Dameion Brown played the title role in Othello at Marin Shakespeare Company in 2016, for which he won “Best Lead Actor” from the Bay Area Theatre Critics Circle Award.  Since then, he has appeared in The Seagull at Utopia Theatre Project, Waafrika and The Farm at TheatreFirst (winning another BATCC award), Dance of the Holy Ghost at Ubuntu, and as Benedick in Much Ado About Nothing, the title role in Pericles, and Oberon in A Midsummer Night’s Dream at Marin Shakespeare Company. He is now Artist-in-Residence at Marin Shakespeare Company where he acts, teaches system-impacted youth at carceral facilities, and serves as a community ambassador and sought-after inspirational speaker. Dameion is also an activist and filmmaker. Dameion Brown spent 23 years in prison, where he discovered Shakespeare as part of Marin Shakespeare Company’s Shakespeare at Solano Prison program.

Roger Clay, IT Consultant, became involved with the creative end of technology in 1978 and was instrumental in providing Apple Computer with the software interface to electronic musical instruments during the initial development and launch of the Macintosh Computer in 1983 – 84. In 1994, he began providing multi-media development and computer support services to businesses and creative professionals in Northern California. He has worked with Marin Shakespeare Company since 2007 as an IT consultant and recently broadened his scope of work for MSC following the opening of their new theater at 514 Fourth Street.   


Lesley S. Currier

Lesley Currier is the founding Managing Director of Marin Shakespeare Company. She holds a B.A. in Religion from Princeton University, where she was awarded the Frances LeMoyne Page Award for Theatre. She spent three years with the Ukiah Players, where she acted, produced and served as fundraiser coordinator for the Phase II building expansion. In 1988, while in Ukiah, she initiated the New American Comedy Festival. After a season acting at Ashland’s Oregon Shakespeare Festival, she studied at U.C. Irvine’s M.F.A. Program in Acting, before being invited to Marin with her husband Robert to found Marin Shakespeare Company. Since 1989, she has produced award-winning summer productions, provided work for thousands of theatre artists, created education programs that serve over 5,000 students each year, and founded Shakespeare for Social Justice which provides rehabilitation through Shakespeare in 14 California State Prisons. An actor, director and playwright, Lesley’s original adaptation of “A Thousand and One Arabian Nights“, which she directed, was nominated for “Best Overall Production of 2002” by the Bay Area Critics Circle. Lesley was nominated as “Best Director 2009” for “Twelfth Night, or All You Need Is Love” which she adapted with Robert Currier. She and Robert co-founded Baja Shakespeare in 2001, bringing live theatre to the East Cape of Mexico’s southern Baja peninsula. Lesley is past President of the Shakespeare Theatre Association of America, served on Theatre Bay Area’s Theatre Service Committee for six years, and has thrice served on grants panels for the National Endowment for the Arts, was elected to the Marin Women’s Hall of Fame in 2007, and is the 2017 recipient of the Burbarge Award for excellence in Shakespeare production worldwide from the American Shakespeare Center.

Robert S. Currier

Robert Currier co-founded Marin Shakespeare Company and is its original Artistic Director. He holds a B.A. in Drama and an M.F.A. in Directing from U.C. Irvine, where he helped establish the Objective Drama Project with the legendary theatrical guru Jerzy Grotowski in the early 1980’s. An actor, director, writer and designer, Robert co-founded Encounter With the Theatre at the Woodstock Illinois Opera House (artistic home of the young Orson Welles) in 1971 and the still thriving Ukiah Players Theatre in 1977. He and Lesley initiated Baja Shakespeare, Baja del Sur’s only live classical theatre company in Los Barriles, Mexico in 2001. Robert has directed well over 100 productions. At Marin Shakespeare Company, he has been nominated for “Best Director” and his productions for “Best Production” numerous times by the Bay Area Critics Circle, Choice Awards, and others. His 2016 production of Othello and 1994 production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream won the Bay Area Theatre Critics Award for “Best Overall Production”. A popular teacher, Robert has been an Adjunct Professor of Shakespeare Studies at Dominican University of California as well as many other places. He is known for his wit and wisdom.

Suraya Susana Keating is an actress, licensed Marriage and Family Therapist, Registered Drama Therapist, yoga Teacher and Adjunct Professor at California Institute of Integral Studies where she teaches in the Masters Program for Drama Therapy. Suraya uses drama and the arts as tools for deep individual and social transformation. During the past 20 years, she has worked extensively with youth, adults, and the incarcerated. At Marin Shakespeare Company, she has acted in several main stage productions, and taught and directed for the Marin Shakespeare program at San Quentin State Prison since 2005 as well as Shakespeare at California Medical Facility in Vacaville.  Suraya has been instrumental in creating Drama Therapy-inspired curriculum for MSC’s prison programs and training Teaching Artists in prisons. www.suraya.org

Elana Kepner (she/her) is theatre teaching artist, voice, dialect and text coach, director, performer and a Certified Assistant Teacher of Fitzmaurice Voicework®.  Her teaching practice centers on exploring a radically inclusive approach to Shakespeare for humans of all ages through imagination, acting, voice and movement work.  Born and raised in Marin, Elana returns to the Bay Area after forays in Eastern North Carolina, Northeast Ohio, St. Louis and Kansas City.  Highlights from Elana’s extensive career as a teaching artist include piloting Shakespeare Squadron, St. Louis Shakespeare Festival’s advanced teen training program, and teaching the progression of voice and speech courses for the BFA performance degree programs at East Carolina University, as well as serving as voice, text and dialect coach for mainstage productions. Most significantly, Elana served as Founding Artistic Director of Whirligig Stage (Greenville, NC), where directing credits included Macbeth, Newsies, A Midsummer Night’s Dream and James and the Giant Peach for Whirligig Youth Academy with actors ages 7 to 18.  Elana earned her MFA in Acting and Directing from University of Missouri, Kansas City, and trained with Shakespeare & Company in Lenox, MA.  Elana is a proud member of Actors’ Equity Association and Voice and Speech Trainers Association.

  Jon Tracy works internationally as an art and culture producer for theatre and film. A director, playwright, designer, educator, and facilitator, he is the recipient of awards from the Kennedy Center, North Bay Artys, Marquee Journalists, Ellys, Bay Area Theatre Critics Circle, and Theatre Bay Area, and has also been honored with the Solano College Theatre Alumni Award. He is a grant recipient from Theatre Bay Area, Shotgun Players’ Bridging the Gap, SUI Generis, and the National Endowment for the Arts. He recently completed a five year leadership position with TheatreFIRST commissioning and developing the work of over fifty playwrights. Jon is a current Company Member of both Shotgun Players and PlayGround, and a proud member of SDC, the union for stage directors and choreographers. jontracyplays.com

  Alejandra Wahl is an actor and singer who has performed and worked as a teaching artist throughout the Bay Area and Los Angeles. An avid student and lover of Shakespeare, Alejandra has been studying Shakespeare and performing since her youth, and spent over two years in the University of Iowa’s Theater program with a focus on classical theater. During her studies, she discovered a love for epic and ancient theater, adapting several Greek myths into a short one-woman play. Since 2017, she has been a teaching artist for Marin Shakespeare Company’s Shakespeare for Social Justice program, co-facilitating Shakespeare classes in various prisons – a truly life-changing experience. Alejandra holds a B.A in English Literature and Theater Arts from Cal State University East Bay.

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