The Samuel French Advisory Committee

Comprised of notable industry professionals that represent a wide spectrum of interests and perspectives in the theatrical community, the primary purpose of the Advisory Committee is to provide Samuel French with industry insight and feedback, thus ensuring that Samuel French serves its core mission of connecting playwrights and producing organizations.

Meet the Advisory Committee:

Beth Blickers - Agent at Abram's Artists Agency, represents writers, composers, directors and choreographers for theatre, opera, television and film. Before joining Abrams, she was an agent at Helen Merrill Ltd. and the William Morris Agency, where she began work after graduating from New York University. Ms. Blickers has served on the jury panel for the Weissberger Award, the Ed Kleban Award, the Lark's PONY Fellowship and Playwrights Week, participated in the Non-Traditional Casting Project, Inc.'s roundtable on inclusion and diversity in the theatre and has presented workshops and sessions on agenting, playwriting, directors and choreographers and related topics for organizations such as the Society of Directors and Choreographers Foundation, the Dramatists Guild, Musical Theatre Works, the Lark, New York University, the National Alliance for Musical Theatre, the Texas Education Theatre Association and the Kennedy Center American College Theater Festival. She is a board member and Vice-President of the Dramatic Branch of the Association of Authors' Representatives, Inc., is a member and Executive Committee member (Treasurer) of Literary Managers & Dramaturgs of the Americas (LMDA), and is proud to be the board chair of Theatre Breaking Through Barriers, a New York company that works with artists with disabilities .

Adam Bock - Obie-winning Canadian playwright currently living in the US. Adam Bock's plays include Phaedra (Shotgun Players) A Small Fire (Playwrights Horizons, Drama Desk nomination), book for We Have Always Lived in the Castle, with music by Todd Almond (Yale Rep), The Flowers (About Face Theatre), The Receptionist (MTC, 2008 Outer Critics nomination, Best Plays of 2007-2008, The Evidence Room with Megan Mullally), The Drunken City (Playwrights Horizons, 2008 Outer Critics nomination), The Thugs (Soho Rep, 2007 OBIE Award for Playwriting), The Shaker Chair (2005 Humana Festival), Swimming In The Shallows (Shotgun Players, Second Stage Uptown, 2000 BATCC Award, Clauder Prize), Five Flights (Encore Theatre and Rattlestick Playwrights Theater, 2002 Glickman Award, ACTA nomination, Osborn nomination), Marcy Comes Home, and The Typographer's Dream (Encore Theatre/Shotgun Players). Adam is the resident playwright at Encore Theatre, and a Shotgun Players Artistic Associate. He is a NEA grantee, a three-time resident at Yaddo, a former member of the Soho Rep Writer/Director Lab, a NYTW Usual Suspect, and a TDF Open Doors mentor. Adam's plays are published by Samuel French, Dramatists Play Service and Playscripts, Inc. He is a proud member of New Dramatists.

Steven David - Director of Theatre Business Affairs, ICM. Prior to joining ICM in 2005, he had a 25 year career in theatrical management as a company manager, associate general manager and general manager at firms including Gatchell & Neufeld, Ltd., Joseph Harris Associates, Marvin Krauss Associates and Dodger Theatricals, was an independent general manager of off-Broadway productions and served as an Executive Director of the Lark Play Development Center. He is a graduate of Pomona College.

Kathy Evans - founded the Rhinebeck Writers Retreat in 2011, whose mission is to provide musical theatre writers with a sanctuary to develop their musicals in the heart of the Hudson Valley. In the inaugural year, many award-winning writers participated including Michael Friedman, Andrew Gerle, Itamar Moses, and Alex Timbers. Prior to creating Rhinebeck Writers Retreat, Kathy was Executive Director of the National Alliance for Musical Theatre (NAMT) for nine years. Under her leadership, NAMT's membership grew to 150 organizations, representing some of the leading producers of musical theater around the world whose cumulative operating budgets are $500,000,000. At NAMT, Kathy raised $2.1 million to support new works programs, 17 conferences, and the annual Festival of New Musicals. NAMT's Festival brings together 200 Broadway-caliber artists to present 8 new musicals to an audience of hundreds of industry professionals. Many of the shows introduced during Kathy's tenure went on to have commercial and critical acclaim, including The Drowsy Chaperone, I Love You Because, Ordinary Days, and See Rock City and Other Destinations. Before devoting her career to musical theatre, Kathy was a senior manager in the entertainment and corporate worlds. She was Executive Director at Scholastic Entertainment, responsible for worldwide video distribution and web sites for Scholastic's television division. Kathy also served as a management consultant, working with Viacom, WLIW, and Time Out New York. Kathy began her career in marketing at Kraft Foods, followed by five years at Sony Pictures, where she headed up Programming and Promotion for International Video when revenues grew five-fold to $350 million. Kathy has served on numerous arts boards and panels, including the Performing Arts Alliance, the Dutchess County Arts Council, and the National Endowment for the Arts. Kathy is currently on the Board of Directors for the National Alliance for Musical Theatre and Samuel French's first Advisory Committee. Kathy received an MBA from Columbia University and a BA from Harvard College. www.rhinebeckwriters.org

