
Stephen Shafer Mazow, Managing Director at Z Space, is a writer, theater artist, fundraiser, and activist living in San Francisco working in program development and strategic initiatives at the intersection of art, science, and social justice. Prior to joining Z Space, Shafer worked in fundraising and strategic development at the Exploratorium, a museum of science, art, and human perception, and served as Director of Institutional Giving and Strategy at American Conservatory Theater (A.C.T.). He serves on the organizing committee for Bay Area Writer’s Resist, leads the trans and gender-non-conforming advocacy and empathy project IPFreely, and has helped to establish space-sharing initiatives for performing artists, community-based theater programs, and research and action initiatives to address gender equity in the non-profit theater field. Shafer holds a B.A. in English from Wellesley College and a M.F.A. in English and Creative Writing from Mills College. His work has appeared in the Berkeley Fiction Review, 580 Split, and the zines Found and Brood. In his early days in San Francisco, Shafer performed stand-up and sketch comedy throughout the Bay Area and was a founding member of the comedy troupe, This Side of Butch.