The front porch arts collective Leadership team
Dawn Meredith Simmons
Artistic Director Dawn Meredith Simmons has spent the past fourteen years working in Boston as a director, a playwright and an arts administrator. Ms. Simmons is the current Director of Performing Arts at the Boston Center for the Arts. Ms. Simmons has worked with the following companies: Bad Habit Productions, Anthem Theatre, Boston Public Works, Lyric Stage Company, New Exhibition Room, Suffolk University, Fresh Ink Theatre, Dorchester Fringe Festival, GAN-e-meed Theatre Project, The Theatre Offensive, Our Place Theatre Project, Mill 6, Actors Refuge Repertory Theatre, Fort Point Theatre Channel, Boston Theatre Works, and As Yet To Be Theatre.
Ms. Simmons is Co-Artistic Director of New Exhibition Room and a founding member of the Small Theatre Alliance Boston, as well as a Board Member of StageSource. |
Maurice Emmanuel Parent
Executive Director Maurice Emmanuel Parent has been a Resident Acting Company member of the Actors’ Shakespeare Project (ASP) since 2011 and recently serviced as Co-Acting Artistic Director. Mr Parent has performed locally with the Underground Railway Theater, SpeakEasy Stage, New Repertory Theatre, Commonwealth Shakespeare Company, Wheelock Family Theatre, Lyric Stage, Huntington Theatre Co., Off the Grid Theatre Company, Boston Theatre Works, Barrington Stage, and Cape Playhouse. Outside of Boston, Mr. Parent has performed nationally and abroad. He's received two Elliot Norton Awards (2008 and 2017), three Independent Reviewers of New England (IRNE) Awards (2015, 2016, and 2017) and an Arts Impulse Award (2017). In addition to his work on stage, Mr Parent is a Lecturer at Boston University’s School of Theatre, a Visiting Artist at the Tufts University Department of Theatre and Dance, and is the 2018-2019 Boston College Monan Professor of Theatre Arts. www.MauriceParent.com
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Victoria George
Executive Producer |
Victoria A. George is an actor and arts administrator with a special interest in addressing issues of equity, diversity, and inclusion in the arts. She studied theater at Wellesley College first as an apprentice and then as a company member of the Wellesley Repertory Theatre (WRT), the professional resident theater of the college. Favorite roles at WRT include the Importance of Being Earnest (Gwendolen) and Goodnight Desdemona/Good Morning Juliet (Desdemona); and Exit Strategy (Jania) with Zeitgeist Stage Company. Victoria supports the FPAC team as Executive Producer.
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Audrey Seraphin
Community Engagement |
Zachary Rice
Marketing / Audience Development |
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Audrey Seraphin is an artist and arts administrator who is honored to work in the Boston community as an actor, director, stage manager, and community organizer. She is the Membership & Capacity Building Manager at ArtsBoston, and was previously the Community & Inclusion Advocate at Central Square Theater. Audrey is a proud member of the Network of Arts Administrators of Color (NAAC) Boston, and serves on their Steering Committee. Recent collaborators include Heart & Dagger Productions, Take Your Pick Productions, and Fresh Ink Theatre. She is a graduate of Emerson College's Theatre Studies program.
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Zachary Rice is a Boston-based theater artist from the beautiful Pacific Northwest. He received his BFA in Theater Arts from Boston University with an emphasis in directing and acting. Zack has directed for the Boston Theater Marathon, Roxbury Repertory Theatre, and his undergraduate thesis, and assistant directed with SpeakEasy, Underground Railway Theater, The Nora, and Fresh Ink Theater. He aspires to develop art that interrogates social and economic inequity and provokes radical empathy.
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Gregory Bloomfield
Director of Finance Gregory Bloomfield originally hails from Toronto, Canada where he began his career as an auditor for Ernst & Young. Since then, he has close to 20 years of experience of bookkeeping, accounting, auditing, taxation and finance across many industries such as real estate, investments and not for profit organizations. Gregory passed the Massachusetts CPA exam in 2006. Previously before working for ASP, Gregory was the senior auditor for the firm which performed ASP’s annual audit; therefore making a smooth transition to becoming ASP’s Director of Finance. Outside of his work with ASP, Gregory is an avid jazz fan and has played the saxophone since he was in junior high school. He still plays at his church and at various gigs when he can. He also is a youth mentor, motivational speaker and a chaplain. He also enjoys spending time with his family and watching movies, sports events and, of course, top quality plays and dramatic theater.
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Pascale Florestal
Artistic Associate Pascale Florestal is a Director, Teaching Artist and Theatre Artist in the Greater Boston Area. She has taught in several Boston Public Schools with The Huntington Theatre Company, Citi Spotlights Leadership Program and Company One Theatre. As a Teaching Artist her work has been focused primarily in using the theatre as a way to connect with Social Justice topics as well as integrating theatre into Humanities classes. She has Assistant Directed Bevin O’Gara, Paul Daigneault and Billy Porter. Her recent directing credits include: Kentucky by Leah Nanako Winkler with Pine Manor College and Ole White Sugah Daddy by Obehi Janice with SpeakEasy Stage Company. She also directed in the Boston Theatre Marathon this past spring for The Huntington Theatre and Company One as well as the Mad Dash Festival by Fresh Ink Theatre. She was recently accepted into the SDC Observership Class. This season she will be directing a new work by Stefan Lanfer with Open Theatre Project and will be Assistant Directing the Huntington Theatre Company’s Production of Top Girls directed by Liesl Tommy. She is thrilled to be directing An Issue of Blood with Front Porch Arts Collective and would like to thank Dawn, Maurice and Keith this amazing opportunity.
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