Sara Adelman
General Manager
Sara came to Cornerstone in 2011, bringing extensive experience in executive leadership of arts non-profits. In 2009, she founded Vibrant Production Management, providing business and producing support to a number of organizations, including Shakespeare by the Sea, the California Science Center, Overtone Industries, Watts Village Theatre Company, ForYourArt, Heifer International, Impro Theatre and Standing on Ceremony: The Gay Marriage Plays. Prior to that, she served as Director of Operations at LA Stage Alliance and Managing Director of Shakespeare Festival/LA. Additionally she has managed and facilitated art making for EdgeFest, LA Theatre Works, the Geffen Playhouse, Actors’ Gang, Manhattan Theatre Club and the Williamstown Theatre Festival. Sara holds an MFA in Production Management & Technology from UCLA and a BA in Theatre Studies from the University of Connecticut.
James Cheeks III
Communications & Development Asst.
James M. Cheeks III received his MFA degree in Film and Television Production at USC’s School of Cinematic Arts in Los Angeles. His career started in high school at the age of 16 with an internship at The TV Guide Channel, which later turned into part-time employment. Cheeks got accepted into art school but he decided to study Communication and Film at George Mason University, where he earned his Bachelor’s degree. In college, James worked on various television projects in the DC area including the Ted Turner documentary mini-series, “Avoiding Armageddon,” which aired on PBS. In 2006, Cheeks served as a sound designer for Alex Ko’s documentary, “Pok Dong,” which examined the haunting impact of the LA riots on an immigrant family from Korea. Cheeks’ interest in missions and social justice has led him to serve in Peru, Mozambique, Jamaica and downtown LA’s Skid Row. Cheeks is also a skateboarding enthusiast and supports skateboarding for at-risk youth. In 2010, Cheeks founded a volunteer skateboarding team that travelled around the U.S. supporting a music and extreme sports tour. His film, "On The Grind," had its World Premiere at the 2009 Mammoth Film Festival, where it won the award for "Best Documentary Short.” It recently won the "Best Documentary Short" award at the 13th Annual Roxbury International Film Festival. “On The Grind” was also featured during a historical skateboarding exhibit at the California African American Museum and Cheeks is wrapping up the feature-length version of the film. Cheeks is currently volunteering with FOR FREEDOM, a benefit raising awareness for organizations against human trafficking.
Paula Donnelly
Director of Engagement
Paula began working with Cornerstone in 1998 as a stage manager and joined Cornerstone's Ensemble in 1999. Community-collaborations she has 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 and the Festival of Faith. 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 on a variety of productions with Taper, Too, Shakespeare Santa Cruz, Milwaukee Repertory Theater, the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, PCPA TheaterFest and other regional theaters. As Institute Director for Cornerstone, Paula plans and produces the annual Institute Summer Residency and 2-Day Intensives. Through the Institute Summer Residencies, Paula's love for Cornerstone and for California's people and places has increased exponentially.
Michael John Garcés
Artistic Director
For Cornerstone, Michael has directed Making Paradise by Tom Jacobson, Shishir Kurup and Deborah Wicks La Puma, 3 Truths by Naomi Iizuka, Someday by Julie Marie Myatt, attraction by Page Leong, and The Falls by Jeffrey Hatcher (at the Guthrie Theater). He also wrote Los Illegals, created in residence with communities of day laborers and domestic workers. Los Illegals was subsequently produced by Teatro Bravo in Phoenix; it is published inTheatre Magazine (Yale School of Drama/Duke University Press - More info on this Publication). Directing credits at other theaters include, most recently, red, black and GREEN: a blues by Marc Bamuthi Joseph (Yerba Buena Center for the Arts) and Oedipus El Rey by Luis Alfaro (Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company), and he has worked at many theaters across the country. His full-length plays include THE WEB (needtheatre), points of departure and customs (INTAR Hispanic American Arts Center) and Acts of Mercy (Rattlestick Playwrights Theater); a solo performance, agua ardiente (The American Place); short plays include catch (Active Cultures), hymn in three parts (Chalk Rep), inhabited and in the Zone (Red Fern Theatre Co.), tostitos (EST Marathon of One-Act Plays), on edge and the ride (Humana Fest.), audiovideo (The Directors Project) and sandlot ball (Mile Square). He collaborated with composer Alexandra Vrebalov on the oratorio Stations, which received its premiere at the Rhode Island Civic Chorale and Orchestra and was also performed at the NOMUS Festival in Novi Sad, Serbia. 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. He is a recipient of the Princess Grace Statue, the Alan Schneider Director Award, a TCG/New Generations Grant, the Non-Profit Excellence Award from the Center of Non-Profit Managment and is a Southern California Leadership Network Fellow. He is a company member at Woolly Mammoth and a proud alumnus of New Dramatists.
