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Board of Directors

Claudia Acosta
Claudia Acosta, President

Claudia Acosta is a New York based actor, director, producer and teaching artist. As an actor, she has most recently appeared in Boundless Theater Company’s How to Melt ICE. Other credits include: Page 73’s Man Cave, Rattlestick Playwright’s Theater Seven Spots on the Sun, WP Theater Architecture of Becoming, HERE Don Cristobal Billy Club Man, Platforma Internațională de Teatru București in Romania Two Arms and a Noise. She has worked with INTAR, Teatro IATI, Chautauqua Theater Company and many others. Originally from Texas, she has also been in many productions at Hip Pocket Theater, Cara Mia, Artes De la Rosa and Teatro Dallas. Claudia is a featured narrator for Performing Arts Fort Worth and Fort Worth Symphony Orchestra in their annual bilingual Children’s Educational Programs at Bass Performance Hall for fifteen years. Claudia has directed for Lehman College, SUNY New Paltz, and Teatro Dallas’s Grave is Given Supper in association with New Ohio’s Ice Factory Festival. She is a founding collective member and producer of readings and workshops for the Obie Grant winner, The Sol Project. For the last two years, Claudia coproduced and facilitated Echoes Writing Group with Primary Stages uplifting emerging women, trans and non-binary playwrights. Claudia has been a teaching artist for over fifteen years serving many organizations including MTC, Arts Connection, New York Theater Workshop and Lincoln Center Education.

Jess Applebaum
Jess Applebaum, Secretary

Jess Applebaum is a dramaturg-scholar whose practice is rooted in contemporary performance and social action. As a dramaturg she works collaboratively with performance makers, academics, and activists to develop and facilitate creative processes. Her work pays particular attention to lifting up the cultural and political context of each project: identifying how the content developed serves both its creators and its audience in a shared, live moment. As a PhD candidate in CUNY’s Theater and Performance program, Jess’s scholarship focuses on the labor of dramaturgy: pushing the perceived boundaries of how research is performed and applied in both creative and academic work. She believes that bodies perform knowledge, process activates power, and that, together, they can inspire new pedagogical and civic practices.

Sooyoung Hwang
Sooyoung Hwang, Treasurer, Finance Chair

As a member of the East Coast Business Development team, Sooyoung Hwang develops quality pipeline for Nonprofit Finance Fund’s lending program, assess project viability, and manage client and partner relationships. Sooyoung’s honored to have partnered with inspiring nonprofits in health, education, and human services sectors including Ascend Charter Schools, Ali Forney Center, Community Connections for Youth, Make the Road New York, and RISE (Rockaway Waterfront Alliance). Sooyoung also leads the Financial Services team’s Equity Initiative to develop and apply a racial equity lens to NFF’s investments. Prior to joining NFF, Sooyoung served as the Associate Managing Director of Yale School of Drama as well as the Associate Producer at CJ Entertainment & Media, producing theater and developing business strategy for the largest media corporation in South Korea.

PennyMaria Jackson
PennyMaria Jackson, Community Engagement Chair

PennyMaria Jackson is a dedicated arts professional, advocate and enthusiast with nearly 15 years of arts management experience. She has worked with renowned arts companies including Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater and The Apollo Theater, and various civic organizations. Her experience encompasses marketing, communications, audience development, community engagement, patron activations, live streaming, and cultural and corporate partnerships. PennyMaria’s marketing campaigns have promoted performances and events featuring artists and entertainers such as Jason Moran, Jill Scott, Common, Camille A. Brown, Bill T. Jones, Ta-Nehisi Coates, and Oprah Winfrey, among others. In 2020, she launched ArtzVenture, a cultural communications agency truly for and of the culture. PennyMaria was born and raised in Miami, Florida to a family of Bahamian immigrants. Her interests in the arts, community, and education were nurtured by her elders and at the African Heritage Cultural Arts Center. Ultimately, she earned an M.A. degree in Arts Journalism from Syracuse University. Utilizing the power of the arts as a driving force, PennyMaria is dedicated to bridging the gap between cultures for decades to come.

Ann Marie Lonsdale
Ann Marie Lonsdale, Vice President

Ann Marie Lonsdale is an arts worker with a background as a producer and administrator working in innovative and experimental live performance and founder of Partake Arts. She began her career as a performer, stage manager, and producer in theater and dance in Chicago and New York, with such companies as The Hypocrites, the Vittum Theater (now Adventure Stage Chicago), the side project, and Lower Manhattan Cultural Council’s Sitelines festival. As an administrator, she worked as Program Manager for the Creative Capital Professional Development Program, as General Manager at the Center for Performance Research, as Director of Programs and Deputy Director of the Alliance of Resident Theatres/New York, as Executive Director of Cave Canem Foundation, and Managing Director of the Story Collider. Ann Marie is also one of the co-creators of the Freelance Artist Resource Project, an iterative rapid response comprising webcasts, a website, and other online tools for learning and community building created in the wake of the COVID19 pandemic in 2020. She has also worked in the performing arts community as an educator, consultant, grant panelist, speaker, and facilitator with TCG, Network of Ensemble Theatres, Theatre Bay Area, LMCC, among others. She has trained 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.

