YEAR-ROUND STAFF
LIZ CARLSON | Interim Artistic Director
LIZ CARLSON (she/her) is an NYC-based creative producer and director committed to the development of new stories. Prior to stepping in as Interim Artistic Director, Liz produced and directed with NYSAF in various capacities over the past 15 years, notably as the full-time Artistic Producer for the past seven, supporting artists such as César Alvarez, Jaki Bradley, Lyndsey Bourne, Lily Houghton, Keelay Gipson, Jessica Huang, Melissa Li & Kit Yan, Don Nguyen, Brian Quijada & Nygel D. Robinson, Kirya Traber, Lauren Yee, and hundreds more. Liz also served as the Artistic Director for the new works incubator Naked Angels from 2013-2016. As a director, Liz has developed plays and musicals with Ars Nova, The Dramatists’ Guild, Ensemble Studio Theatre, The Flea, Keen Company, Manhattan School of Music, Manhattan Theatre Club, The New Group, Playwrights Horizons, The Playwrights Realm, Signature Theatre Company, Williamstown Theatre Festival, and more. Upcoming directing projects include a new-play workshop with Minita Gandhi at Berkeley Rep’s The Ground Floor, and the final installment of a musical podcast with the Drama Desk- nominated folk band The Lobbyists. MFA The New School for the Performing Arts, Drama. Recipient of The Drama League Fellowship.
NATALIE GERSHTEIN | Executive Artistic Producer
NATALIE GERSHTEIN is a Co-Director of Pipeline Theatre Company after serving as the company’s Producing Artistic Director from 2018-2023. Natalie has also been a part of the executive producing team of Broadway’s Come From Away since 2016 and has opened productions of the show in Dublin, London, Australia, and throughout North America. Prior to her time with Pipeline and Come From Away, Natalie was the Associate Director of Young Playwrights Inc., founded by Stephen Sondheim, and the Artistic Producer of Beautiful City Theatre, which she co-founded in Montreal. In New York, she has worked on several festivals in the city, including the 27th Annual Festival of New Musicals with NAMT, Cherry Lane Theatre’s 2015 Mentor Project; The Public Theater’s 2014 and 2015 Under the Radar Festivals; and the 2013 Lincoln Center Festival, and worked with various other companies including Lincoln Center Theater, Second Stage Theatre, New York Theatre Workshop, MCC, and Ars Nova. Natalie was the line producer for The Actors Fund’s 10th anniversary reunion concert of The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee with the original Broadway cast. Natalie was a panelist at the 2015 ATHE Conference, and has also been a guest speaker in classes at NYU / Tisch, Columbia’s MFA theatre program, and Clubbed Thumb’s writers group. Natalie was awarded the 2016 Gatchell and Neufeld Manager Award and holds an MFA in Theatre Management & Producing from Columbia University.
ERIC KUHN | Executive Producer
ERIC KUHN is multi-award winning theatrical producer based between London and New York. Recent productions on the West End include Accidental Death of an Anarchist (Theatre Royal Haymarket) and The Unfriend (Criterion Theater). New York theater credits include Life of Pi, Shucked, This Beautiful Future (Cherry Lane theater), A Strange Loop (2022 Tony winner), Is This A Room, Dana H., The Inheritance (2020 Tony winner), Rogers & Hammerstein’s Oklahoma! (2019 Tony winner) and Harvey Fierstein’s Torch Song. Eric serves on the board of Lincoln Center Theater and SeriesFest, an award-winning festival dedicated to showcasing episodic storytelling from around the world.
Eric’s background is in technology and media. He launched CNN and the NBA on social media and was the first agent in Hollywood to run social at United Talent Agency. Eric recently served as the Senior Vice President of CBS, running social media for the company. He was a co-founder in cable startup Layer3 TV, which sold to T-Mobile.
Eric studied at Hamilton College and the London School of Economics but has learned the most by collaborating with passionate creatives.
MALLOM LIGGON | Filmmakers' Workshop Director
Mallom Liggon is a graduate of Loyola Marymount University, where he studied Screenwriting and African American Studies. During his time at LMU, he served on the founding team for Diverso, a UTA & Warnermedia backed student-run nonprofit that builds initiatives for diverse students to break into the entertainment industry. At Diverso, Mallom co-created and served as co-program director of Black Writers In Focus, the first-ever paid internship program for Black screenwriters. As a senior at LMU, Mallom led a successful fundraising campaign for over $90,000, with donors including Issa Rae and Deniese Davis's COLOR CREATIVE, Oprah Winfrey's OWN, Cooper Samuelson of Blumhouse, and more to make the program a reality. As program director, Mallom coordinated a curriculum and marketing push that included mentors and speakers like Joe Robert Cole (Black Panther), Chloe Zhao (Nomadland), Barry Jenkins (Moonlight), and others. Currently, Mallom continues to serve up-and-coming storytellers as the Director of the Filmmakers' Workshop for New York Stage and Film, a non-profit with a 40-year history of supporting artists in the film and stage. During his first year as Director, Mallom's successful marketing outreach saw submission numbers for the annual Filmmakers' Workshop triple from the program's previous average. In addition to his advocacy work, Mallom is a writer and musician, who loves serving audiences by merging mental health with entertainment.
