The American Place Theatre

He is a recipient of the 1999 Obie for Sustained Achievement; the Lucille Lortell Lifetime Achievement Award presented by the league of Off-Broadway Theatres in 1993; the Rosetta LeNoire Award in 1994 from Actor’s Equity Association in recognition of his artistic achievements and contribution to the “universality of the human experience in American theatre”; two Audelco for Excellence in Black Theatre Awards, as Best Director for Zora Neale Hurston, in 1990, and Fly in 1998; the Carnegie Mellon Drama Commitment to Playwriting Award in 1996; the Working Theatre’s Sanford Meisner Service Award for “his leadership in disseminating the arts to working people,” and was honored by The New Federal Theatre in 2001. In addition, he received from the Alumni Association of City College of New York, The Townsend Harris Medal, “in recognition of his distinguished contributions to his chosen field of work and the welfare of his fellow men." In May of 2003, Mr. Handman was awarded a Doctor of Humane Letters by the University of Miami.

Plays he has directed at The American Place Theatre include: Manchild in the Promised Land which he adapted from the novel by Claude Brown; I Stand Before You Naked by Joyce Carol Oates; Words, No Music by Calvin Trillin; Drinking in America by Eric Bogosian; A Girl’s Guide to Chaos by Cynthia Heimel; Free Speech in America, and Bibliomania by Roger Rosenblatt, with Ron Silver; Coming Through also adapted by Mr. Handman; Spokeman written and performed by John Hockenberry; Fly by Joseph Edward; and Dreaming in Cuban and Other Works: Rhythm, Rum, Café con Leche and Nuestros Abuelos by Cristina Garcia and Michael Garcés. Also, he has adapted and directed many of the American Humorists’ Series productions.

A noted teacher for over 50 years, in his professional acting classes, Mr. Handman has trained many outstanding actors including: Alec Baldwin, James Caan, Kathleen Chalfont, Chris Cooper, Michael Douglas, Sandy Duncan, Richard Gere, Joel Grey, Allison Janney, Raul Julia, Frank Langella, John Leguizamo, Susan Lucci, Donna Mills, Burt Reynolds, Tony Roberts, Anna Devere Smith, Mira Sorvino, Christopher Walken, Denzel Washington, and Joanne Woodward.

No one says it better than Shakespeare: On Your Imaginary Forces Work!

Jennifer is dedicated to ensuring that APT preserves its reputation for creating theatre and educational programming of unsurpassed quality for now 50 years. She works closely with and on behalf of the organization's esteemed Founder/Artistic Director, Wynn Handman, to produce dramatic work that features the country's richest artistic talents with the least possible indirect costs. Since 2002, she has managed the producing side of ten new Literature to Life theatrical adaptations, having introduced three of those book titles to the roster. Jennifer shares the organization's belief that the quality of artist educators who provide direct student services must match the masterful level of acting in APT productions. In 2004, she secured pilot funding for and developed/managed APT's highly successful Teaching Artist Training program in New York City. In the coming years, she will guide the expansion of this program to include Master Teaching Artists in other parts of the country, enabling extended residencies to reach students beyond the New York City Department of Education.

In partnership with the organization's former Executive Director David Kener, Jennifer created and has produced the annual Literature to Life Awards for the past seven years. This honor has provided a significant source for fundraising for APT and has been placed prominently on the book jackets of such important contemporary American literature as Khaled Hosseini's The Kite Runner, Jonathan Safran Foer's Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, and Jeannette Walls' The Glass Castle. Jennifer is particularly effectual in meeting organizational capacity needs with minimal overhead cost. Among the pro-bono relationships secured and nurtured under her leadership are multi-year design, CRM database, event, and fundraising related vendors. She has worked closely with APT's Educational Staff to create educationally practical and pedagogically effective materials that accompany Literature to Life performances and workshops. Jennifer has also managed administrative, programmatic, and development activities in an effort to meet organizational goals set by the Board of Trustees and senior leadership. She is most proud to lead a staff of tenacious and loyal professionals who are committed to the belief that students' lives are made richer by great theatre and great literature.

