director and Professor of Theater) one of the most sought after directors and acting teachers working in contemporary American theater. Steve has directed six Junebug Production plays.

StevenKent

Gilbert McCauley (Director and Professor of Theater) is presently an Associate Professor in the Department of Theater at the University of Massachusetts. Gilbert directed “’Trying to Find My Way Back Home” for Junebug Producitons.

Gilbert McCauley

William O’Neal (Actor and Musician) began his career by watching his father on stage. He has played a lead role in Junebug Productions' touring show, "Like Poison Ivy," the lead role of Junebug the Younger, in "Trying to Find My Way Back Home; Sayings from the Life and Writings of Junebug Jabbo Jones”, and is one of the collaborating artists and performers in “Uprooted: The Katrina Project”.

Company Partners

ASHE, New Orleans, LA www.ashecac.org

ALTERNATE ROOTS, New Orleans, LA

CARPETBAG THEATER, Knoxville, TN

CONTEMPORARY ARTS CENTER, New Orleans, LA

M.U.G.A.B.E.E.

NATIONAL PERFORMANCE NETWORK, New Orleans, LA

PREGONES THEATER, The Bronx, NY

ROADSIDE THEATER, Norton, VA

TRAVELING JEWISH THEATER, San Francisco, CA

URBAN BUSH WOMEN, New York, NY

National Touring Partner

Holden & Arts Associates (Booking and Management) was founded in 1983 by Theresa and Michael Holden. HAA is a national and international service organization, providing management, booking and producing services for touring dance and theater companies. Michael and Theresa Holden have been partnering with Junebug Productions and John O’Neal on their national and international projects since 1983.