STUART BERTON

(B.S. Econ., University of Pennsylvania; J.D., Stanford University Law School) Formerly a lawyer with Bank of America in San Francisco, Stuart Berton began his career as an entertainment lawyer with Mitchell, Silberberg & Knupp, then ran business affairs for Playboy's film and television arm before joining Warner Bros. legal department. He returned to private practice and became chairman of the Entertainment Law Dept. at the boutique firm of Hayes & Hume. He opened his own firm in 1984 which he's maintained since then except for a six year period when he was partnered in the firm of Berton & Donaldson. Still involved in the private practice of entertainment law, he has also embarked on a new career as a film producer. Charitable endeavors have included stints on the John Anson Ford Theater Foundation board and as chairman of the boards of the Back Alley Theatre in Van Nuys and the Celebrity Outreach Foundation. He is currently President of the Board of El Nido Family Centers, a Los Angeles County social service organization founded in 1925.

CECI DOMINGUEZ

MICHAEL JOHN GARCÉS

(Artistic Director) For Cornerstone Michael has directed Someday by Julie Marie Myatt, attraction by Page Leong, and The Falls by Jeffrey Hatcher (at the Guthrie Theater), and will be directing Naomi Iizuka’s 3 Truths, the Bridge show of the Justice Cycle, this May at Grand Performances.  He also wrote Los Illegals, the first play of the Justice Cycle, created in collaboration with communities of day laborers and domestic workers and which was subsequently produced by Teatro Bravo in Phoenix, Arizona.  Other directing credits include, most recently, Funnyhouse of a Negro by Adrienne Kennedy at CalArts and the break/s by Marc Bamuthi Joseph, which co-premiered at the Humana Festival (Actors Theatre of Louisville) and the Walker Art Center, and which toured the U.S. to venues such as REDCAT, Under the Radar and The August Wilson Center for African American Culture.  Other theatres at which he has directed include A Contemporary Theater, Hartford Stage, Woolly Mammoth, New York Theatre Workshop, The Children's Theatre Company, Second Stage, Huntington Theatre Company, Yale Repertory Theatre, The Cherry Lane, The Atlantic Theater Company and Repertorio Español.   He has twice been in residence with a consensus-run collective, Sna Jtz'ibajom, in Chiapas, Mexico, collaborating in the creation of community-engaged work with members of the Mayan community.  Michael is on the executive board of the Stage Directors and Choreographers Society and serves on the Ovation review Committee for the Los Angeles Stage Alliance. His full-length plays include points of departure (INTAR Hispanic American Arts Center) and Acts of Mercy (Rattlestick Playwrights Theater); short plays include tostitos, (Ensemble Studio Theatre Marathon of One-Act Plays) on edge and the ride (Humana, "The Open Road Anthology"), audiovideo (The Directors Project) and sandlot ball (Mile Square). His solo performance piece, agua ardiente, ran Off-Broadway at The American Place Theatre, and he performed in and wrote for "The Borges Project", which was presented at the Cultural Center of the Philippines for the 31st World Congress of the International Theatre Institute (UNESCO).  He collaborated with composer Alexandra Vrebalov on the oratorio Stations, which received its premiere at the Rhode Island Civic Chorale and Orchestra and was recently performed at the NOMUS Festival in Novi Sad, Serbia.  Michael is a recipient of the Princess Grace Statue, the Alan Schneider Director Award, and a TCG/New Generations Grant. He is a resident playwright at New Dramatists.

BYRON GROSS

CECILY JACKSON

Cecily concentrates her law practice in the areas of tax-exempt organizations and small business transactional law.  Before she opened her private practice, Cecily spent several years as Senior Staff Attorney in Public Counsel’s Community Development Project.  Prior to joining Public Counsel, Cecily was an Associate in the Tax Departments of Latham & Watkins in LA and Miller & Chevalier in Washington, D.C.  Cecily also gained experience in nonprofit organizational management and small business consulting when she served as Program Director for California Resources and Training, a nonprofit economic development capacity building organization.  In addition to serving as Cornerstone's Secretary, Cecily is the Los Angeles Leader for the Online Bar Association, Chair of the Community Services Unlimited, Inc. Development Committee, and a member of Valley Economic Development Center’s Microloan Committee.  She also serves as an advisory board member for the PACE SBA Women’s Business Center and Sports and Social Change.  Cecily received her undergraduate degree from the University of Southern California and her law degree from Stanford Law School.

