The experiment of shared leadership is not revolutionary. Theatres have operated under different shared leadership models for decades, many of them theatres of color for whom shared leadership is an economic necessity. Yet as the field’s traditional models slowly evolve to keep up with the sweeping leadership changes, we’re seeing more of our legacy institutions implement new and bold shared leadership structures. This series, The Evolution of Shared Leadership in Theatre, interrogates the often problematic processes behind these changes, and uplifts stories from practitioners who transitioned their leadership model while centering the humans at the heart of their organizations.
While most of the theatre field’s original founders, including legacy leaders of color, led hierarchical organizations and were considered our first visionary leaders of the nonprofit theatre, power operated differently in many of those organizations. The extractive leadership practices that are often reinforced by boards in today’s theatre field hadn’t taken a foothold yet, and even some hierarchical organizations were more democratized.
This livestreamed panel conversation invites leaders at influential Black, Indigenous, people of color (BIPOC) theatres–which are often not amplified as part of the fieldwide conversation on shared leadership–to expound on their approaches to power within and beyond hierarchy and org charts. As these leaders carve out their own visions of leadership, how do they determine which inherited practices to adopt and which to evolve? Where might our field’s leaders take even small steps to design new leadership frameworks that resist power hoarding? This discussion does not focus on “shared leadership” prototypes at white-led institutions, but instead is rooted in the cultural history of power-sharing as first modeled by communities of color. It delves into expansive and imaginative ideas of distributing or wielding power within our field’s many organizational structures.
Speakers: Jose Luis Valenzuela, Lauren Turner Hines, Leilani Chan
Facilitators: Miranda Gonzalez, Devon Berkshire
About the Panelists:
Leilani Chan
Leilani Chan is founding artistic director of TeAda Productions, a nomadic theatre of color based in Los Angeles. Chan served as co-chair of the National Asian American Theater Conference and Festival held in Hawai’i in 2024 and was one of the founding board members of the Consortium of Asian American Theaters and Artists. Her latest work, Nothing Micro About Micronesia, premiered at the Honolulu Theatre for Youth and has toured inter-island to Hilo and Maui, then internationally to Guam and Saipan. Nothing Micro About Microcnesia is set to follow in the path of Masters of the Currents, which also toured to the continent including performances in San Francisco’s Mission District (Brava Center for the Arts), Minneapolis (Pangea World Theater), Salt Lake City (Utah Presents), Los Angeles (University of Southern California’s Visions and Voices); and internationally to Guam (Breaking Wave Theatre/University of Guam). Both plays received New England Foundation for the Arts’s National Theater Project and MAPFUND and is Chan’s fourth National Performance Network Creation Fund. Chan has taught at both University of Hawai’i at Manoa and California State University Long Beach theatre departments. Born and raised in Hawai’i, Leilani currently resides in Los Angeles. Leilani attended Hampshire College and obtained her MFA from the University of California, Irvine. Chan also Directed Red Summer for Carpetbag Theatre in Knoxville, Tennessee.
Lauren Turner Hines
Lauren Turner Hines (she/her) is a cultural envisionist, director, producer, and administrator with a profound dedication to fostering spaces where Black performing artists can thrive throughout the American and global south. Over the past two decades, she has committed to addressing the systemic barriers hindering artistic power, liberation, and agency within Black communities. As founder of both No Dream Deferred and the André Cailloux Center for Performing Arts and Cultural Justice, Lauren and her beloved community members are building a co-designed gathering space that doubles as an economic development incubator for Black-led performing arts organizations. In the face of cultural and historical erasure threatening Black communities' sense of belonging and self-knowledge across the globe, No Dream Deferred and the André Cailloux Center for Performing Arts and Cultural Justice intervene and resist while illuminating the stories that define our many lived experiences throughout the African diaspora and calling us to gather in our ongoing struggle for freedom.