Kyoung H. Park
Kyoung H. Park, Fundraising Chair

Kyoung H. Park is a North Korean writer and theater-maker, born and raised in Santiago, Chile, currently living in Brooklyn, New York. Kyoung’s work centers stories of (im)migration, queerness, identity and the ways these intersect in communities of color; it’s described as “intensely personal” by American Theater Magazine and “very much of this moment” by the New York Times. Kyoung has been nationally recognized as a top 13% arts leader of color through the Intercultural Leadership Institute (ILI), Association of Performing Arts Professionals (APAP) Leadership Fellowship programs and NYFA’s 2021 Incubator for Executive Leaders of Color, funded by the Rockefeller Brothers Fund.

Ryan Shen
Ryan Shen

Ryan Shen has been part of GAPIMNY’s Steering Committee since 2013. He was born and raised in NYC but lived apart from his family after college to explore his gender identity. He believes all important things are political and good education will show that collective struggle is the only way to liberation. Ironically, he still hates conflicts and will avoid difficult conversations like you would expect from a Pisces.

Joe Tolbert
Joe Tolbert, Jr.

Joe T. is a minister, scholar, writer and cultural organizer whose work is at the intersections of art, culture, spirituality and collective liberation. He received his B.S. in Communications from the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, and completed his M.Div. with a concentration in Social Ethics from Union Theological Seminary in the city of New York. His work has been supported by fellowships from National Art Strategies Creative Communities Fellowship, and the Intercultural Leadership Institute. His goal with his work is to help others live, dream, achieve, and inspire. Joe is a sought after facilitator, cultural strategist and writer.

Jason Tseng
Jason Tseng

Jason Tseng is a queer, non-binary Chinese-American playwright based in New York City, originally hailing from the suburbs of Washington, D.C. Their plays have been presented and developed by Flux Theatre Ensemble, Judson Arts, Mission to dit(Mars), Theatre COTE, Inkubator Arts and Second Generation. They are a Creative Partner of Flux Theatre Ensemble, a member of The Civilians’s 2019/2020 R&D Group, and a member of Mission to dit(Mars)’s Propulsion Lab, a group of Queens-based playwrights. Jason’s full-length plays include Rizing (World Premier, Flux Theatre Ensemble), Like Father, Same Same, Ghost Money, Fear and Wonder, and The Other Side. Find more at www.jasontseng.co

Board Alumni

Stephanie Hsu

2020-2023
Founding Board Member
Co-Chair

2013-2020
Facilitator & Advocate

Stephanie Hsu

Stephanie Hsu is an associate professor of English and American Studies program director at Pace University in New York City. She teaches and writes in the fields of Asian American studies, queer and trans studies, and disability studies about the embodiment of race, gender, and desire. She is an editorial collective member for the Q+Public book series published by Rutgers University Press, and she was honored with the 2020 Community Catalyst Award by the National Queer Asian/Pacific Islander Alliance.

Tiffany Vega

2020-2023
Secretary

2016-2020
Leadership Council Member

Tiffany Vega-Gibson

Tiffany Vega-Gibson is a Native New Yorker and Puerto Rican based in New Orleans, LA. She works as an independent consultant through her performing arts management and DEI consulting company, La Vega Management, which has worked with dozens of organizations throughout the US. She most recently served on the Steering Committee for the New Orleans-based theatre company, No Dream Deferred, and currently serves on the National Board of the Parent Artist Advocacy League and the Board of Directors for Kyoung’s Pacific Beat. She is also on the Steering Committee for the Latinx Theatre Commons and is an active member of Arts Administrators of Color, Alternate Roots, the Creative and Independent Producers Alliance, Women of Color in the Arts, and the National Association of Latino Arts and Cultures. She is a certified Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion facilitator through artEquity and Northwestern University. She is also an adjunct professor at Loyola University New Orleans and a Senior Account Executive at the marketing firm O’Brien|Garrett. She is also a member of the Year 3 cohort for the Intercultural Leadership Institute. Her online Theatre Management and Producing course has been taken by hundreds of students from all over the world. Previously, she was the General Manager at Hi-ARTS NYC (Formerly Hip-Hop Theater Festival). She holds an MFA in Theatre Management & Producing from Columbia University and a BA in Theatre Performance from the University of Maryland-College Park.