Jewish Women's Theatre

leadership

The Advisory Board serves as a champion of Jewish women in the arts. The Board dedicates time to the ideal that the lives and passions of Jewish women in America should be represented on the stage and documented for posterity.

Producing Artistic Director

RONDA SPINAK (Co-Founder) is a writer and producer. She conceived of, created, and produced salon theatre in Los Angeles to sold-out audiences. She holds an MBA from UCLA, a Masters in Professional Writing from USC and two degrees from Stanford. She has written for the Emmy Award-winning children’s show, Rugrats, authored the critically acclaimed nonfiction book ProBodX: Proper Body Exercise, The Path to True Fitness (HarperCollins, publisher), as well as written many plays, including festival winner Oscar Wilde’s Wife, and screenplays.  She is currently at work on a documentary film about LA women rabbis called, On the Fringe.

2009/2010 Advisory Board

EVE BRANDSTEIN is one of Hollywood’s most prodigious workers, has made contributions to nearly every facet of the entertainment industry.  She has been a major studio executive, a producer, a director, writer/creator, casting director, talent manager and author. Brandstein was casting executive for Norman Lear’s production companies after her debut as a film maker at AFI.  Some of her credits for casting over two decades include, “Diff’rent Strokes”, “One Day At A Time”, “Facts of Life”, and “Who’s The Boss as well as the dramatic series shot in Australia, “Beastmaster”, “The Ponderosa”.  She will be forever famous for having cast the rock’n’roll parody “Spinal Tap.”.  She is presently producing and directed 2 documentaries – “The Girl In the Room “ stories from women in the comedy world and “Maybe You’ll Find Something There” Second Generation Holocaust Survivor’s journey back to her family’s life in the Carpathian Mountain.  Eve is also a poet, journalist, artist as well as licensed psychotherapist.

LISA BRUCK started her career at, Benton and Bowles, cutting her teeth on various Proctor and Gamble brands. From there, Della Feminia Travisano and Partners, in its hey day, working on Meow Mix, Airwick, and Chemical Bank. At Backer Spielvogel she worked her way up to VP Producer on such campaigns as the Red Lobster Inns of America, Fischer Price Toys, and Miller Beer, among others. Lisa moved to LA where she worked for CBS Entertainment, and Paramount Domestic Television. At Universal Television she was Director of On-Air in the Syndicated Television licensing department, working on the Dick Wolfe Law and Order Franchise, as well as The Jerry Springer Show and Maury Povich.  Currently she is a freelance producer, producing commercials and radio for clients.

RABBI PATRICIA FENTON is a Conservative Rabbi, ordained at the Jewish Theological Seminary in New York in 2000.  While working on her Ph.D. in Talmud, she serves as the Judaica Reference and Outreach Specialist at the Ostrow Library of the American Jewish University.  She has taught Talmud, Midrash, Survey of Rabbinic Literature at the AJU. She is a native of Los Angeles.

RABBI MIRIYAM GLAZER, PH.D. is professor of literature and chair of the Communication Arts & Advocacy department at American Jewish University. She has written many essays and book chapters on Jewish women’s literature. Her books include Dancing on the Edge of the World: Jewish Stories of Faith, Inspiration, and Love, and Dreaming the Actual: Contemporary Fiction and Poetry by Israeli Women Writers. She received a Hadassah-Brandeis Institute grant to write her memoir, Judaism, Wars, and Womanhood: Becoming a Rabbi at 60, and Aviv Press will be publishing her new commentary and translations of the Psalms of the Jewish Liturgy next year.

SUZANNA KAPLAN was born in Mexico City, to an American mother and Mexican father. She performed in some of Mexico’s famous Vaudeville stages, as well as acted in commercials and films, and on the stage. Kaplan moved to the US where she started a translation service and language school, doing well enough to sell it and travel for a year.  In Israel she married and had a baby. She also worked for a production company writing and producing film strips and museum guides used for fundraising all over the world.  Back in the US, Kaplan read scripts for her husband, a producer of TV and feature films. She also worked in freelance in Hispanic advertising.  Kaplan’s writing credits include: a novel, five feature length scripts, and several television treatments, in addition to a produced one-hour drama for Hispanic TV (Telemundo) and a small segment for a TV show on Fox network. She is working on her second novel and spends time delighting in her husband and three children.

RABBI LYNNE KERN is a Pulitzer Prize winning journalist and is a poet and writer who has been published in magazines, newspapers, and anthologies worldwide. She teaches classes for women in synagogues and is currently working on a Jewish Memoir.

PATRICIA LINDEN is the Director of Financial Management at the RAND Corporation, a non-profit policy research organization based in Santa Monica. She brings 30 years of financial management experience to her role on the JWT Board and she holds an MBA from UCLA. Prior to RAND she worked in public accounting for nine years with a specialty in entertainment and non-profits and worked in the film production and sports entertainment industry for six years prior to joining RAND in 1984.