José Luis Valenzuela
José Luis Valenzuela is the artistic director of the Latino Theater Company (LTC), and the Los Angeles Theatre Center (LATC) and is also an Emeritus Distinguished Professor at UCLA’s School of Theater, Film and Television. Valenzuela is an award-winning theatre director and has been a visionary and an advocate for Chicanx/Latinx Theatre for over thirty years. He has directed critically acclaimed productions at major theatres both internationally and nationally, including at the LATC where he created the Latino Theatre Lab in 1985 and the Mark Taper Forum where he established the Latino Theater Initiative in 1991. He has directed, The Mother of Henry, Solitude, Premeditation, Dementia, and A Mexican Trilogy for the Latino Theatre Company. Most recently he also directed Macbeth at Oregon Shakespeare Festival and Karen Zacarias’ Destiny of Desire at Arena Stage, South Coast Rep, the Goodman Theatre, and OregonShakespeare Festival. His international directing credits include Henrik Ibsen’s Peer Gynt at the Norland Theatre in Norway and Manuel Puig’s Kiss of the Spider Woman at the National Theatre of Norway. He produced the national Encuentro Festival in 2014, the national and international Encuentro de las Americas in 2017, and the national RE:Encuentro in 2021.
About the Facilitators:
Devon Berkshire is a strategist, producer, facilitator, and writer with a career devoted to building meaningful experiences, mobilizing creative communities, and advancing justice-driven work. From 2012 to 2024, she served on the leadership team at Theatre Communications Group (TCG), most recently as director of fieldwide programming, where she produced flagship events—including the nationally recognized TCG National Conference and Fall Forum on Governance—and launched the organization’s first gender equity and climate action initiatives. Devon has spoken at arts conferences around the country, served in an advisory capacity for the Parent-Artist Advocacy League (PAAL) for the Performing Arts and Media and Broadway Green Alliance. Her earlier career spans nonprofit leadership, corporate program management, artistic practice, and entrepreneurial ventures, including co-founding a New York City-based theatre company and co-owning an event design studio. Learn more at www.devonberkshire.com.
Miranda Gonzalez, born and raised in the city of Chicago, is a writer, director, producer, facilitator, and organizational strategist with a Bachelor of Science from DePaul University, and has co-created addressing anti-blackness in the Latiné community. Currently the [roducing artistic director for UrbanTheater Company (UTC) in Humboldt Park, she has curated and led numerous interdisciplinary projects that blend theatre, music, dance, and oral history to tell the stories of Chicago’s history that mirror her identity and lived experience. Also a collective member of Culture Change Lab, she helps support arts organizations, funders, and lobbyists in reimagining collective structures through operational management. Concurrently, she serves on the National Latinx Theater Initiative steering committee advocating for the advancement of Latinx artists and organizations, influencing policy. In 2020 she was invited to record a TEDx talk, “The Fear of Decolonization”. With a deeply rooted history in ensemble practice, she was a founding member of Teatro Luna and has devised and developed plays since 2000. Selected to participate in Disney’s Live Entertainment 2024 Creative Intensive, Miranda was able to collaboratively present new storytelling concepts worldwide. Her most recent play Back In The Day: an 80’s House Music Dancesical had its world premiere at UrbanTheater Company. Her current project Mascogos, a part of the Latino Theatre Company at the Los Angeles Theatre Center’s Imaginistas, discusses the history of the underground railroad to Mexico and will have its world premiere in October 2025. Directing, writing, and script development credits include: Evolution of a Sonero by Flaco Navaja; Remote Learning Curve by Albany Park Theater Ensemble; Thank You for Coming. Take Care by Stacey Rose at Court Theatre; Ashes of Light by Marco Antonio Rodriguez,;La Gringa by Carmen Rivera; Teatro Luna Productions S-E-X-Oh!, Lunaticas, Crossed, GL 2010, The North/South Plays, a workshop at DCASE; F.O.P and Crime Scene Chicago with Collaboraction; and Melissa DuPrey’s Sushi-Frito at Free Street Theater. She is also an executive producer for the web series 50 Blind Dates with Melissa DuPrey and has written for web series Ruby's World Yo created by Marilyn Camacho. Recipient of the Diane Rodriguez Teatrista Award, Leaders for a New Chicago Award, 3Arts Award , International Centre for Women Playwrights 50/50 Award. Visit https://linktr.ee/chiblaxican to learn more!
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