Theatre Washington is thrilled to announce participants for the 2024 Mentorship Program Cohort.
Theatre Washington’s Mentorship Program matches artists and administrators who are in a period of growth or transition in their careers to established artists and administrators with the talents to support their growth. The 2024 Cohort is composed of 40 artists/administrators, 20 mentees and 20 mentors.
Mentor Program Lead Alissa Klusky shares, “Mentorship can often feel like it’s all about finding the answers. To me, that’s not the goal. The goal is to wonder, to be curious, to seek, to search, to puzzle through the questions of being an artist… and to do that alongside another person who is joyfully engaging in that work with you. The joy of going on that journey together is what it’s all about.”
Theatre Washington President and CEO Amy Austin adds, “It’s a great testament to the power of our community that our mentorship program continues to evolve and flourish. Every year, I am delighted to hear about the developing relationships between mentors and mentees. At a time when our industry is changing and new leadership is paramount, I’m proud that we can support this meaningful collaboration among established and emerging theatre changemakers.”
The 2024 Mentorship Cohort represents a diverse array of artistic disciplines, spanning all ages and career stages, and is a reflection of our vibrant DC-area theatre community.
The 2024 Mentorship Cohort:
- Jordan Brown and Raymond O. Caldwell
- Theresa Cunningham and Adedana Ashebir
- Julie Pesak and Debbie Ellinghaus
- Saraniya Tharmarajah and Elena Velasco
- Nessa Amherst and Ezinne Elele
- Natasha Sánchez and Keta Newborn
- Andreá Bellamore and Lolita Marie
- Isabella Gefland and Patrick Flynn
- Alli Hartley-Kong and Renee Calarco
- Kim Bookard and Sandi Holloway
- Wonnie Kim and Tony Thomas
- Debkanya Mitra and Sarah O’Halloran
- Raghad Maklouf and Derek Goldman
- Tiffany Dennis and Kelli Blackwell
- Emma Skinner and Stanley Bahorek
- Elizabeth Morton and Jeanette Christensen
- Vanessa Beltrán and Urshula Dunn
- Dom Ocampo and Deb Sivigny
- Olivia Martin and Danilo Gambini
- Ché Naveen Arrington and Jared Shamberger
In the mentorship program, participants are asked to commit to a 4-month mentorship together. Though these relationships may continue beyond the program, we ask mentees to set program goals with their mentors to help them with a “next step” in their artistic development. Over 16 weeks, mentees and mentors meet a minimum of four times to work towards these goals. These meetings are tailored to the work of each individual pairing and vary from shadowing their mentor in the field, seeing and responding to local theater, advice and visioning sessions, accountability checks for artistic projects, and more. In all of this work, we encourage our participants to engage in the “Practice of Questioning.”
Learn more about these mentorship pairs, their focus areas, and artistic backgrounds.
