Cornerstone Theater Company

Staff

Charlotte Brathwaite

Charlotte Brathwaite
Co- Artistic Director

Charlotte Brathwaite
Co- Artistic Director

Charlotte Brathwaite
Charlotte Brathwaite is a creator and director of original genre-defying works that illuminate the realities and dreams of those whose stories have been marginalized,  silenced and ignored. Her trans-disciplinary inquiry manifests as immersive rituals of the body, color and music in collaboration with artists such as Meshell Ndegeochello, Jacqueline Woodson, adrienne maree brown, Abigail DeVille, Justin Hicks, Ayesha Jordan, June Cross, Sunder Ganglani, Peter Sellars, Kyle Abraham and Malick Welli amongst others.  She has received major grants, awards and fellowships including Doris Duke, United States Artists, Art Matters, Creative Capital and the Princess Grace. Her work has been presented at festivals and venues across the globe in North and South America, the Caribbean, Europe, Africa, Asia and Australia. Charlotte is also an educator of the arts and has an MFA in Directing from Yale University.

Paula Donnelly

Paula Donnelly
Director of Engagement

Paula Donnelly
Director of Engagement

Paula Donnelly
Paula Donnelly began working with Cornerstone in 1998 as a stage manager and joined Cornerstone's Ensemble in 2000. Community-collaborations she stage managed for Cornerstone include Los Biombos in Boyle Heights, AKA in Beverly Hills, For Here or To Go?, a city-wide bridge show, at the Mark Taper Forum, Peter Pan in Cleveland, and Crossings at St Vibiana's Cathedral in downtown Los Angeles. She also was the stage manager for Cornerstone Ensemble shows Foot/Mouth (produced in multiple malls around Southern California) and Erik Ehn's Mary Shelley's Santa Claus. As a stage manager she has worked with Taper, Too, Shakespeare Santa Cruz, Milwaukee Repertory Theater, the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, PCPA TheaterFest and other regional theaters. In 2003 Paula became Cornerstone’s Institute Director, planning and producing the annual Institute Summer Residency and Intensives. As Director of Engagement, Paula teaches and shares Cornerstone’s methodology, works to strengthen community relationships post-production, and to contribute to the expansion of community-engagement practices in theater. She helps imagine and implement engagement values in all aspects of our work. Paula loves the state of California, her home city of Los Angeles and the many people and stories contained therein.

Jai English

Jai English
Communications and Development Intern

Jai English
Communications and Development Intern

Jai English
Jai English is a Senior Music Production major at Occidental College with a deep love for all mediums of performance art. Creatively, they express themselves as a writer and a sound artist. They are excited to be working with Cornerstone Theater Company this Fall as a Development and Communications Intern.

Sunder Ganglani

Sunder Ganglani
Co- Artistic Director

Sunder Ganglani
Co- Artistic Director

Sunder Ganglani
Sunder Ganglani is an artist who works in collaboration between forms: music, theater, civil disobedience, pedagogy, performance. As a former Co-Artistic Director of The Foundry Theater in New York City his works with W. David Hancock, Ariana Reines, Claudia Rankine, David Greenspan, Melanie Joseph and many others have toured nationally and internationally, and won all kinds of awards. More recently his work has focused on music and justice – as a dramaturg he’s made operas and new experiments in music with Esperanza Spalding, Helga Davis, Charlotte Brathwaite, Justin Hicks, and Darius Jones. As a musician, composer, and organizer he’s grateful to have a creative home with The Stop Shopping Choir community in New York City where he works with Billy Talen, Savitri D, and the 45 member choir as chosen family. He’s received grants, fellowships and been awarded residencies, he studied Anthropology at UMass Amherst, Dramaturgy at Yale, and he was raised in Salem, Massachusetts by parents from opposite ends of the earth, and a sister and brother.

Michael Garcia

Michael Garcia
Associate Producer

Michael Garcia
Associate Producer

Michael Garcia
Michael is an arts administrator and director that works along the intersection of community- and civic-engaged arts. He works on the Cornerstone artistic staff as Associate Producer, and is a member of the ensemble. Outside of Cornerstone he works with theater artists Mark-n-Sparks on a 10-year art-based civic engagement project that leverages imagination to co-create beautiful solutions to complex social justice and policy issues. In his work he’s traveled nationally and internationally, visiting elementary schools in El Salvador as the Tour Manager for the Activist Dance Theatre company CONTRA-TIEMPO; and as a stage manager for an ice opera festival at The Royal Opera House in Muscat, Oman. Another highlight was touring as stage manager for Marc Bamuthi Joseph’s /peh-LO-tah/ at the Brooklyn Academy of Music and the Kennedy Center. He went to school at the University of California, Irvine, but started at his local community college, Rio Hondo. He lives in Whittier, CA.

Bruce Lemon

Bruce Lemon
Associate Artistic Director

Bruce Lemon
Associate Artistic Director

Bruce Lemon

Bruce Lemon is a storyteller born and raised in Watts, CA. As a child, his father made him write stories and read them aloud in the hallway as punishment for lies and mischief. He’s still in trouble. Host of 89.3 KPCC In-Person’s UnheardLA. Associate Artistic Director/Ensemble with Cornerstone Theater Company. Artistic Director of Watts Village. Company member of Illyrian Players and Collaborative Artists Bloc . Actor, writer, director, producer, creative collaborator. Hobbies include: Holding a mirror up to America, rabble rousing, chasing dreams, working for the reimagining of his community, and listening to the kids. http://www.brucealemonjr.com/

Luciana Valero

Luciana Valero
Administrative Associate

Luciana Valero
Administrative Associate

Luciana Valero

Luciana is a recent Drama graduate from the University of California- Irvine. She first met Cornerstone Theater Company through her Professor, Juliette Carrillo. Luciana has experience in the theater world as an actor, director, playright, lighting designer, and producer, among other areas. She describes herself as a theater and visual artist. She believes in the power of building and uplifting communities through the beauty of their art. Luciana’s artistic experience lies mostly in the foundation of creating community engaged artistic work. She believes in the power of building and uplifting communities through the beauty of their art, which is why she is thrilled to be working with Cornerstone Theater Company.

Megan Wanlass

Megan Wanlass
Managing Director

Megan Wanlass
Managing Director

Megan Wanlass
Megan joined Cornerstone as its Managing Director in January 2014. She led the company through a six-year grant initiative with the James Irvine Foundation’s New California Arts Fund as well as a 5-year Strategic Plan created in partnership with the DeVos Institute. Prior to moving to Los Angeles, Ms. Wanlass was the Executive Director of SITI Company (Anne Bogart, artistic director) for 19 years. At SITI, Megan helped to create over 35 productions touring to 88 cities, 32 states and 19 countries. She has an Arts Administration Certificate from New York University, attended the Executive Program for Non-Profit Leaders at Stanford University Business School and was a member of the Arts Leadership Institute Charter Class at Teachers College, Columbia University. Megan has served on the board of Theatre Communications Group and in 2006-2008 was a mentor through TCG’s New Generations Program. Wanlass participated on Cornerstone’s winning team for the UCLA Social Enterprise Academy (2017) and participated as a speaker at convenings/conferences and as a grant panelist for APAP, NFF, NET, EMCArts, ART/NY, DDCF, and TCG. Recent multi-part anti-racism training includes: Undoing Racism workshop led by the People’s Institute for Survival and Beyond and Building Individual Capacity to Co-Imagine, Co-Create, and Co-Foster an Anti-Racist, Multicultural Organizational Culture, Structure and Model workshop led by Diedra Barber. She holds a B.A. in Theater from Occidental College in Los Angeles.