Jennifer's drive towards non-profit leadership took root as early as elementary school. Her parents demonstrated a personal commitment to the vitality of community arts organizations through exceptional volunteer time and board governance, and they invited Jennifer and her siblings to be involved at every level of their work: from advocacy of the Blount Cultural Gardens and Historic District to marketing for the Montgomery Symphony Orchestra to events at the Alabama Shakespeare Festival. As a student, a state-wide winning history project in middle school entitled "Economics of the Arts" evolved into internships with both State and Local Arts Councils, all while working as an apprentice to the professional ballet company in Montgomery, AL. She went on to earn a BS in Theatre and Dance. Building upon her admiration for corporate philanthropist and patron of the arts, Winton "Red" Blount, Jr., she then received her Masters in Arts Administration with a focus on corporate sponsorship of the arts.

Gwen produced and co-directed the critically acclaimed productions, The Magic MetroCard and This is Not a Pipe Dream under the foundling production company The Paddywack Players for which she acted as Artistic Director. While in Los Angeles Gwen was a producing member of Theatre of Note, one of the oldest theatre companies in Southern California - where she directed a successful run of her own original theatre piece, Aftershock. Gwen is the coauthor of the critically acclaimed play The Magic MetroCard, which was published in an anthology of short plays in 2005. She has taught in schools throughout New York and Los Angeles and as an actor has performed at The Provincetown Playhouse, The Rita and Burton Goldberg Theatre, HERE Art’s Center, Manhattan Theatre Source, LATC, and The Actor’s Theatre of Seattle to name a few.

His acting credits include national and regional tours of Driving Miss Daisy, The Stone Guest (based on Moliere’s Don Juan), and Murder at Café Noir. His New York theatre credits include Suzan-Lori Parks’ El Silencio Grande at The Public Theater, Faux-Real Theatre Company’s William Shakespeare’s Haunted House at The Public Theatre, Not in My Name with The Living Theatre, and Shakespearean roles as diverse as Hamlet, Richard III, and Malvolio. Amongst his many on-screen credits, he played Watergate villain Jeb Stuart Magruder in Spike Lee’s She Hate Me, and has appeared on Law & Order, Law & Order: SVU, and Sex and the City. Manuel’s screenplay, Unlikely Cowboys, was a New Century Writers Award Quarter-Finalist. His solo play, Queer in the U.S.A., was developed on the stages of The Provincetown Playhouse and The American Place Theatre, and will begin touring this summer at the Kansas City Fringe Festival.

Elise Thoron’s music theater pieces have been developed and produced both in the United States and Europe. Green Violin, based on murals Marc Chagall painted for the first Soviet Yiddish Theater, music by Frank London of the Klezmatics, premiered Prince Music Theater, (Winner 4 Barrymore Awards, 2003); Teatr na Mokhvaya, St. Petersburg (2005); Jewish Music Festival, Amsterdam (2006); in Russian at Hermitage Theater, Moscow (2008), published in Nine Contemporary Jewish Plays.

Her first piece based on the paintings of Charlotte Salomon, Charlotte: Life? or Theater? music by Gary Fagin, premiered at The Prince Music Theater (2001); The Met Theater, Los Angeles (2007); also United States Holocaust Memorial Museum; Hermitage Theater, St. Petersburg; Soho Theatre, London and in Amsterdam with a major exhibition of Charlotte Salomon’s paintings (2002). Prozak and the Platypus music by singer/songwriter Jill Sobule, Summer Play Festival (Beckett Theatre, New York, 2004); New York State Summer School for the Arts (2005); Brand: New, Hartford Stage, (2006) CD and graphic novella release (2007). The Thief of Venice about the life of 16C Venetian courtesan and poet, Veronica Franco, currently in development in London. She has adapted/directed two music theater pieces commissioned by Bard Summer Music Festival: Good Morning Moscow, (Shostakovich) Sosnoff Theater, Fisher Arts Center; Correspondence based on the letters of Tchaikovsky and his patroness, Baroness Von Meck.

Since 1985, Elise has created cross-cultural collaborations with Russian and American theater artists through the Eugene O’Neill Theater Center and ASTI in Moscow, an organization she founded. She has received many grants, and American and Russian government support for her Russian-American exchange work, which covers a wide variety of theatrical disciplines. She continues today with a focus on musical theater. She directed the first Sam Shepherd play in Russian in Moscow (1989), and later adapted/directed, The Great Gatsby, which played in repertory at the Pushkin Theater for over nine years. She created a company of American and Russian actors for bilingual productions of Oleg Antonov’s Egorushka in America and Constance Congdon’s No Mercy in Russia. She has translated the work of the Russian playwrights: Liudmila Petrushevskaya and Alexander Galin, for production and publication in the United States and Canada.