LEE LAWLOR

Lee Lawlor is a non-profit manager with over 15 years experience in the Los Angeles arts community. Her background and training includes accounting, business management, community engagement, audience development, fundraising, publicity and marketing. She has produced and presented theater, music and multi-disciplinary arts all over L.A. in small, large and site-specific locations.  Her professional experience includes staff positions at Grand Performances, Cornerstone Theater Company, University of Southern California Office of Cultural Relations, Los Angeles Stage Alliance and City Garage Theatre. She also works with the Ovation Awards Review Committee and has served as a peer review panelist for the LA County Arts Commission.  She attended the State University of New York, Purchase College.

MELODY KANSCHAT

Melody Kanschat is the President of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA), the largest art museum in the western United States, and a museum of international stature as well as a vital part of Southern California's civic landscape. She oversees a total annual expense budget of over $50 million and construction projects of over $140 million.

DREW McCOY

Drew holds a degree in Theatre from Northwestern University, and has worked in the professional theatre as a Technical Director, Production Manager, Stage Manager, Operations Manager, and restoration consultant for theatres around the country.

JON NEUSTADTER

(Chair) Jon Neustadter is a partner at Hooper, Lundy & Bookman, a healthcare law firm in Century City, California. He specializes in representing Medicare and Medicaid providers in their disputes with the federal and state governments. He also regularly provides pro bono legal services through referrals from the HIV & AIDS Legal Services Alliance. Jon served as a member of the Board of Directors of Highways Performance Space in Santa Monica.

BILL PULLMAN

Bill Pullman is a renowned theater and film actor. He received his MFA in Theater Directing from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. He has worked with various theater companies, most notably the Folger Theater Groupe, Montana's Shakespeare in the Parks and Los Angeles Theater Center and has performed on Broadway in Edward Albee's The Goat. He made his big screen debut in Ruthless People in 1986 and has since appeared in over fifty films. He's married to Tamara Hurwitz and they have three children.

JENNIFER ROWLAND

Jennifer Rowland is a playwright whose plays include The Indians are Coming to Dinner, The School Plays, The Contest and Ice Girl in Bungalow B. She is a member of Pacific Resident Theater's Writer's Group and Playwrights Ink. Born and raised in San Francisco, Jennifer studied acting at American Conservatory Theatre's Young Conservatory and graduated from Harvard College. Jennifer served on the Executive Committee of the St. Matthews Parish School Parent's Council and is currently a member of the Westside Guild, the fundraising arm for Children's Hospital Los Angeles. She and her husband Matthew are longtime supporters of Cornerstone Theater.

LESLIE TAMARIBUCHI

(Vice Chair) Currently, Leslie is the Associate Dean of Theater at Cal Arts. Leslie worked with Cornerstone Theater Company for ten years serving as managing director from 1995 to 2001. She produced dozens of experimental, community-engaged, and site-specific theater projects and was responsible for the company's strategic development. Leslie has worked with not-for-profit arts organizations in Los Angeles and New York as a consultant supporting their efforts to be sustainable, stronger and more deeply engaged with their communities. She worked with the Cambridge Multicultural Arts Center and the New Opera Theater Ensemble in Massachusetts, and studied in Japan at Kyoto University and Kobe University where she collaborated with and learned from shogekijo and butoh practitioners. Leslie earned a master's degree in public administration from the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University. Leslie has served as a panelist for the Creative Work Fund, Doris Duke Charitable Foundation, National Endowment for the Arts, Theatre Communications Group, California Arts Council, Los Angeles County Arts Commission and the City of Los Angeles Cultural Affairs Department.

NICOLE YORKIN

Nicole Yorkin, along with her partner Dawn Prestwich, was most recently an Executive Producer on the FX series The Riches, starring Eddie Izzard and Minnie Driver.  Prior to that, they were writers and Co-Executive Producers on Showtime's Brotherhood (a 2007 Peabody Award winner) and two seasons of HBO's Carnivale. In 2003, they won the Writers Guild Award for their drama pilot, "The Education of Max Bickford."  They have worked on various television shows over ten plus years, including Chicago Hope, Picket Fences, and Ally McBeal.  They are currently developing three pilots: one for HBO, one for WBTV and one for Warner Horizon.  Before going into television, Nicole, a Berkeley graduate, was a reporter for the Los Angeles Herald Examiner, where she was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize for a series of articles about a 12-year-old prostitute.  She met Dawn at the American Film Institute and is a member of the WGA's Television Council and founding member of the League of Hollywood Women Writers.