MISSION
VISION
VALUES
Randi is an indie theater maker and organizer with an arts advocacy and commercial real estate background. She has over 20 years of service to the performing arts community and is dedicated to coalition building, partnerships, and removing barriers to access. Randi has worked on over $11B in commercial real estate transactions and has created programs resulting in thousands of artists receiving funding, free real estate consulting services, rehearsal space, and opportunities for professional growth. Randi co-chairs the real estate working group on the Mayor’s Council for Live Theater and Performing Arts, is on the Artist Council of Sociable Weavers and the Creatives Rebuild New York’s Guaranteed Income for Artists Working Group.
She was a David Prize Finalist in 2025. She received the Tow Foundation Visionary Leadership Award, the Ellen Stewart Award, was inducted into the Indie Theater Hall of Fame, and received a Citation from the NYC City Council for Service.
Theater LOVE: Cabin Pressure, Roberto Zucco, and Rainpan 43's Machines, Machines, Machines, Machines, Machines, Machines, Machines
Joel Eduardo Guzmán is an actor, a clown, and a culture and arts manager whose mission over the years has been to transform spaces worldwide with the power of the arts. He graduated with a master's in Arts & Cultural Management and MBA in Marketing with certificates in Circus Teaching and Physical Theater. These educational studies have come together to inform his 18 years of experience in the nonprofit sector, creating and transforming various cultural initiatives. This includes being the founder of a Circus, a theater company, and an organization dedicated to increasing the understanding of mental health through the creative arts. He has been involved in international initiatives, including presenting a multilingual workshop at the World Summit of Nobel Peace Laureates.
Theater Loves: Slava's Snowshow, Tricicle Hits, Así que pasen 5 años.
India Shanelle is a St. Louis-born creative self-starter whose work has spanned multiple disciplines. She's an award-winning musical theater artist, recording artist, and director, and has been a lead singer in a live indie band. That body of work has taken her across stages nationwide, to America's Got Talent (Season 16), and to an off-Broadway stage. She found her first NYC landing in Harlem, and now nesting in Flatbush.
Driven by a need to change who gets to be seen, she founded BlackLight Community, a nonprofit that elevates marginalized storytelling in theater, and now serves as the Strategic Projects and Executive Support Manager at IndieSpace. Both are pillars of the same mission: sustainable, structural change for creatives who are underrepresented or marginalized in the arts. This feeds her passion for arts advocacy.
Off the clock, she stays active, reading plays, catching indie shows, and yes, a proud SpongeBob lover. Once you know her, it makes total sense.
Theatre Loves: The Colored Museum, BlackLight Community, Company, Vocal expression (It is medicine to my soul, chile!)
Melanie Sasmito is a community-minded real estate professional with a deep love for the arts and the people who keep them alive. Her real estate career began in Singapore, where she managed Dance On Us, a network of co-working studio spaces for dance and fitness instructors. Responding to a growing shortage of affordable and accessible creative space, she helped emerging teachers secure studios in prime locations so they can build sustainable student communities, and expand their business.
Drawn to the vibrancy of New York’s arts and cultural landscape, Melanie later earned her Master’s in Real Estate Development from the NYU Schack Institute, where she also served as a research assistant at the Urban Lab whilst keeping her connection with the arts in New York through her work with What Will the Neighbors Say? (WWTNS), supporting community-driven storytelling and artist-centered production.
Grounded in her understanding of the affordability challenges artists face, Melanie is committed to creating inclusive, lasting spaces where creativity and community can thrive. Beyond her professional life, she is an active volunteer with New York’s Grand Central Food Program, a global citizen who has lived in four countries and speaks three languages, and a loving dog mom to her four-year-old Lagotto, Crosby.
Theatre Loves: Evita, Here Lies Love, The Public Theatre
Raquel Almazan is an interdisciplinary performer, writer, director and educator. Her eclectic career as artist-activist spans original multi-media solo performances, playwriting, devising-dramaturgy and filmmaking. Her work has been featured in New York City, throughout the US and internationally in Greece, Italy, Slovenia, Chile, Colombia, Guatemala, Canada and Sweden; including several of her plays within her lifelong project on writing bi-lingual plays in dedication to Latin American countries (Latin is America play cycle).
She is the artistic director of La Lucha Arts that collaborates with vulnerable communities that include the incarcerated, formerly incarcerated and forum plays with Latinx immigrants, within the performing/writing disciplines has led her to sharing artistic and political spaces with thousands of participants. Member of SAG-AFTRA, The Playwrights Center and National Association of Latino Arts and Culture.
