The front porch arts collective Leadership team
Dawn Meredith Simmons
Co-Producing Artistic Director Dawn Meredith Simmons is a director, a playwright and an arts administrator. She has worked with: Actors’ Shakespeare Project, SpeakEasy Stage Company, Greater Boston Stage Company, 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, and Executive Director of StageSource.
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Maurice Emmanuel Parent
Co-Producing Artistic Director Maurice Emmanuel Parent is an award-winning actor, director, educator and mentor with 20 years of professional experience. He has over 40 acting credits at theatres across the nation and abroad, having performed with some of Boston’s oldest and most respected companies. His work as an actor has earned him two Elliot Norton Awards from The Boston Theater Critics Association, three Independent Reviewers of New England (IRNE) awards, and an ArtsImpulse Award. Parent’s history as an educator extends back nearly a decade. He’s taught for Northeastern University, MIT, The Boston Conservatory at Berklee, and spent nearly 6 years as a Performing Arts Specialist in the Boston Public School System. Currently Parent is a full time Professor of the Practice in the Tufts Department of Theatre, Dance, and Performance Studies and Visiting Faculty at the Boston University School of Theatre.
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Audrey Seraphin
Community Engagement 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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Phyllis Y. Smith
Production Phyllis Y. Smith is excited work with Front Porch Arts Collective. In her over 18 years of working in theatre, film, and events, she has worked on a variety of projects, as a Production Stage Manager, Production Manager, Technical Director, Electrician, Carpenter, Event Coordinator, and everything in between. In addition to working in events and productions, Phyllis is also currently the Director of Venue Operations at the Boston Center for the Arts.
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Pascale Florestal
Education Pascale Florestal is a Director, Educator and Administrator in Boston. She has taught with The Huntington Theatre Company, Company One, Boch Center for Performing Arts and The Eugene O'Neill Center. She has Assistant Directed Bevin O’Gara, Paul Daigneault, Billy Porter and Liesl Tommy. Her directing credits include: Kentucky by Leah Nanako Winkler, Ole White Sugah Daddy by Obehi Janice, An Education in Prudence by Stefan Lanfer, DIASPORA! by Phaedra Michelle Scott and Shrek the Musical at Greater Boston Stage Company. Pascale is also a venue associate at the Boston Center for the Arts and the Boston Project Coordinator with SpeakEasy Stage Company.
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Jonah Toussaint
Artistic Associate Jonah Toussaint is an actor musician poet artist director playwright from Cambridge, MA. He co-wrote and co-directed Book of Shadows at the Community Art Center in June of 2018, where he also worked as the lower school theater teacher. Other credits include Brother’s Size (Ogun) as part of Eat at The Table Theater Company at the Imperial Loft Theater in Manhattan (2017). Jonah is the current Marketing and Inclusion Specialist at Central Square Theater, where he also works front of house and box office. He graduated from Wesleyan University with a degree in Theater and Psychology. Jonah enjoys biking, doodling, freestyling, and lemonade
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