TIM J LORD | Production Manager/Line Producer
Tim J. Lord is an award-winning playwright, educator, and producer. He has over twenty years of experience working regionally and off-Broadway and spent three years as the production manager at the 52nd Street Project where he produced new plays created by the kids of Hell’s Kitchen. His plays have been produced and developed at theaters across the United States, including at The Public Theater, Actors Theatre of Louisville, and Round House Theatre, among others. He was the first recipient of the Apothetae-Lark Fellowship for a playwright with a disability, and is currently creating a new, original musical for the Kennedy Center called Through the Sunken Lands. Having known Liz Carlson for a decade, he’s excited to finally be working with her and for the opportunity to marry his creative and production minds as a member of the NYSAF team.
ISABELLE SANATDAR STEVENS | Producing Assistant
Isabelle (Fereshteh) Sanatdar Stevens (she/her) is a writer, performer, and artist whose work tends to center love and loss, responding to questions that don’t have concrete answers. Low-income, Queer, Iranian-American with a found family from different backgrounds, there’s a dream in her heart that is always reminding her of its presence: to amplify her communities’ voices, experiences, and languages, and put them on U.S. stages front-and-center. A 2023 Pipeline Project Artist at NewRep Theatre, and part of Fresh Ink Theatre's 2023-24 Season, Isabelle's work will have several public sharings this upcoming Fall. Isabelle is a recent graduate of Smith College where she studied Theatre, English, and Translation. She is a rising second-year MFA Playwriting Candidate at Boston University. @isabellesanatdarstevens
#MahsaAmini #ArmitaAbbasi #ZanZendeghiAzadi
JARED MATHIS | Events and Development Manager
Jared Mathis (He/Him) is excited to be back in community with New York Stage and Film for the 2023 Summer Season as the Events and Development Manager. Based in Brooklyn, New York, Jared works in event production, development, and marketing for arts organizations creating opportunities for people to have enriching and meaningful experiences through art. He is a professional drummer and plays in multiple bands and for theaters around New York City. Jared was born and raised in Sugar Land, Texas and holds a Bachelor’s degree in Marketing with a focus in Arts Management from Baldwin Wallace University.
ANDREA GORZELL | Grant Writer
ANDREA GORZELL has been a non-profit fundraiser for more than 15 years, working for a variety of arts organizations including Manhattan Theatre Club, New York City Center, Primary Stages, Manhattan Graphics Center, Broadway Bound Kids, as well as Broadway Advocacy Coalition and the David Lynch Foundation. In addition to her grantwriting work, she is also a costuming professional with more than 20 years of wardrobe experience for theatres such as Manhattan Theatre Club, Signature Theatre, Roundabout, and The Public.
RAD PEREIRA | Director of Engagement and Impact
Rad Pereira (they/them) is an (im)migrant cultural worker building consciousness between healing justice, system change, reindigenization and queer futures currently based between Lenapehoking (Brooklyn) and Haudenosaunee territory (Hudson Valley). Their work in performance, education and social practice has been experienced on stages, screens, stoops, swamps and sidewalks all over Turtle Island through the support of many communities, institutions, and groups. Rad has spoken, consulted, facilitated and contributed to stories at the New Inc at New Museum, Queens Museum, Rio de Janeiro Museum, Instituto Republica, PSU Art + Social Practice, SITI Company Thought Center, United Nations, A Blade of Grass, Superblue, Broadway Advocacy Coalition, The 8th Floor, Working Woman of Color Conference, Dance/NYC Symposium, Culture/Shift, Abrons Arts Center, JackNY, NY Department of Cultural Affairs, 20th Century Studios, AMC, HBO, CBS, NBC, MTV, Shudder, National Black Theatre, MITU350, The Public Theater, La Mama etc., Shakespeare Theatre in DC, Pittsburgh Public Theatre, New York Theatre Workshop, The Bushwick Starr, Target Margin, Breaking the Binary Theater Festival, Poetic Theater, Ars Nova, New Ohio, Sesame Street, Theatre 167. Their book Meeting the Moment: Socially Engaged Performance, 1965-2020, By Those Who Lived It is available through New Village Press. They are building a Native led food sovereignty project called Iron Path Farms. They have directed and taught theater/acting at Juilliard, Carnegie Mellon University, Pace University, The Door and Interlochen Arts Academy.
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