Officers and Board of Directors

John Clancy, Executive Director, is an OBIE award winning director and Executive Artistic Director of Clancy Productions, Inc. He is the founding Artistic Director of The Present Company, a leading Off-Off Broadway theatre company, and a founding Artistic Director of The New York International Fringe Festival, North America’s largest theater and performance festival. His plays have won The American Shorts Contest and The San Francisco Playwrights Center Dramarama, the Edinburgh Festival Fringe First and have been short-listed for the Julie Harris Playwrighting Award and the Actors Theatre of Louisville Heideman Award. Directing credits include Americana Absurdum, winner of an Edinburgh Festival Fringe First 2000, Cincinnati, winner of an Edinburgh Festival Fringe First 2002 and Adelaide Best of Fringe 2004, Horse Country, winner of an Edinburgh Festival Fringe First 2002, Scotsman Best of the Firsts 2002 and Adelaide Best of Fringe 2004 and Fatboy, Edinburgh Festival Fringe First 2004. He directed C.J. Hopkins’ screwmachine/ eyecandy: Or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Big Bob at the Edinburgh Fringe in 2005, garning him his 5th Fringe First in 4 years. In 2007, Clancy Productions was awarded the inaugural Edinburgh Festival Award by the Edinburgh International Festival and will present a new work at the arts festival in August of 08. John serves on the Advisory Council of The New York Theatre Experience, Inc., the city’s preeminent advocacy and resource center for downtown theater, and the Advisory Board of the 24:7 Theatre Festival in Manchester, England. He is a New York Theatre Workshop Usual Suspect and his writing has been published in Off, Edge, Village Voice, The Sunday Herald and The New York Times. He was awarded The New York Magazine Award in 1997 for ‘creativity, enterprise and vision’. In 2002 he was awarded a Glasgow Herald Angel for excellence in direction at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe. He lives on the Lower East Side with his wife, Nancy Walsh.

Randi Berry is a founding member and co-Artistic Director of Wreckio Ensemble, a collective theater company that has been producing original work in New York City since 2000.  In addition to creating collaborative theater performances, Wreckio Ensemble hosts a free, open company class for artists in the NYC theater community and has taught ensemble-playwriting, movement, and character workshops internationally and across the country. Randi also specializes in contract review and real estate due diligence which has parlayed into Wreckio receiving free rehearsal space for the last 10 years.

Jennifer Conley Darling has served as the Artistic Director of the terraNOVA Collective since 1999. Producing credits with terraNOVA include: Blue Before Morning by Kate McGovern (DR2 Theatre); Subterranean 2009, a performance party series (D-Lounge); terraNOVA Goes: Unconscious (New Works Series at Collective: Unconscious), An Evening with Linton Kwesi Johnson (The Zipper Theater), Masquerade: calypso and home by Roger Bonair-Agard (Barrow Street Theatre, Center Stage, NY, BRIClab, US tour); Buck Fever by Juan C. Sanchez (Blue Heron Arts Center); Baby Steps by James Carter  (Theatre Row); The Cuchulain Cycle by W.B. Yeats (Lovinger Theater at Lehman College); Our Bar by Charles O’Hara (Chelsea Playhouse, as well as a midwestern tour); soloNOVA Arts Festival 2005, 2006, 2008 (Center Stage, NY, The PIT, PS122); Groundbreakers Bi-Annual Reading Series 2006-2008 (Center Stage, NY, PS122, The Culture Project). Jennifer has also worked with esteemed companies such as 651 Arts, Ping Chong & Company, Ensemble Studio Theatre, Synapse Productions, Naked Angels, Second Generation, Collective:Unconscious, East River Commedia. She served as Human Resources Manager for The Araca Group, Senior Executive Associate for American Express marketing and sponsorships, and Managing Director of Rattlestick Productions. She is also a proud member of Women’s Projects Producers Lab 2008-2010.

Martin Denton is the founder, editor, and chief reviewer of nytheatre.com; he estimates that he’s written about 4,000 reviews during the 15+ years he’s been doing this, and read and edited about 5,000 more. He has also edited 14 anthologies of new plays from the world of indie theater, all published by NYTE Small Press. He is the Executive Director of nytheatre.com‘s nonprofit parent organization, The New York Theatre Experience, Inc. (NYTE); and was the founding producer of nytheatrecast, NYC’s first original, regularly scheduled theatre podcast. In 2011, Martin became founding editor and curator of Indie Theater Now, a new website that has been described as “iTunes for plays” and the “Cyber-Caffe Cino.” He is a founding member of LIT and is proud that the two Indie Theater Convocations of 2006 and 2008 hosted by NYTE led directly to its creation. Martin received an OTTY (Our Town Thanks You) Award for contributions to the community in 2008; and with NYTE’s Managing Director Rochelle Denton, he was honored with the 2008 Stewardship Award from the New York Innovative Theatre Foundation.

