Paula Donnelly
Director of Engagement

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.

Michael John Garcés
Artistic Director

Michael has been a Cornerstone ensemble member since 2006.  Directing credits at the company include The Rivers Don't Know by James McManus (produced by City Theatre Company at the Pittsburgh Playhouse); Highland Park is Here by Mark Valdez (a virtual production; subsequently presented at the Latino Theatre Company's "Re:Encuentro 2021"; The Highland Park Independent Film Festival; and the International Community Arts Festival in Singapore & Rotterdam); Native Nation (commissioned and presented by ASU Gammage) and Urban Rez by Larissa FastHorse; California: The Tempest by Alison Carey; Plumas Negras by Juliette Carrillo; Café Vida by Lisa Loomer; and What Happens Next by Naomi Iizuka (a La Jolla Playhouse "Without Walls" production in association with Cornerstone). Plays he has written for Cornerstone include 36 Yesses, a theatrical exploration of commitment, engagement and process; Magic Fruit, the "bridge" project of the multi-year Hunger Cycle which brought together the many communities of the cycle; Consequence, out of story circles with students, teachers, administrators and parents in South Kern County; Los Illegals, created in residence with day laborers and domestic workers; and The Forked Path, a collaboration with the Van der Hoeven Kliniek in the Netherlands, which was performed at the Net Even Anders Festival (Stut Theater) in Utrecht and The International Community Arts Festival in Rotterdam. Directing credits at other theaters include The Play You Want by Bernardo Cubria (The Road Theatre); Seize the King by Will Power (The Alliance); Larissa FastHorse's The Thanksgiving Play (The Geffen Playhouse); the just and the blind, by Marc Bamuthi Joseph and composer Daniel Bernard Roumain (Carnegie Hall, The Kennedy Center and ArtsEmerson); The Royale by Marco Ramirez (Arizona Theatre Company); Epic by Ellen Struve (The Great Plains Theatre Commons); and Wrestling Jerusalem by Aaron Davidman (Intersection for the Arts. The Guthrie Theatre, Cleveland Public Theatre and Philadelphia Theatre Company). His full-length plays include TOWN (Theatre Horizon in Norristown, PA), south (Great Plains Theatre Commons in Omaha), THE WEB (needtheatre), points of departure and customs(INTAR Hispanic American Arts Center) and Acts of Mercy (Rattlestick Playwrights Theater); as well as a solo performance, agua ardiente which ran Off-Broadway at The American Place Theatre as part of "Dreaming in Cuban"; and short plays include Las Llamadas and every step (24 Hour Plays: "Viral Monologues"); americanas (Mixed Blood Theatre - "DJ Latinidad's Latino Dance Party") and A Parable(Great Plains Theatre Commons). Michael is a recipient of the 2020 Doris Duke Artist Award, the Princess Grace Statue, the Alan Schneider Director Award, the Rockwood Arts and Culture Fellowship, a TCG/New Generations Grant, the Non-Profit Excellence Award from the Center of Non-Profit Management, and is a proud alumnus of New Dramatists. He serves as executive vice president of the executive board of SDC, the theatrical union for stage directors and choreographers.

Michael Garcia
Associate Producer

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
Associate Artistic Director

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
Development & Communications Intern

Megan Wanlass
Managing Director

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.