Family

Biographies

Raymond Bobgan (Executive Artistic Director)
Raymond Bobgan is now in his fourth year as Executive Artistic Director. During his tenure, CPT has eliminated over 200k in debt, produced 7 world premieres: 4 by local artists, expanded its programs to support new work, and has achieved unprecedented national coverage. Bobgan was recently recognized by American Theatre Magazine as 1 of 25 national theatre artists that will shape the next 25 years of American theatre. Bobgan specializes in creating new work through an ensemble-driven process. He was the founding artistic Director of Wishhounds (aka Theatre Labyrinth) and has directed and collaboratively conceived/created over twenty new theatrical works. Recent creations include: Cut to Pieces, with Chris Seibert; Blue Sky Transmission: A Tibetan Book of the Dead, co-produced by CPT and La Mama ETC (NY); and The Confessions of Punch and Judy, co-produced by CPT, NaCl (NY) and Number 11 Theatre (Toronto), which was recently published in New Canadian Theatre Volume 9: Devised Theatre. Other recent shows include: Gao Xingjian’s The Other Shore, Dennis Kelly’s Osama the Hero, and Thornton Wilder’s Our Town. In 1994, Bobgan initiated CPT’s STEP project, a job training program that engages at-risk youth in writing, producing, and performing new plays and Bobgan was the first director of CPT’s Y-Haven Theatre Project. Raymond’s theatrical work has been seen in Romania, Brazil, Denmark, Serbia, Turkey, The United Kingdom, and Canada, and has been featured in American Theatre Magazine, Canadian Theatre Review, Theatre Journal, and in Lisa Wolford’s book Grotowski’s Objective Drama Research. He is an alumnus of Theatre Communications Group/Pew Charitable Trust’s National Theatre Artist Residency Program and the TCG/NEA Career Development Program for Directors. Bobgan was a participant and group leader in Jerzy Grotowski’s Objective Drama Research Program at the University of California, Irvine, and is a yearly guest director at Humber College in Toronto where he co-directs a four to eight week intensive on devising ensemble-driven plays. Bobgan was Acting Artistic Director of CPT (1995-1997) and served CPT in many roles including Associate Artistic Director, Education Director and Resident Director at various times since 1991.

Beth Wood (Associate Artistic Director)
After appearing on the CPT stage for many years, Wood joined the CPT staff in 2007. An actress, educator and director, she holds a BA in Communications and Theatre from John Carroll University. A former Actor-Teacher for Great Lakes Theater Festival, Wood has taught a variety of theatre and acting courses at Lakeland Community College, The Beck Center, and Shaker On Stage. Beyond education and performance, she has also served as the Technical Director for John Carroll University, Lakeland Theatre, and Stagecrafters. CPT stage credits include Hedwig and the Angry Inch, Mrs. Bob Cratchet’s Wild Christmas Binge, A Bright Room Called Day, Fefu and Her Friends, The Rocky Horror Show, Our Town, Pulp, Matt & Ben, and boom (director).

Mindy Childress Herman (Communications Director)
Mindy Herman has served as the Communications Director at CPT since 2006. She is a marketing professional with over 10 years of experience in the communications industry. Prior to joining the staff of Cleveland Public Theatre, she was Account Supervisor at a number of small advertising agencies in Cleveland and Philadelphia, most recently Desberg and Associates, Inc. Her client base has been varied, with a focus on education, technology, business to business, retail and industrial/manufacturing. Herman received a BA in Theatre and Communications from Antioch College in Yellow Springs, Ohio and has participated in several continuing education programs for industry professionals. Herman also brings a theatre perspective, having worked for a dozen area theatres as a performer, director, producer, staff member and board member. She directed the critically-acclaimed site specific tours of Spoon River Anthology and Lone Star and produced the award-winning tours of Glengarry Glen Ross, Waiting for Lefty and Absurdity in the Streets for Charenton Theatre Company, where she served as Producing Director from 2003-2005. She directed the world premieres of Holiday Hotline by Linda Eisenstein and Michael Sepesy (Detroit Avenue Arts) and Becomes You by Greg Vovos (TITLEWave Theater) and Assistant Directed the premiere of the site specific street play Lost Prospect at the Ingenuity Festival. At CPT, she has directed David Sedaris’ The Santaland Diaries and AtTENtion Span: A Festival of 10-Minute Plays.