Amanda Feldman is the General Manger of the Lark Play Development Center. Her producing credits include: Blackouts (Center Stage NY); Global Warming: The Women Chill (World Financial Center); Neighborhood 3 and Unfold Me (Summer Play Festival ’08 and ’07); Dressing Miss Julie (NYC Fringe Festival); The Deepest Play Ever, They’re Just Like Us, The Astronomer’s Triangle, The Trading Floor (CollaborationTown, a Theatre Company, Inc. 2003 – 2006). She is a founding member of the NYC World Theatre Day Coalition, Producer in the Women’s Project 2008 – 2010 Lab, the Vice President of The Community Dish, and a Judge-At-Large with the NYIT Awards. She was the founding Managing Director of the award winning company CollaborationTown, A Theatre Company where she currently serves as a Trustee. She has worked at Richards/Climan, Inc., The Shubert Organization, Williamstown Theatre Festival, Theatre Row, and Baltimore’s CENTERSTAGE.

Chris Harcum, Managing Director, is an an award-winning actor and playwright recently named one of NYTheatre’s People of the Year.  His solo play, Green, was published in the Best of 2011 Collection on Indie Theater Now. Over 20 of his works have been seen on NYC stages. His full-length plays include G. Dot’s Revenge, Trading Lunches, Rabbit Island, Milk & Shelter, Instant Gratification and The Devil in Ms. Spelvin. Chris co-adapted and played the title role in a modern version of Moliere’s The Hypochondriac. He has appeared in over 100 projects as an actor including: Romeo and Juliet, All’s Well That Ends Well, A Doll’s House,  The Weir, Six Characters In Search of an Author, Quoth the Raven, Suburbia,  Hamlet, Mass Appeal, Our Country’s Good, The Scarlet Whale, The Adventures of Caveman Robot, Corvus, Uncle Vanya and the Return of Ragged Dick. Chris co-stars in The Apostles of Park Slope, winner of Best Comedy Feature at the Manhattan Film Festival. He has acted in numerous staged readings for Ensemble Studio Theatre, Primary Stages, New Jersey Repertory Company and other groups. As a solo performer, he has created and performed Green, Some Kind of Pink Breakfast, Gotham Standards, Anhedonia Road, Mahamudra, Things Your Don’t Know, Weight and Weightlessness and American Badass (0r 12 Characters in Search of a National Identity), which was published in the Plays and Playwrights 2009 anthology. Many of these pieces, along with his play We Haven’t Told Anyone About This, are published on Indie Theater Now. His writing has also appeared in The New York Times and NYTheatre.com.  He is an associate artist with Transport Group, New Jersey Repertory Company, and is a Master Mason with The Brick. Chris is a member of Actors’ Equity, SAG-AFTRA and Dramatists Guild. He is Executive Director of Elephant Run District and serves on the Board of Directors for the League of Independent Theater.  www.chrisharcum.com.

Christopher Heath is a playwright whose plays include Truth Is (MITF 2008), Four Quarters (2010 FRIGID Festival Top Grossing Show and 2002 NY Fringe), and Wally and Jesus (Emerging Artists’ EATFest Fall 2005). Other plays include Big Boy Two Scoop; Delays on the Weekend; …digressions… ; In Stereotype, Where Available; Out and About; and Who Art In. He’s currently working on a series of 175 short plays, Over the Table and Under the Bar. As Artistic Director and Co-Founder of Agony Productions, he produced Crash Comedy I and II, several short screenplay competitions, roundtable discussions on filmmaking, and the Writers in Agony Workshop Series.

Erez Ziv has joyfully dedicated the last ten years of his life to creating Horse Trade Theater Group, an entirely self sustaining off-off-Broadway theater company in New York City. His three stage performances include a bomb shelter performance of Hit the Road Jack at the age of 10 and speaking roles in two Yiddish productions (the last of which had him singing a Yiddish version of “the Age of Aquarius”). He has learned that he hates being on stage. His educational history includes a BA in Jewish and Religious studies with a minor in comparative religion from the University of Minnesota, a semester at Oxford, and a never to be quite completed Masters Degree in Talmud and Rabbinics from JTS. He is a licensed fireguard, Handsom Cab Driver, sprinkler systems inspector, flame proofing Supervisor and wedding ceremony officiate. He is very happy to have helped to firmly establish Horse Trade’s reputation in the downtown theater scene and to create a well respected, self sufficient organization that has created and continues to create a home for some the New York City’s most innovative, talented and hard working theater artists. Thankfully the World keeps providing him with both fresh and refined talent to let loose on NYC.