The Boston Area Theatre Auditions are a community effort. This group of volunteers are committed to making the event as equitable and effective as possible. We welcome other community members, especially BIPOC and folks from other Historically Excluded Populations. If you would like to join the Leadership Committee, please email Darren Evans.
Georgia Lyman (she/her), Event Producer
Actor, curator and Executive Producer, Liars and Believers
Shira Helena Gitlin (they/them), Assistant Event Producer
Freelance Director, Gender Consultant, Intimacy Director, and Dramaturg
Darren Evans (he/him), Chair
Director, Producer, Designer, Managing Director at Boston Playwrights' Theatre, former Producing Artistic Director of Theatre on Fire
Lyndsay Allyn Cox (she/they)
Actor, Director, Producer, Local Casting and Producing Director at The Huntington Theatre
Gia Yarn (she/her)
Casting Director & Artistic Producer at Trinity Repertory Company in Providence, RI
Alex Lonati (she/her)
Director, Producer, Educator, Director of Artistic & Community Programs at SpeakEasy Stage, President of TCBF
Melissa Paradice (she/her)
Director of Casting at Asylum Casting, former Casting Director at Paradice Casting, Christine Wyse Casting and Maura Tighe Casting
Alison Yueming Qu 曲悦鸣 (she/they)
Creative Producer, Director; Executive Director of CHUANG Stage
Armando Rivera (he/him)
Co-Producing Artistic Director of Teatro Chelsea
Evan Turissini (he/him)
Director of Marketing & Communications, Actors' Shakespeare Project
Jen Lewis (she/her)
Actor, Coach, Director, Educator, Parent, former Interim Exec. Director of StageSource, faculty at Bunker Hill Community College & Wheelock Family Theatre
Josh Glenn-Kayden (he/him)
Director, Producer, and Artistic Producer & Casting Director at Company One Theatre
Jason Slavick (he/him)
Artistic Director at Liars and Believers
Additional Advisor:
Charles Baldwin, Program Officer Cultural Equity & Access Initiatives, Mass Cultural Council
Alex Lonati (she/her) is a director, producer, educator, accessibility advocate, and arts administrator. She has directed throughout Boston, including at SpeakEasy Stage Company, Brown Box Theatre Project, Fresh Ink’s Mad Dash, the Boston Theatre Marathon, and universities throughout the city. Professionally, she has been a member of SpeakEasy Stage's administrative staff in a variety of positions since 2014, currently serving as the Director of Artistic & Community Programs, where she focuses primarily on casting, season selection, accessibility, community engagement, and equity and inclusion. She is also the President of the Theatre Community Benevolent Fund (TCBF) and an Adjunct Professor of Arts Management at Emerson College. Alex holds a MS in Arts Administration from Boston University and a BA in Theatre Studies: Directing from Emerson College. www.alexlonati.com
Alison Yueming Qu 曲悦鸣 (she/they) is a Chinese American Director, Creative Producer, Dramaturg, and Community Organizer. Alison curates joyful, transformative, and radical spaces for Asian American artists, using arts and culture to drive community activism and translingual expression. Alison is the Co-Founder & Executive Director of CHUANG Stage, Boston’s Asian American theatre company in residency at the Boston Center for the Arts. As a director, dramaturg, and speaker, Alison has worked with institutions such as the Pao Arts Center, ArtsEmerson, Huntington Theatre Company, Guerilla Opera, Asian American Playwrights Collective, and Central Square Theater. Recognized as a 2023 ARTery Maker by WBUR (Boston’s NPR station), Alison is celebrated as one of the emerging artists of color shaping Greater Boston’s cultural landscape. She serves on the board of the Boston Cultural Council (Mayor Michelle Wu’s Office of Arts and Culture) and the Consortium of Asian American Theaters and Artists (CAATA).