Judith Ross (Development Director)
Judith Ross has served in her present role since April 2002 and was Coordinator of Grants in 2001. Ross has been associated with CPT since 1994 when she joined the Board of Directors. A New York City native, Ross received a Bachelor of Arts degree from Brooklyn College and a Masters degree from the University of Pennsylvania. She lived and worked in Philadelphia before coming to Cleveland in 1990 to take an administrative position. Ross has published extensively in the social work literature and served a term as editor-in-chief of Health and Social Work, a scholarly journal. She has also worked as a consultant, developed numerous successful programs and designed and managed an array of foundation and government grant funded projects in the US and abroad. Ross developed CPT’s successful and well-recognized fundraising event, Pandemonium, which each year, draws many new supporters to the organization.

Chris Seibert (Education Director)

A playwright, director and performer, Chris Seibert holds a BA in Theatre and Women’s Studies from Loyola University Chicago. She has performed in a wide variety of traditional and non-traditional performance venues including Daley Plaza, Navy Pier, Museum of Contemporary Art (Chicago), the Cleveland Playhouse, and Cleveland Public Theatre. Her solo performance, Split (Links Hall) earned Critic’s Choice in the Chicago Reader and her co-written screenplay entitled Moon Tooth was a semi-finalist in the 2001 Chesterfield Writer’s Film Project (LA). Most recent CPT stage credits include Our Town, Two-Headed, Osama the Hero, and the multimedia solo performance Cut to Pieces. As Education Director, Seibert serves as the Director of CPT’s Student Theatre Enrichment Program (STEP). Working collaboratively with Cleveland inner-city teens, Seibert has co-directed / created ten STEP original works, including an adaptation of Bertolt Brecht’s Mother Courage and Her Children, a new play entitled The Young Blood Hungers based on the works of Harlem Renaissance writer Marita Bonner, and the original hip-hop satire Bliss. Through this program and through CPT’s other Education projects—Women’s Voices (serving women in transition), Y-Haven Theatre Project (serving men in recovery), Creative Diversion Project (serving youth at risk for gang involvement), and Brick City Theatre (serving children residents of CMHA public housing estates)—Seibert facilitates the creation, production and tour of 6 to 8 original, ensemble-driven theatre works each season.

Denis Griesmer (General Manager)
Denis Griesmer has served in this role for the past four years but has also served in a variety of artistic and managerial staff positions at CPT since fall of 2001. Griesmer is also the Director of the Y-Haven Theatre Project, one of CPT’s adult outreach programs. The Y-Haven Theatre Project collaborates with residents of Y-Haven’s Transitional Housing Program to create an original play based on their personal experiences. Notable artistic roles also include Associate Producer for CPT's original production, Blue Sky Transmission: A Tibetan Book of the Dead. Griesmer brings 15 years of theatre management and project management consulting to his role at CPT. A graduate of the Northwestern University School of Speech Theatre Program, Griesmer was Production Manager and then Associate Producer for San Francisco's acclaimed Pickle Family Circus. He later worked as Production Coordinator on major feature films by Cleveland writer Joe Eszterhaus including Telling Lies in America and Burn, Hollywood, Burn. Prior to joining CPT, Griesmer spent three years at IBM Global Services as an associate project manager.

Curtis L. Young (Technical Director/Production Manager)
Curtis L. Young joined the Cleveland Public Theatre production staff in 2007. A Youngstown native, Curtis is a graduate of Ashland University holding a BA in Theatre and Philosophy. Prior to arriving at Cleveland Public Theatre, Curtis was the Assistant Technical Director for The Cleveland Playhouse and a Technical Assistant at The Beck Center for the Cultural Arts. Curtis has also worked with many Northeast Ohio theatre companies including: Playhouse Square, Stambaugh Auditorium (Youngstown, Ohio), Oakland Center for the Arts (Youngstown, Ohio), Power’s Auditorium (Youngstown, Ohio) Weathervane Playhouse, Kaliope Theatre, Mercury Summer Stock, Clague Playhouse, Ensemble Theatre, Elyria Summer Theatre, Near West Theatre, Rocky River Community Theatre, East Side Cleveland Jewish Community Center and Cuyahoga Community College (Eastern Campus). Curtis also worked with the IATSE Stage-Hand’s Union with the locals in Youngstown and Sharon, PA handling concerts and national touring production all over Northeast Ohio and Western and Central Pennsylvania. Notably, Curtis was also the Technical Director for the 2006 Ingenuity Festival in downtown Cleveland and the acting Technical Director for the 2006 Fusion Festival held at The Cleveland Playhouse. Curtis is also an accomplished actor having performed in over 70 productions in the last 14 years.

