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Staff & Board

Our Staff

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Hilary Buffum

Membership & Communications Specialist
she/her & they/them
Hilary@TheatreBayArea.org

Hilary Buffum is an actor and arts educator who has been a part of Bay Area Theatre for most of her life. She is an artist in residence at the Ruth Asawa San Francisco School of the Arts. She has taught, performed, and done administrative work with many different theatre companies. Including Aurora Theatre Company, SF Shakes, Bay Area Children’s Theatre, and the Shelton Theatre. Hilary holds a BA in Theatre Performance and Communication Studies from San Francisco State.

Sean Fenton

Sean Fenton

Executive Director | he/him
Sean@TheatreBayArea.org

Sean Fenton has been active in the professional Bay Area theatre community for more than two decades as an actor, musician, director, and administrator. He has performed at TheatreWorks Silicon Valley, San Francisco Playhouse, 42nd Street Moon, Ferocious Lotus Theatre Company, and Community Asian Theatre of the Sierra, among others. Backstage, he has been a leader at Bay Area Children’s Theatre, Kaiser Permanente Educational Theatre, and WolfBrown’s Intrinsic Impact program. Sean is a member of Actors' Equity Association and SAG-AFTRA and holds a BA in Cultural and Social Anthropology from Stanford University.

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Melissa Hillman

Programs Officer | she/her
Melissa@TheatreBayArea.org

East Bay-born Melissa Hillman has been part of the Bay Area theatre community for most of her life. She was the Artistic Director of Impact Theatre and served for a decade on TBA's Theatre Services Committee. She holds a PhD in Dramatic Art from UC Berkeley, and has taught all over the Bay Area, including Cal, CSU East Bay, and the Berkeley Rep School of Theatre. She writes the blog Bitter Gertrude, and has been published by Methuen, HuffPo, TCG, and many others. As a dramaturg, she's worked for a number of companies and playwrights, most recently as PlayCafe's resident dramaturg. As a Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion consultant, she specializes in white allyship, cis allyship, and disability. 

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Meghan Crosby-Jolliffe

Membership & Community Engagement Officer
they/them
Meghan@TheatreBayArea.org

Meghan Crosby-Jolliffe is a mezzo-soprano, educator, and administrator who is passionate about fostering a vibrant and inclusive environment for all performing artists. They recently graduated from the San Francisco Conservatory of Music with a Master of Music in Voice and hold a B.M. in Voice from the New England Conservatory. As a performer, Meghan crosses over genres and has been seen in the Bay Area in Opera, Musical Theater, Early Music, and Choral settings. Most recently, Meghan performed Die Schöne Müllerin by Schubert and participated in the SFCM Musical Theater Ensemble’s virtual production of Sondheim on Sondheim. Meghan also serves on the board of a Boston area theater troupe, The Lilac Players, and loves producing, directing, and theater-making with that community from across the country.

Headshot of Ann Marie wearing an orange shirt and a silver necklace. She is a white woman with chin length short brown hair.

Ann Marie Lonsdale

Interim Managing Director | she/her
AnnMarie@TheatreBayArea.org

Ann Marie Lonsdale is an arts worker with a background as a producer and administrator working with innovative and experimental live performance. She began her career as a performer, stage manager, and producer in theater and dance in Chicago and New York As an administrator, she has worked at Creative Capital, Center for Performance Research, and Alliance of Resident Theatres/New York, among others. She is also one of the co-creators of the Freelance Artist Resource Project. Ann Marie has also worked in the performing arts community as an educator, facilitator, grant panelist, speaker, and is the founder of Partake Arts, a consulting practice focused on individual artists and artist-led projects. She has done training with artEquity, and is actively engaged in a national community of practice around anti-racism in the theatre and arts. Ann Marie is a proud graduate of the University of Chicago and holds a master’s degree in Arts Administration from Teachers College, Columbia University.

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Art Quiñones

Marketing & Communications Officer
they/them
Art@TheatreBayArea.org

Art Quiñones is a visual artist and designer from Massachusetts. They hold a BFA in Graphic Design from Maine College of Art, where they developed a passion for equitable community building and disability justice. Their current practice focuses on integrating hand-drawn typography and illustration to express queer identity. Their work in design informs and calls audiences to action for social change with experimentation across digital and analog technologies, including 3D printing and printmaking.

Jericha Senyak

Jericha Senyak

Senior Bookkeeper | she/her

Jericha Senyak is an artist who stumbled accidentally into the world of accounting and somehow never left. She now provides financial consulting to a wide range of arts and mission-based projects and organizations, with services including coaching, training, accounting management, and oversight. She supports arts- and mission-based practitioners in growing their capacity to work with every aspect of managing money, from budgeting and bookkeeping to financial literacy and empowerment. Her consulting approach treats ongoing inequity and lack of resources as the major causes of financial anxiety for mission-based projects, and primarily focuses on finance as a form of storytelling. 

Our Board

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Kevin Kosik, CFRE

President | he/him

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Sunshine Deffner

Vice President | she/her

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S. Shafer Mazow

Treasurer | he/him

Karina_Gutierrez

Karina Gutiérrez

Secretary | she/her

Varun Bhagwan

Sara K. Dean

Sean Fenton

Sean Fenton

he/him

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Vivian Gomes

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Peter J. Kuo

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Rachel Mann

Craig Moody

Smita Rajmohan

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Dawn Monique Williams

she/her

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