Armando Rivera (he/him) is a Boston based director and actor, and serves as Co-Artistic Director of Teatro Chelsea, a bilingual Latino theater company in Chelsea, MA. Born in Bayamon Puerto Rico, Armando's current creative work is centered on a passionate rediscovery of his Latiné roots through cultural exploration, bilingual immersion, and expansion of what types of Latine stories are shared on the stage.His current focus lies in uplifting new Latine narratives that highlight the bilingual experience and resonate with diverse communities. Through his work at Teatro Chelsea, he has overseen the creation of the annual A-Tipico New Latinx Play Festival which is going into its fifth year, and produced the world premiere of rising Latiné playwrights from all around the country. Additionally he maintains a strong commitment to Chelsea's youth through his work with La Colaborativa where he has mentored several teens as they begin their artistic journeys as theatremakers. Select Directing credits: Que Diablos Fausto?!(Trinity Rep), Peter Malmo(Suffolk University), The Hombres(Gloucester Stage/Teatro Chelsea), Fade (Kitchen Theatre Company + Teatro Chelsea). 619 Hendricks, Revitalized, Sonia se Fue (Teatro Chelsea). Select Acting Credits: Machine Learning (Central Square Theatre), Hamlet (Apollinaire Theatre), Sword in the Stone (B Street Theatre) www.TeatroChelsea.com
Darren Evans (he/him) is a Boston-area director, artistic director, producer, designer, and administrator, currently serving as the Managing Director of Boston Playwrights’ Theatre. He founded Theatre on Fire and served as Producing Artistic Director from 2005-2020. He has directed numerous IRNE and Elliot Norton nominated productions, including Mojo by Jez Butterworth, One for the Road by Harold Pinter, and Exit, Pursued by a Bear by Lauren Gunderson. He has directed and designed plays for Centastage, Fresh Ink Theatre, Titanic Theatre, New Exhibition Room, Brown Box Theatre, as well as Suffolk and Northeastern Universities. He has directed for the Boston Theater Marathon well over a dozen times. He served as a board member of StageSource and is on the Leadership Committee of the Boston Area Theatre Auditions. He also helps administer the Boston United Theatre Resource Potluck Facebook page.
Georgia Lyman (she/her) has served as Executive Producer for Liars and believers since 2021. Born and raised in Boston, she is a lifelong participant in the performing arts. Georgia has worked with The Momentum Dance Series, a month long, outdoor, site specific dance festival on the Rose Kennedy Greenway, Kairos Dance’s multidisciplinary Folktales, Fables & Feasts, and with the French Theater Project, a new company dedicated to bringing french theater to Boston. She served as both the first Artistic Director of TEDxCambridge and the first in-house producer for White Snake Projects, premiering two original operas. Her productions have been seen at Harvard Square’s Mayfair, with immersive spectacle theater in nightclubs, for Medicine Wheel at the historic Cyclorama and at Lawn on D. She served as the Artistic Director of Outside the Box, Boston's largest interdisciplinary outdoor performing arts festival, where she presented over 2000 individual artists over 3 years. She sits on the board of the Boston History Company, French Theater Project, and NECCA. She is sometimes also an actor, and has a love of festivals and oatmeal molasses bread.
Gia Yarn (she/her) is the Casting Director & Artistic Producer at Trinity Repertory Company in Providence, RI where she is responsible for casting, producing workshops, assisting in season planning and so much more! Gia graduated from Dean College in Franklin, MA with a BA in Art and Entertainment Management with a concentration in theater. She is also a Providence based stage director and recently directed I Hate Hamlet at Barker Playhouse, and will direct The Legend of Georgia McBride at Burbage Theatre Company later this spring. Most recently, Gia was the Associate Director of Trinity Rep’s A Christmas Carol, directed and adapted by mentor Tatyana-Marie Carlo with performances at the Providence Performing Arts Center. This past summer, Gia collaborated with local theatre artists and made her directing debut with The Two-Character Play by Tennessee Williams.
Jen Alison Lewis (she/her) is an actor, director, teacher, activist and mom who uses theatre to co-create a more just, joyful world. She teaches Acting at Bunker Hill Community College and is a Teaching Artist with Company One and Wheelock Family Theatre. She was the founding Event Director of the BATA auditions in 2023 and 2024, and served as Interim Executive Director of StageSource. She is passionate about community, Shakespeare and new plays, and some of her favorite productions include Nuwa in Fairyland (Chuang Stage); As You Like It (Merely Players); Othello (Dream Role Players), Legally Dead (Boston Playwrights'); Living Out (Lyric Stage); and Friends of Eddie Coyle (Stickball). She is a proud parent of two young adults and some fur babies in Medford. She also enjoys rock climbing, board games, hiking, traveling, and bad puns. MFA, Applied Theatre: Emerson College. BFA, Acting: NYU.
Josh Glenn-Kayden (he/him) is a Boston based director, the Artistic Producer and Casting Director at Company One Theatre, and a co-producer of the Legion Theatre Project. Josh's work centers around new plays that help us imagine a more equitable and just world together.