Rebecca Cole (Box Office Manager and Volunteer Coordinator)
Rebecca Cole joined the CPT staff in 2008. Cole graduated from Ohio University with a BFA in Directing and moved to Cleveland where she was one of the founders of Fourth Wall Productions, a local theatre company that specialized in new works by young artists. At Fourth Wall, she directed Malicious Bunny, All the Way from China and Schism. Prior to joining the staff of CPT, she spent three years in the box office at Cleveland Play House, where she also served as assistant director.

Sean Higgins (Graphic Design)
Sean has served as the graphic designer for CPT since 2004. In addition to his work at the theatre, Higgins is also a partner in The Bubble Process, a New York based design firm that works with various entertainment and fashion based clients including The Love Brigade, Dave Matthews Band and Fuled By Ramen Records. In his time away from CPT, Higgins also works as a freelance illustrator, working with numerous editorial clients including Resonance and Skyscraper magazines. Graduating from Kent State University in 2005, Higgins moved back to Cleveland to pursue a design and illustration career in his hometown. Higgins has had his work featured in CMYK Magazine a juried design/illustration publication.

Rose Sengenberger (Development Assistant)
Sengenberger joined the staff of Cleveland Public Theatre in 2009, after working as the writing intern for the Student Theatre Enrichment Program the previous two summers. She relocated to Cleveland after spending the past four years in Pittsburgh earning her BFA in Dramaturgy from Carnegie Mellon University and interning at City Theatre. She also studied briefly at Drama Centre London, part of Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design. Dramaturgical credits include: Scenes from an Execution, Emilia Galotti, The Herbal Bed and The London Cuckolds.

Faye Hargate (Education Associate)
Faye Hargate is a graduate of the two-year professional theatre program at Ecole Jacques Lecoq in Paris, France. She holds a BA in Religious Studies and Theatre from Bowdoin College in Brunswick, ME and has trained with Shakespeare & Company in Lenox, MA and with Cleveland’s Inlet Dance Theatre. At Ecole Jacques Lecoq, she specialized in physical theatre and the creation of original, ensemble based theatre. She was an ensemble member of international theatre company Ici et La where she created and performed the original works: Under Covers, produced in Portugal, and Georgette Goes to the Supermarket, produced and toured in France. Hargate has also created original works with Cleveland’s Theater Ninjas, notably The Beetlebug & The Bad Worm, which premiered at CPT’s Big [Box] series in 2009 and continues to tour in Northeastern Ohio. Prior to joining the CPT staff as Education Associate, Hargate worked at CPT as an actor, stage manager and educator. Acting Credits include: CPT, Theater Ninjas, Great Lakes Theater Festival’s Outreach Tour, Bang and Clatter, TITLEWave and Ingenuity Festival. She has taught for CPT’s Student Theatre Enrichment Program and SmART in the City program, Cleveland School of the Arts, Beck Center, Laurel School and Art House. She has also directed for Dobama’s Marilyn Bianchi Kids’ Playwrighting Festival. She is a Cleveland native and lives in Ohio City.

David Ellison, A.I.A. (Project Architect of The Gordon Square Theatre)
David Ellison was trained at the Cooper Union in New York City and has practiced architecture in Cleveland since 1987. He was the set designer for CPT's Marat/Sade, Kitchen Table U., Street Sense and Measure for Measure.

James A. Levin (Founder of Cleveland Public Theatre)
Award-winning director, playwright and producer, James A. Levin founded the Cleveland Public Theatre in 1982, bringing innovative off-off Broadway-style theatre to Cleveland after three years with Dario D'Ambresio's Pathological Theatre Company in residence at Cafe LaMama in New York City. He has envisioned, launched and supervised the renovations of both the James Levin Theatre and Gordon Square Theatre. He has launched many regionally recognized projects such as the New Plays Festival, Danceworks, the Performance Art Festival, The American Indian Festival and Vaudeville. He has produced most of the work at CPT since its inception and all of the Shakespeare productions. Directing credits include Atomic Vaudeville, Marat/Sade, Beirut, Dolores Rain, The Sam Shepard Festival, and Killer Joe. Except in the courtroom, he has not acted for several years, the last major part being the title role in The Triumphant Return of Blackbird Flynt by Peter Ullian. He has written lyrics for various rock bands and for theatre productions including Lysistrata 2085, Marat/Sade and Star Wares and Let the Knowing Speak, a jazz cantata featuring Jon Hendricks, Jackie Byard and Phil Wilson. Writing credits include Star Wares (a rock musical in collaboration with Linda Eisenstein), which won a fellowship from the Ohio Arts Council and CPT's late night satire, The Titanic, the true story. Born in Cleveland, James graduated from Shaker Hts. High, the University of Michigan, and CWRU law school.