Theater LOVE: Productions: Heart Chaos Butoh Dance, La Gringa, Blue Door, work of: Patricia Ariza, Maria Irene Fornes, Ping Chong and Co.
Joseph Auld is a Senior Executive in the New York City design, construction, and real estate industry. He has worked as a real estate consultant to such nonprofits as the Dia Foundation, Planned Parenthood, Screen Actor's Guild, God's Love We Deliver, The Alvin Ailey Dance Theater, The Africa Center and the Public Theater. He spent 12 years at Volunteers of America - Greater New York, Inc., where in his role as the Associate Vice President of Design and Construction, he built and maintained 70 properties for some of New York City's neediest Americans. Joseph is currently a design and construction project manager for some of New York's largest cultural and performing arts nonprofits and has worked with clients including the Baryshinikov Arts Center, Pratt Institute, Mount Sinai Hospital, and Bronx Lebanon Hospital.
Theater LOVE: Ave. Q, To Kill a Mockingbird, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, Alvin Ailey
Brian is a co-founder of SpotCo Advertising, an agency specializing in the branding and marketing of Broadway shows and live-entertainment. At SpotCo he held the position of Chief Financial Officer for over 20 years and helped grow the company into a dynamic, full-service advertising agency with a staff of 120 and over $70 million in revenues. Prior to founding SpotCo, Brian was involved in various non-profit arts organizations such as The Roundabout Theatre Company, Ensemble Studio Theatre, Arts at St. Ann’s, and The Center for Traditional Music and Dance. Brian is a New York City native.
Theater LOVE: Angels in America, A Little Night Music, Ethyl Eichelberger as The Lincolns at Lincoln Center Serious Fun.
Andrew Clarke is the Jamaican-born Founder and Executive Director of Braata Productions. Since the company’s founding, Andrew has produced over two dozen productions, including staged readings, fully mounted shows and regional tours of new and established works, including The Black That I Am and Welcome to America: A Caribbean Musical, as well as three consecutive seasons of the Braata Folk Singers biennial concert series. Over the past eleven years, Braata has performed throughout the New York Tri-state area and regionally, from Toronto, Canada, to Atlanta, Georgia. Andrew Co-Produced the Off-Broadway musical Flambeaux, which swept the 2015 AUDELCO Awards, winning in six categories, including Best Musical of The Year.
THEATER LOVES: The Amen Corner, Karl O'Brian Williams, and The Public Theater (their work is largely always moving and that's how I got my Equity card )
Brea’s love for the performing arts has translated into a notable career in stage management for companies all over the United States, including Music Theatre Kansas City, The Oklahoma City Philharmonic, The Beijing Normal Experimental Dance Company, and more. In addition to her work onstage, Brea has a background in non-profit administration, special events, fundraising, and commercial real estate. She has previously worked as the Assistant Director of Operations for Abramson Brothers Incorporated, a commercial real estate firm in midtown Manhattan, and as the Development Coordinator for Williamstown Theatre Festival.
Theater LOVE: Opening nights, Campy cult musicals, and For Colored Girls...
Dechelle has a background as a project manager and is currently the Director of Human Resources at Serengeti Asset Management, a value-driven investment firm. She is also a founding member and co-Artistic Director of Wreckio Ensemble, a collective theater company that has produced original and innovative works on social issues in New York City since 2000. Dechelle has performed with dancers from the Frankfurt Ballet and in the New York Fringe Festival, Wonderland Festival, American Living Room Festival, and Florida Dance Festival.
Theater LOVE: Rainpan 43's Machines, Machines, Machines, Machines, Machines, Machines, Machines, Must Don’t Whip ‘Um, La Veillée des Abysses, RSC’s Faust
Maya Quetzali Gonzalez is an artist, arts worker, and organizer. Her recent assistant directing and movement work includes YOU WILL GET SICK (Roundabout), MACBETH (Broadway), and OUR TOWN (Dallas Theater Center). She is the Grants Manager at the MAP Fund, where she co-structures and manages a national arts grant program. Maya has served as reviewer/panelist for organizations such as Bronx Council on the Arts and Barrington Stage, and is a member of Women of Color in the Arts and an Associate Member of SDC. She also works with Jane’s Due Process, a Texas-based reproductive justice organization. Maya is a graduate of NYU Tisch School of the Arts, where she was a Martin Luther King, Jr. Scholar.