Maria Gabriela Guerra
Administrative Assistant
Maria earned a B.A. with honors from the University of California at Berkeley, where she studied rhetoric and Romance languages. She attended a performing arts high school and was a youth participant in the Will Power to Youth Program at the Shakespeare Center of Los Angeles.
Raquel Gutiérrez
Manager of Community Partnerships
Manager of Community Partnerships
Raquel comes to Cornerstone after participating in their 2010 summer show It's All Bueno in Pacoima. She was most recently the Assistant Director at the Center for Feminist Research at the University of Southern California (2005-2010). Raquel has also worked for P.L.A.Y Theater for Youth at the Center Theater Group. Previously, she was also an artist-mentor with Will Power to Youth at The Shakespeare Center Los Angeles and the House Manager at Highways Performance Space (2002-2003). Also a performer and artist, Raquel is one of the co-founding members of the performance ensemble, Butchlalis de Panochtitlan (BdP), a community-based and activist-minded group aimed at creating a visual vernacular around queer Latinidad in Los Angeles. Raquel wrote BdP's first full-length play, The Barber of East L.A. (directed by Luis Alfaro) which has been staged at various venues nationally, including at the Traveling Jewish Theater in San Francisco and Jump-Start Performance Co. in San Antonio. She has performed nationally and held National Performance Network artist residencies with BdP. A community based performance artist and cultural activist, Raquel is also a writer/journalist whose work has appeared in the LA Weekly, Make/shift, Journal of Chicana/Latina Studies, Izote Vos: Salvadoran American Literary and Visual Art and on AfterEllen.com. Raquel graduated from California State University, Northridge with a B.A. in Journalism and Central American Studies and has an M.A. in Performance Studies from New York University.
Lorena Moran
Teatro Jornalero Program Director
Lorena was born in Guatemala City. During the time she has been in Los Angeles she has worked as a day laborer, and as such has witnessed and experienced the marginalization and oppression of this community as laborers and as immigrants. Because of this, she made the decision to do something for her community, and discovered that through theater as a pedagogical tool people express the realities of the day laborer and the different types of issues which are being faced. She believes that it is possible to affect change in society, and that Teatro Jornalero Sin Fronteras can be part of that change through our work.
Ann-Sophie Morrissette
Communications Manager
Ann-Sophie joined Cornerstone in 2011 after serving as Grants Coordinator at Center Theatre Group and working in Development at Crossroads School for Arts and Sciences. Previously, she spent five years in London as a researcher for the Center for Creative Communities, where she undertook projects for the Arts Council, England and various community-based arts organization throughout the UK. She was part of the founding team of ROSA, the first grantmaking foundation in the UK dedicated to supporting non-profits working with women and girls, and spent two years overseeing the organization’s communications, marketing, and events. As part of the London fringe theatre community, Ann-Sophie had the pleasure of producing several shows on the city's stages. She holds a B.A. in World Arts and Cultures from University of California, Los Angeles. Ann-Sophie is thrilled to be back at Cornerstone nearly a decade after serving as an LA County Arts Commission summer intern in the Community Partnerships department.
Tali Pressman
Managing Director
Tali joined Cornerstone's staff in summer 2007 after serving as the Special Projects Director at Progressive Jewish Alliance (PJA) where she was responsible for strategic outreach to 20 and 30-somethings, branding and major public programming. In 2003 while at PJA Tali created and secured funding for the Jeremiah Fellowship, a year-long program that educates and trains emerging Jewish social justice leaders, now in its third year. She helped expand the Jeremiah Fellowship to the San Francisco Bay Area in 2006. In June 2007 she was awarded The Mark Meltzer New and Innovative Programming Award from the Jewish Communal Professionals of Southern California for her creation of the Jeremiah Fellowship. She also produced PJA's annual event Vodka Latka: Festival of Rights that brought together culture and social justice through musical performances and a candle lighting with local activists, politicians and artists. In 2005 Vodka Latka was produced in San Francisco, New York and Boston. Prior to PJA, Tali was the Director of Yiddishkayt Los Angeles where she created and spearheaded the AVADA Initiative, an innovative project to engage people under 35 in Yiddish language and culture. Her 2003 screening of The Dybbuk at Hollywood Forever Cemetery attracted more than 800 people. Tali is a participant of Reboot, a non-profit organization dedicated to exploring contemporary Jewish culture, and previously the Los Angeles coordinator. A graduate of University of California at Santa Cruz, she studied theater and Modern Literature. She has studied writing, acting, and directing for years.
