PETER JAMES CIRINO - Assistant Professor SDSU and founder of innumerable Theatre companies internationally. "My greatest gift as an artist is my cross-cultural experience, both in my personal life and my professional one. I spent my formative years in Dallas, Texas, in a small area in the heart of downtown known as Little Mexico Village. Not only did Latinos (such as myself) live in this small geographical location but also Native Americans, Blacks, Filipinos, and Asians. In spite of all the turmoil and depredation that accompany an inner city existence, we came together as a community. We accepted and embraced each other's differences and began a life long journey exploring the beauty within each culture we encountered. Although many died, a few did make it out, and this is the basis for my involvement in the Diversity movement. In all I do, I strive to represent the best of all worlds, the ideas of many to express one movement, action or text. I have translated Spanish classical literature, modern South American texts and adapted German, French and Greek plays. As I nurture artists of my same ilk, I continue to create theatre with the same ideas of diversity that I used to develop the personal world around me: theatre that casts blindly, theatre that visits many cultures in one text, that explores texts in different languages, uses artists of varied disciplines to create new ones, and theatre that always fosters new mixtures of growth as artists and people of color."

ELISE KIM PROSSER, Ph.D. recently starred in AART's production of The House of Chaos, a play about a Japanese-American fashion designer who struggles with assimilation, her Caucasian husband’s infidelity, and attempts by outsiders to steal her company. This debut performance received favorable critics’ reviews in The San Diego Union-Tribune and Asia, the Journal of Culture & Commerce. Off-stage, Dr. Prosser is a marketing professor, researcher, and consultant. She has consulted with major motion picture studios about movie marketing. Her experience in the advertising industry includes hiring directors, actors, and models for photo and TV ads. In her youth, she worked as a professional model. She also served as SDAFF grand juror judging films on quality of direction, production, and acting. A prior acting performance was as Adelaide in Guys ‘N’ Dolls at Seoul Foreign School in Seoul, South Korea in 1983. During a twenty-four year hiatus, she was a marketing executive and professor in the business school at the University of San Diego.

AART COMMITTEE MEMBERS

Facilities/Space - Louie Nguyen, Ron Ranson, Peter James Cirino
Finance - Peter Chu, Nancy Kennedy
Fundraising - Louie Nguyen
    Event Coordinators:
        Auction/Raffle – Brandi Owens
        Catering – Burma Johnson
        Decorations/Reservations – Angela Quisumbing
        Ticket Booth/Guest Services – Judy Phan
        Media/Public Relations - Michelle H. Nguyen
Grants - Wendy Bauer
Newsletter – Toan Joseph Henderson
Performance - Peter James Cirino
Volunteer Recruitment (interim) - Wendy Bauer
Web/IT - E. Sioson

VELINA HASU HOUSTON's most popular work is her critically acclaimed play Tea. It and many of her other works have been presented internationally, garnering more than three dozen writing awards. Her other critically acclaimed plays include Asa Ga Kimashita, Kokoro, The Matsuyama Mirror, Hula Heart, Ikebana (Living Flowers), Shedding the Tiger, and Waiting for Tadashi. She has been recognized three times by The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, twice been selected as a Rockefeller Foundation playwriting fellow, and was a recipient of a Japan Foundation fellowship and a Lila Wallace-Readers Digest Foundation grant. She was chosen as the inaugural recipient of the Remy Martin New Vision Award from Sidney Poitier and the American Film Institute. Velina Hasu Houston is also a published poet and essayist; and writes for film, radio and television as well. A specialist in Pan-Asian American feminist dramatic literature, she edited the anthologies The Politics of Life: Four Plays by Asian American Women and But Still, Like Air, I'll Rise: New Asian American Plays. She has lectured at institutions nationwide and taught screenwriting at the University of California, Los Angeles School of Theatre, Film and Television. Velina Hasu Houston teaches courses in Playwriting and Theatre History and Literature.

DR. PATRICIA HERAS has been a clinical and consulting psychologist for over 14 years specializing in diversity management, team building, coaching, executive development, cross-cultural communication, and developing clinical cultural competence.  She has authored several publications on cross-cultural assessment and training.  Patricia's professional and community activities include:

         San Diego Psychological Association, Cross Cultural Committee, Chair
        Girl Scouts of America San Diego and Imperial County, Board Member
         San Diego Filipino American Humanitarian Foundation, Board Member
         Professional Psychology, Editorial Board Member

As a founding AART Board Member (10 yrs), Patricia's dedication to AART has helped the company grow from its infancy stages to a nationally visible theater company.

BRIDGET BRIGITTE McDONALD Ph.D. is also known by her singer/songwriter stage name Bridget Brigitte or Mu Bai Ju (Wheat White Jade) given by Chinese Calligrapher Liu Hsing-Chih. Award-winning songs from her CD Where Birds Meet in the Rain receive radio-play worldwide, while her music videos are televised regularly. She performs across the globe and has featured more than 150 other artists in shows she has played in and produced. Her concerts have helped raise funds for the Grammy's MusiCares, National Breast Cancer Foundation, Vietnamese American Women Artists, Leukemia and Lymphoma Society, GoGirls Music, Artivist Independent Film Collective, Festival of Children and more. Having lived in Paris for years, she taught literature at the University of Orléans, while her degrees include a B.A. in History (Chinese) and Comparative Literature from UC Berkeley, an M.A. in French Lit. and Ph.D. from the Humanities Center at the Johns Hopkins University. Her articles, reviews, poems, and translations have appeared widely and she is President of Bionic Sisters Productions and Executive Producer at the Women's International Center that honors and encourages women worldwide, from Empress Nagako to Mother Theresa. As Creative Director & Artistic Liaison at 2 Life 18 Help and Rescue, Bridget uses music to help with continuing Katrina and disaster relief. Lastly, she's the proud President of the San Diego Songwriter's Guild. http://www.bridgetbrigitte.com