THEATER LOVES: group warmups, a good preshow (or preshow playlist), making dances that don't make too much sense.
Candace Jackson has worked for over 25 years as an entrepreneur and arts manager guiding numerous theater, dance, visual arts and cultural organizations. Candace founded CJAM Consulting in 2006 to create advanced business strategies for arts and cultural institutions, particularly in communities of color.
Under Candace’s leadership, CJAM has successfully planned and directed institutional startups and expansions, business model design, managerial and financial capacity building, and capital construction development for scores of the nation’s emerging and historic institutions.
Theater LOVE:
- The call and response of the live theater experience.
- The evolutions in black dance – from Dunham to Ron K. Brown to Camille Brown, lindy hop to krumping to waacking. The lineage is looong.
- Backstage blue light. IYNYK
Pamela Kupper is a trained theatrical lighting designer with over 20 years of experience designing theatre, opera, corporate events, archi-tainment and fashion projects. She also has a background in project management, which includes working on landmark façade projects. Pamela has designed lighting, dimming and control systems for theater and museum spaces, and regularly designs theatrical lighting for live theater, and events. She is the founder of THESAN, a full service lighting company.
Theater LOVE: Into the Woods, Wreckio Theatre Ensemble, Lesbian Love Octagon
Samuel Morales Jr. is a Senior Security Governance Analyst at Datadog. He has worked in the technology industry for over 20 years (including 15 years at Google, and three at Square), in the areas of IT operations, site reliability engineering, privacy, and security compliance. He has a Master of Science in IT degree from the University of Maryland Global Campus, and an Executive MBA from the Quantic School of Business and Technology.
Theater LOVE: Rooftops, The Kraine, and The Honeycomb Trilogy
Siobhan O’Neill is a founding board member of The Indie Theater Fund and has a background as an NYC actor, (with many a waitress and temp job along the way) and then spent almost a decade as a booking agent for theatrical tours. Siobhan is a founding partner and co-owner of the live theatrical production company, For The Record Live. She also has a Professional Certificate in Fundraising at NYU’s Heyman Center for Philanthropy and Fundraising.
Theater LOVE: Watching the birth of the NY International Fringe Festival with fellow Obie, John Clancy. Ushering for a crazy new show called ‘Blue Man Group’ because she couldn’t afford a ticket, rushing to see a crazy new show called ‘Sleep No More’ before it’s limited run expired….
Erez is a founding partner of IndieSpace and an important figure in the independent theater community in New York City. He has dedicated his 20+year career to theater and arts advocacy, creating a self-sustaining indie theater company called Horse Trade Theater Group. He also founded FRIGID New York, a 501c3 non-profit theater company, and The League of Independent Theater, the only 501c6 political advocacy organization created solely for the independent theater community. Through his work, Erez has changed the face of funding in our sector. Notable accolades include The Ellen Stewart Award in recognition of significant contributions to the Off-Off-Broadway community, and an OBIE award for the annual African American playwrights festival, The Fire This Time.
Theater LOVE:The Pumpkin Pie Show, The Fire This Time Festival. Lesbian Love Octoagon, Surf Reality, Jackson Sturkey, Telenovela 101.
Paul Leibowitz is the founder of Plot Real Estate Advisory, with the aim of informing, guiding, and ultimately growing the City’s creative community. Paul’s 30-year career in real estate has focused on investment sales and capital markets in New York City, orchestrating over $30 billion in transactions. Recognizing the gap in integrating real estate investment with the creative sector, Paul established Plot. As a co-founder of IndieSpace, Plot leverages his deep real estate expertise and understanding of the creative community to foster vital, financially successful projects.
Theater LOVE: Penny Arcade, Heather Christian, The Tank
Marty taught leadership, politics and media at the Harvard Kennedy School for nearly 40 years. Co-founded a leadership consulting practice, which he sold to the staff in 2013. A graduate of Williams College and Harvard Law School, he was Assistant Minority Leader of the Massachusetts House, editorial writer for The Boston Globe, Editor of The Real Paper, and Chief Secretary to Massachusetts Governor Bill Weld. He has authored or co-authored over a dozen books and chapters, including the best-selling Leadership on the Line.
Theater LOVE: Frances McDormand, my acting teacher J. Michael Miller, and watching Philip Seymour Hoffman and John C. Reilly alternate roles in True West