SUSAN MERSON is a longtime theatre professional – actress, writer, director, producer – long involved with exploring the experience of contemporary American Jewish women. She has appeared on Broadway, in major feature films (Lost in Yonkers, Things to Do in Denver When You’re Dead, Terminator 3) and as a guest star on many television series (The Practice, NYPD Blue, Ally McBeal, Frasier). Her plays have been produced in New York and Los Angeles and she is a founder of the LA Writers Bloc.

JOAN MORAN attended UCLA and Berkeley, majoring in Theater Arts.  She holds two master’s degrees, one in education, the other in theater.  While teaching theater at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, Joan authored two textbooks: The Dynamics of Acting, and Acting:  In Person and In Style. She is a co-founder of the successful The Meadows Playhouse, a non-profit year-round professional theater, which won her the Governor’s Award for Distinguished Excellence in Theater.  Joan moved to Los Angeles, to attend The American Film Institute as a Producing Fellow and began her writing and film-producing career.  One of her screenplays was published as a novel, Women Obsessed.  She is completing her memoir:  Sixty, Sex, & Tango, Confessions of a Beatnik Boomer.  Her blog is called, So You’re 60, Get Over It. Her website is:  www.confessionsofabeatnikboomer.blogspot.com.

ROBIN MITCHELL lives and works in Santa Monica, California. She received both her BFA and MFA from the California Institute of the Arts. While an undergraduate student at Cal Arts she was a member of the Feminist Art Program and worked on the historic Womanhouse Project. She is a recipient of a California Community Foundation Fellowship for Visual Artists, the Anonymous Was A Woman Award, A City of Los Angeles Art Grant, and a National Endowment for the Arts Award. Her artwork is represented by the Craig Krull Gallery in Santa Monica and she teaches studio art courses at Santa Monica College and Pasadena City College.

JANIS C. NELSON has worked in numerous capacities in the entertainment industry for 35 years. Currently she is an entertainment attorney representing major motion picture studios, independent motion picture production companies, talent agencies, producers, writers, directors and actors. She began her career at the Repertory Theatre of Lincoln Center in New York City and she is a graduate of Barnard College and the UCLA School of Law.

DEENA NOVAK (Co-Founder) is a consultant and has managed theatre operations. Her imagination and suggestion sparked the reinvention of the former Jewish Women’s Theatre Project and helped turn it into the current vision of a working theatre.

ANDREA WAGNER has worked in non-profit for 25 years and has been instrumental in the creation of the Jewish Women’s Theatre. She holds a Bachelor’s and Master’s Degree in Theatre Arts and has taught theatre on both the high school and college level. As a member of several community theatre groups throughout California, she directed plays, designed costumes and envisioned sets. She has been active in the Jewish community and currently sits on the advisory boards of several community colleges and extension programs. She has extensive non-profit experience having worked professionally in the Jewish community with Jewish Vocational Services and the Anti-Defamation League.

RONNIE YESKEL began her career in the entertainment industry in Washington D.C. working at The Folger Theatre, making shoes, boots and brass armor from scratch for Richard III.  While studying acting in D.C., she worked in theatre production, from props to associate producer .She staged-managed a play in D.C. that took her to New York City.  Her first assistant positions in the world of casting were with Joy Todd and Bonnie Timmermann, before she went out on her own.  After years of casting theatre in NYC, Ronnie made her way to LA where she became the casting director for the LA THEATRE CENTER..  Some of her favorite Films and TV projects have included The Marrying Man, Pulp Fiction, Reservoir Dogs, L.A.Law, Waking the Dead, Bread and Roses, Hope Floats, Igby Goes Down, Curb Your Enthusiasm, Threshold.  Ronnie is currently working a number of projects including Zen Dog with dir: Gillian Armstrong and W.H. Macy, Heartstrings and has three features coming out. What Ronnie is most proud of however is her daughter Emily.

Intern

ABBY FREEMAN is a classically-trained actress who studied at the Tisch School of Arts at New York University. She is a Co-founder of AiRealistic, an aerial theatre company, and currently performs and choreographs for a long-running show at the Edison Downtown.   She has choreographed and performed in New York and Los Angeles, as well as many international cities. She created original work for clients including Johnson & Johnson, General Motors, Wal-Mart and Red Bull. Most recently, she performed at the 2008 Beijing Olympics.  She was a Fulbright scholarship finalist and has completed the first year of her MBA at the Anderson School of Management.  She plans on continuing to work in Arts Management.

Stage Manager

LEILA CISZEWSKI is a California native, moved to Los Angeles in 2009 after studying Theatre Arts at UC Santa Cruz.  She has managed costumes and props for shows such as “Corpus Christi” and “Spike Heels,” and has worked as a stage manager for productions such as the musical ”Rock N Ridicule” and several fashion shows.  She also works as an actress and photographer.

Past Board Members

Click here to learn about our past board members.