Most recently, Josh directed the world premiere of The Interrobangers by M Sloth Levine for Company One Theatre. The Interrobangers was nominated for 4 Elliot Norton Awards, including Outstanding Play. Other favorite directing projects include Break, Break by Erin Lerch (Legion Theatre Project & Artists’ Theatre of Boston), Muse by Sarah Wendy Burman (Wellesley College), Shrike by Erin Lerch (Fresh Ink Theatre), Wild Flowers by Tatiana Isabel Gil (Company One Better Future series), Visionary Futures: Science Fiction Theatre for Social Justice Movements (consisting of new plays by Phaedra Michelle Scott, M Sloth Levine, and Jaymes Sanchez) at UMass Amherst, Baltimore by Kirsten Greenidge (UMass Amherst), Walden by Amy Berryman (UMass Play Lab), Greater Good by Kirsten Greenidge (A.R.T. & Company One, associate director), the world premiere of This Place/Displaced (Artists’ Theater of Boston, ArtsFuse Best Stage Productions of 2018), The Lyons by Nicky Silver (Titanic Theatre), and Don’t Give Up the Ship by Laura Neill (Fresh Ink Theatre). Josh is also the director and co-producer of The Legion Tapes, a sci-fi podcast written by Erin Lerch. Josh has directed and developed new work for the A.R.T., Company One Theatre, Fresh Ink Theatre, Flat Earth Theatre, Artists’ Theater of Boston, the Museum of Science, UMass Amherst, Wellesley College, and Hub Theatre, among others. Josh has worked with playwrights including Kirsten Greenidge, Amy Berryman, M Sloth Levine, Laura Neill, Jaymes Sanchez, Phaedra Michelle Scott, David Valdes, Jeni Mahoney, Erin Lerch, and more. Josh holds a BA in Drama from Tufts University and an MFA in Directing from UMass Amherst.
Lyndsay Allyn Cox (she/they) is the Producing Director and oversees casting at The Huntington. She holds a BA in Acting from Appalachian State University and is a part-time lecturer in Theatre at Boston University's College of Fine Arts. From her early days at the Footlight Club to three recent productions at The Huntington, she has had the opportunity to work at all levels of the Boston theatre ecosystem for nearly two decades. In her free time Lyndsay coaches acting and teaches weekly yoga classes at Down Under Yoga.
Melissa Paradice (she/her) has been casting in the New England and NY markets for over 20 years. Immediately after graduating Emerson College with a BA in Theater Education, Melissa began her professional journey at Maura Tighe Casting, she continued on when Maura sold the company to Christine Wyse, and then Melissa purchased the company in 2017. Always an enormous fan of improv and comedy, she fell in love with Improv Asylum the first second she stepped into that basement theater, and has been a huge supporter of improv all over the city, but most especially at the theater that has come to feel like home. When Norm approached Melissa with a partnership proposition, she leaped at the chance to become a part of the Asylum family. Outside of the Asylum, Melissa lives in Scituate, where she grew up, and loves spending time by the ocean, in her kayak, reading, crocheting or in her favorite role, as Auntie to a multitude of incredible children (we’re up to 10 now!).
Shira Helena Gitlin (they/them/ze/zir) is a trans nonbinary director, gender consultant, intimacy director, dramaturg, and musical theatre enthusiast. Select directing credits include: Fun Home* (The Burlington Players), Orpheus in the Overworld (Fresh Ink Theatre), The Normal Heart (New Repertory Theatre), Indecent (The Concord Players), For the Fish (Moonbox Productions), Echo & Narcissus (Off-Brand Opera), Organic (National Women's Theatre Festival). Associate/Assistant Directing: Little Shop of Horrors* (Greater Boston Stage Company), All Shook Up (Reagle Music Theatre), The Prom (SpeakEasy Stage Company), Eat Your Young (Boston Playwrights’ Theatre), Fanny & Stella (NAMT). As a gender consultant and intimacy director, they have collaborated with theatres, universities, and organizations across the US and Canada. Shira is a member of the Gender Explosion Initiative, a graduate of the Arden Professional Apprentice Class 26, an alumni of Directors Lab North in Toronto, Canada and previously served as an Artistic Fellow at SpeakEasy Stage Company. They have a BA from Hampshire College in directing with an emphasis on musical theatre studies. For more information, please visit shirahelenagitlin.com.
Staff Dream Team
Event Producer: Georgia Lyman
Assistant Event Producer: Shira Helena Gitlin
Auditions Monitor: Elizabeth Ramirez
Asst. Auditions Monitor: Jamil Johnson
Accompanist : Kelvyn Koning
Performer Check-in: Mei McQuarrie
Volunteers: Allison Beauregard, Raj Bhuva, Jake Tolentino, Claire Gilbert, Beyoncé Martinez, Carly Dreme Calbreath, Lily Ayotte