MARIANNE McDONALD, Ph.D., MRIA was trained in classics and music, taught for many years at the University of California, Irvine, and is now Professor of Classics and Theatre at the University of California, San Diego. She is most well-known for her work on ancient Greek drama, mythology, and modern versions of ancient classics in film, plays and opera, but her poems, plays, and translations have also been widely published. Her latest books include Sing Sorrow: Classics in Opera, and Amid Our Troubles: Irish Versions of Greek Tragedy. Her recent play And Then Came A Woodcutter won the San Diego Critics Circle Craig Noel Award for Outstanding New Play. She has helped shape the Japanese Studies program at UCSD, which is one of the reasons that this campus was selected for the Pacific Basin study program (IRPS). She is a member of many boards, including The American School of Classical Studies and she has received an Honorary Doctorate of Letters (Honoris Causa) from the American College of Greece, the Archeological Association of Athens, the University of Athens, and the University of Dublin. She also is one of the few women to have been elected a member of the Royal Irish Academy. Among other awards, she has received the Order of the Phoenix from the Prime Minister of Greece, the UCI Medal, Civis Universitatis award from UCSD, gold medals from the mayors of Athens and Piraeus, a plaque of recognition from the University of Thessaloniki, and The Gold Aeschylus Award from Italy. She has six children, a black belt in karate, and plays classical piano and harp. One of AART's most dedicated supporters. mmcdonald.info mariannemcdonaldtheatre.com

RON RANSON holds a Master of Fine Arts degree from the University of California, Los Angeles.  He is retired from the Design Faculty at University of California, San Diego.  Awarded Academic Senate "Distinguished Teacher, 2000" and Warren College's "Outstanding Teacher 2001," Ron's recent design credits include guest artist residencies at Utah Stage University and University of Northern Colorado, eight seasons as Principal/Resident Scenic Designer at the Utah Shakespearean Festival, and continuing design work with the San Diego Repertory Theatre.  His company, Theatre Arts Video Library, produces instructional video tapes related to theatre training for schools and theatres in the US and abroad.  He is a recent contributor to Stage Directions magazine and serves on several nonprofit theatre boards including the Poinsettia Theatre (Encinitas/Oceanside, CA).  In the days of black and white television Ron served as a Peace Corps Volunteer in the Himalayan Kingdom of Nepal. An AART Founding Board Member (9 yrs) who continues to help the company secure a permanent performing arts facility.

CAROL TOHSAKU coordinates the BATS program (http://its.sdsu.edu/~bats) for faculty, staff, and students at San Diego State University. The mission of BATS is to provide the SDSU community with access to information resources via networks, training in the uses of baseline hardware and software systems, and ongoing professional and technical support for utilization of computer resources. As an educational/ instructional technologist with a background in linguistics, visual arts, economics, and educational computer technology from UCSD and SDSU, Carol has combined her professional and personal interests to promote international cultural understanding through projects with other universities abroad and children’s programs emphasizing universal living values in art, music, dance, and theatre. Carol currently serves on the board of the Hellenic Cultural Society of San Diego (http://www.hellenic-culture.org) where she and Jeanette Rigopoulos co-chair the Children’s Programs committee. Carol is also a member of the European Association for Research on Learning and Instruction (http://www.earli.org), Friends of Classics at SDSU, the Japanese American National Museum (http://www.jaccc.org), the Japanese American Cultural and Community Center (http://www.jaccc.org), and the Archaeological Institute of America (http://www.archaeological.org). She served on the board of the International Society for Performance Improvement San Diego (http://www.ispisandiego.org/). In 2006, Carol joined the AART board to preserve and promote the Asian American experience through theatrical productions.

GREGORY JOJI TOYA is a Japanese- and Okinawan-American from Torrance, California. He received his Bachelor’s degree in Social Ecology from the University of California, Irvine, and his Master’s degree in Counseling and Personnel Services from the University of Maryland at College Park. He has previously worked at the University of California, Berkeley and the University of California, Irvine. Most recently at UC Davis, Greg served as the Interim Director of the Cross-Cultural Center and Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, & Transgender Resource Center. Greg has also served as an Assistant Language Teacher for the Japan Exchange and Teaching (JET) Program. Greg has been the inaugural Coordinator of the Cross-Cultural Center at San Diego State University, and collaborates with campus and community organizations to offer resources and programs that are congruent with the Center's mission. Greg also serves as the Scholar in Residence in Villa Alvarado. Greg is the 2005-06 President for the California Council of Cultural Centers in Higher Education (CaCCCHE) and was recently appointed as Associate Dean of Students at Cal State University San Marcos. Greg is also involved with the Japanese Americans Citizens League, National Association of Student Personnel Administrators and San Diego Asian Film Festival. Greg’s theatrical fame stems from his role as the dog in an undergraduate performance of Momotaro.