Current Board of Directors and Officers, 2022
Directors are elected for 2-year terms and Officers for a 1-year term.
Nathan Agin
Technology and Marketing Coordinator; President for 2022; Director since 2019
Nathan Agin is an audiobook narrator, online marketer/web designer, text coach, and podcast host of The Working Actor’s Journey. Nathan attended USC’s School of Dramatic Arts and trained in classical theatre with The Antaeus Company. He relocated to San Diego after four years in Hyde Park, Chicago and was fairly nomadic before that. He also volunteers in SD with Bridge Hospice, visiting patients and singing songs on the ukulele. Learn more about him and all his projects here.
John Tessmer
Production Coordinator; Vice President for 2022; Director since 2016
John is a professional actor and director, who holds a B.A. from Yale and an M.F.A. in Acting from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. He spent six seasons with the Colorado Shakespeare Festival between graduate school and moving back to his home town of San Diego in 2001. John co-founded the La Jolla Theatre Ensemble in 2010 and is the company’s Producing Artistic Director. Regionally and locally, he has performed on many stages. John is an Associate Artist of New Fortune Theatre Company. He has taught for the University of Colorado and the Old Globe Theatre and acted in two-thirds of the Shakespearean canon.
Leslie Murrell Holt
Grants Coordinator, Committee Coordinator; Treasurer for 2022; Director since 2021
As a longtime lover of Shakespeare from childhood, that love was reignited when my son found an interest in his writings as well! He has attended three sessions of the Pam Farr Summer Shakespeare at the Old Globe, making me one of the proudest parents. To see your love inherited is priceless and helped me find San Diego Junior Theatre and The San Diego Shakespeare Society where I met other families with the same love and pride. I would love to share with others that these works can be read and seen to inspire people of all communities to encourage love of the arts and classic literature.
Laura Ganz-Holtan
Secretary for 2022; Director since 2020
Laura has a BA in Drama from UCSD and has acted locally in San Diego and New York City. She has worked as a paralegal in Family Law. She is a docent at The Timken Museum of Art in Balboa Park and has been teaching yoga for 17 years. She assisted the San Diego Actors Theatre with their 30th Anniversary Celebration and has acted in their theatrical productions and staged readings. Through the Fine Artists program, Laura taught art at Vista Grande Elementary School in San Diego for 8 years and coordinated the annual students’ art exhibition. Laura also created the “King Lear” program for the Society’s staged reading in 2019 and has participated in the monthly open readings. Laura is currently cataloguing her late father’s original paintings and sculptures for future exhibitions.
Gordon L. Gidlund
Playwright of Mock Trials; Director since 2016
A retired attorney with the IRS Office of Chief Counsel for 35 years and previously an adjunct professor at the University of San Diego School of Law for 17 years, Mr. Gidlund is naturally concerned with the intersection of the Bard and the law. Inspired by the efforts of Justice Anthony Kennedy, he has written four mock trial scripts subjecting Shakespearean characters to forensic examination. He is an Oxfordian and a signatory of the Declaration of Reasonable Doubt. In his youth, he taught English as a Peace Corps Volunteer in South Korea. He has a B.A. from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, and a J.D. from the University of Minnesota.
Amanda Walter
Lecture Series Coordinator; Director since 2020
Amanda is a Florida native that recently moved to San Diego. She earned her master’s degree from the Shakespeare Institute in Stratford-Upon-Avon and focused her thesis on authenticity in Shakespeare performance. She has worked at the Royal Shakespeare Company in England and received a National Endowment for the Humanities Scholarship to study at the Polansky Shakespeare Center in Brooklyn, New York. She is a high school English teacher with over 8 years of teaching experience and specializes in rigorous literature and writing courses.
Carol Whaley
Director since 2020
Carol has a BA and MA in Dramatic Art and an MFA in Design and Technical Theatre. She has been teaching in the Drama Department at San Diego City College for 20 years, and has worked for/with Lamb’s Players, The Globe, SDSU, UCSD, and Point Loma Nazarene theatre departments, Coronado Playhouse, Scripps Ranch Theatre, and many other local community theatres. While her professional production experience is primarily in costume and makeup design, as a teacher she works with students to analyze dramatic literature as not only a study of the text but as a framework for performance.
Steven Jensen
Director since 2022
A member of the Society for 15+ years, his involvement with Shakespeare includes more than 40 years of reading, attending dozens of performances, acting in play productions, and participating in other public performances. He previously served on the board of the Bay Theatre Collective, a Berkeley-based theater troupe that produced classical plays in the SF Bay Area. Steven is a retired high school science teacher from Sweetwater UHSD.
Additional Supporters
Kevin G. Manley
Open Readings Coordinator, Central County; since 2020
Kevin has acted in dozens of San Diego stage and film productions over the past several years. He is a full time math teacher who developed a love of theatre by going to his high school’s productions. This eventually led to becoming the theatre program’s assistant director. He also teachers film production. Kevin is a graduate of Larry Silverberg’s True Acting Institute. His current passions are reading with SDSS, performing live true story-telling with So Say We All and The New Narrative, and working on short films with his daughters.
Patrick McBride
Open Readings Coordinator, North County; since 2021
Patrick McBride has directed, acted and taught for over 25 years. He is a Teaching Artist with Young Audiences of San Diego, Playwrights Project, and CoTA. He has a B.F.A in Directing from the University of North Carolina School of the Arts. He’s played roles as diverse as Laurence in Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, Bullshot in Bullshot Crummond, Fagin in Oliver, Benidick in Much Ado About Nothing, Billy in Anything Goes, and James Joyce in Travesties. Numerous professional credits at The Old Globe, La Jolla Playhouse, PCPA Theaterfest, Cygnet, Intrepid, and North Coast Rep. Other regional and local credits include Assistant Director on Broadway for The School for Scandal (with Tony Randall,) The Shakespeare Theatre in DC, Great Lakes Theatre Festival in Cleveland, San Diego Jr. Theatre, Moonlight, Diversionary, as well as Shakespeare Festivals in Lake Tahoe, San Luis Obispo and Atlanta.
Genevieve Foster
Social Media Coordinator; since 2020
Genevieve is a junior at Patrick Henry High School and has had onstage and backstage roles at San Diego Junior Theatre, JCompany Youth Theatre, and the Broadway San Diego Awards. Credits include: Macbeth (First Witch) at JCompany Youth Theatre; Twelfth Night (Lady Olivia), The Tempest (Miranda), and A Midsummer Night’s Dream (Peaseblossom) at San Diego Junior Theatre; and Much Ado About Mean Girls (Regina George) at Intrepid Theatre (virtual camp).
Tim Laufer
Events Coordinator; since 2019
Tim has worked for the US Navy since 2005. He is currently an Intelligence Officer.
Prior Board Members:
- Michael Auer
- Cassidy Bartolomei
- John Bolger
- Connie Boyd
- Natasha Busick
- Vanessa Dinning
- Patricia Elmore Costa
- Pauline Green
- Laurie L. Hill
- Sidney Jacobsen
- Kim Keeline
- Steven Lipinsky
- Wendy Lucas-Meyer
- Paul Majkut
- Terry Miller
- Charles Riendeau
- Alex Sandie (founder)
- Marvin Spira
- Patricia Spira
- Jill Steiner
- William Virchis
- Claire White
- Jack Winans
- Darryl Woodson
- Marilyn Zeljeznjak