Ashley Teague
Business Development
Ashley comes to Cornerstone after working as a Producer at Sam Hurwitz Productions, before which she served as the company’s Marketing Executive. She became involved with Cornerstone as an Assistant Director on For All Time then again on Making Paradise: The West Hollywood Musical and most recently on The Unrequited: Between Two Worlds. She has worked with American Repertory Theatre, Bread and Puppet Theatre, The Living Theater and The Kennedy Center. Ashley started an after school theatre program at Cunningham Park Elementary in Vienna, VA, created and curated an installation for and with inner city youth at the Jorge Hernandez Cultural Center in Boston, MA, and currently mentors at risk youth in visual art at Venice Arts here in California.
Sabrina Sikes Thornton
Associate Director of Development
Sabrina joined the Cornerstone family after working as an actor/community participant in Someday and For All Time. She is a 2005 graduate of Florida State University where she earned her B.A. in Theater and Creative Writing. She has worked in several theatres in the south and mid-west, including Horizon Theatre in Atlanta, GA, Tallahassee Little Theater, RedBarn Theater in Frankfurt, IN, and the Savannah Shakespeare Festival. She has studied dramatic writing under Mark Wheatley, formerly of Complicite (also one of her favorite theater companies and models for devising new work). Since moving to Los Angeles in 2006 she has worked as a Production Manager and Student Outreach Coordinator at the Odyssey Theatre Ensemble.
Joel Veenstra
Production Manager
Joel comes to Cornerstone with over 10 years of production experience in theater, film, video, and television. He has assisted in bringing to life countless creative endeavors, partnering with colleges and universities, schools, churches, camps, and other artists. Prior to serving as Production Manager of Cornerstone Theater Company, Joel worked in the film industry for several years, serving as Story Editor at Alcon Entertainment where he earned credits on films such as P.S. I Love You. He is originally from Michigan where in 1999 he created Veenstra Enterprises, a film, video, and theater producing and consulting company. Joel earned his MFA in Drama at the University of California, Irvine, and his BA in Communications Arts and Sciences, with a theatre focus, at Calvin College. Joel is also an avid improviser and he completed the Conservatory Program at The Second City. He is a proud member of Actors’ Equity Association.
Ashley Walden
Associate Producer
Ashley is a theater producer and manager. Ashley started working with Cornerstone in 2010 as a Paula Altvater Fellow and then as Institute Associate. She holds a M.F.A. in Theater Producing from California Institute of the Arts and a B.A. in Theatre Studies from Old Dominion University (Norfolk, VA). Ashley has recently won a Theater Communications Group (TCG) Next Generations: Future Leaders Grant that supports a mentorship between Ashley and Artistic Director Michael John Garcés. While studying, Ashley has worked with other theater organizations including Arena Stage, Virginia Stage Company and Towne Street Theater. Working with Cornerstone is a delight for Ashley because it allows her to work toward her professional mission to provide access to the arts in underserved communities and populations.
Laurie Woolery
Associate Artistic Director
As a director and playwright, Laurie has collaborated on many new works including Jason in Eureka written by Peter Howard, For All Time written by KJ Sanchez, A Holtville Night's Dream written by Alison Carey, 3/7/11: A Lincoln Heights Tale written by Jose Cruz Gonzalez and the students of Loreto Elementary, Nightingale Middle School and Lincoln High School as part of Cornerstone's first Youth Community Collaboration. Recently, Laurie directed The Language Archive by Julia Cho at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival. She has also directed Amor Eterno - Six Lessons in Love (an anthology by six Latino playwrights) for the grand opening of the Ricardo Montalban Theatre, Bryan Davidson's Reflecting Back at the Los Angeles Central Library as part of the National Tour of the American Originals exhibit and Richard Coca's solo piece The Day I Flipped Off Jimmy Carter for SCR's Hispanic Playwrights Project. As a director, playwright, educator and actor, Laurie has worked at South Coast Repertory (Director of the Theatre Conservatory), Mark Taper Forum, Los Angeles Philharmonic, Inge Center for the Arts, Denver Center, Los Angeles Theatre Center, Ricardo Montalban Theatre, Deaf-West Theatre, fofo Theatre, Highways Performance Space, A Noise Within, Sundance Playwrights Lab as well as the Sundance Children's Theatre. Cornerstone Theater Company commissioned her solo play Salvadorian Moon/African Sky for its citywide Festival of Faith. Several of her plays - Scouting Reality, Bliss, The Hundred Dresses and Orphan Train: The Lost Children - have received world premieres at South Coast Repertory. She is a long time artist with the Virginia Avenue Project and former artist-in-residence for Hollygrove Children's Home. Laurie is on faculty at California Institute of the Arts, Citrus College, and California State University at Northridge and serves on the Board of the Latino Producers Action Network (LPAN), Network of Ensemble Theaters (NET) and the Children’s Theatre Foundation of America.