Todd London - Artistic Director of New Dramatists. In 2009 Todd became the first recipient of Theatre Communications Group's (TCG) Visionary Leadership Award, for "an individual who has gone above and beyond the call of duty to advance the theatre field as a whole, nationally and/or internationally." He is beginning his sixteenth season as artistic director of New Dramatists, where he has worked closely with more than a hundred of America's leading playwrights and advocated nationally and internationally for hundreds more. 2010 saw the publication of his book, Outrageous Fortune: The Life and Times of the New American Play (written with Ben Pesner), the product of a five-year study he led for Theatre Development Fund about new play production in America and the lives and livelihoods of playwrights. That year, he traveled across the country to lead meetings in 10 cities, intended to address the study's findings and encourage a more vital environment for new work. A former Managing Editor of American Theatre magazine and the author of The Artistic Home, published by TCG, he has written, edited, and/or contributed to over a dozen books. His new book, An Ideal Theatre, an anthology of founding visions for American theatres that Todd collected, edited and introduced, is due out in spring 2012 (TCG). A series of his tributes to contemporary theatre writers, "A Lover's Guide to American Playwrights" appears on howlround.com. Todd's particular brand of advocacy journalism has focused on both the lives and livelihoods of individual artists and on the not-for-profit theatre movement, especially the impact of institutionalization on the field. His essays and articles have been translated for publication in Russia, North and South Africa, Scandinavia, Serbia, and Romania. Todd is a frequent featured speaker at conferences, universities and theatres. This summer he delivered keynote addresses at the Chicago Theatre Symposium, the Dramatists Guild of America's first national conference, and TCG's 50th anniversary national conference. He has won the prestigious George Jean Nathan Award for Dramatic Criticism for his essays in American Theatre and a Milestone Award for his first novel, The World's Room, published by Steerforth Press. In 2001 he accepted a special Tony Honor on behalf of New Dramatists, and in 2005 he represented New Dramatists at the Obie Awards, where the organization was honored with the Ross Wetzsteon Award for excellence. Todd has taught at Harvard and New York University's Tisch School of the Arts and currently serves on the faculty of Yale School of Drama. He's a past Literary Director of the American Repertory Theatre at Harvard and Associate Artistic Director of CSC Rep off Broadway and New Playwrights Theatre in Washington, D.C. He has two sons, Guthrie and Grisha, and is married to playwright and ND alumna Karen Hartman.

Marsha Norman - Award winning playwright won the 1983 Pulitzer Prize, Blackburn Prize, Hull-Warriner, and Drama Desk Awards for her play 'NIGHT, MOTHER. In l992 she won a Tony Award and a Drama Desk Award for her book for the Broadway musical, THE SECRET GARDEN. She also wrote the book for the Broadway musical, The Color Purple, for which she also received a Tony nomination. THE COLOR PURPLE is currently in the third year of its national first-class tour. Her new play, the Master Butcher's Singing Club, premiered at the Guthrie Theatre in the fall of 2010. She won a Peabody Award for her writing on the HBO television series, IN TREATMENT, starring Gabriel Byrne and Dianne Wiest. Her most recent work is the adaptation of THE TRUMPET OF THE SWAN: A NOVEL SYMPHONY FOR ACTORS AND ORCHESTRA, with music conducted and written by Jason Robert Brown. The CD has been released by TRW and PS Classics.. Her other plays include Getting Out, for which she won the John Gassner Medallion and the American Theater Critics Association Citation, Third And Oak: The Laundromat, The Pool Hall, The Holdup, Traveler In The Dark, Sarah And Abraham, Loving Daniel Boone, Trudy Blue, and Last Dance. Her television and film credits include 'NIGHT, MOTHER, starring Sissy Spacek and Anne Bancroft, THE LAUNDROMAT, starring Carol Burnett and Amy Madigan; THE POOL HALL ,starring James Earl Jones; FACE OF A STRANGER starring Gena Rowlands and Tyne Daley; COOLER CLIMATE, starring Sally Field and Judy Davis; AUDREY HEPBURN, CUSTODY OF THE HEART, and most recently, SAMANTHA, AN AMERICAN GIRL. She spent one year as Co-Executive Producer of LAW AND ORDER:CRIMINAL INTENT, and wrote the Gina episodes of Season 2 of HBO's In Treatment. The Trumpet of the Swan: A Novel symphony for actors and orchestra, written by Jason Robert Brown and Marsha Norman, was released by TRW and PS Classics on June 22, 2011. Her other published work includes Four Plays, Collected Works Of Marsha Norman, Vol 1, and a novel, The Fortune Teller. She has Grammy and Emmy nominations, as well as grants and awards from among others, the National Endowment for the Arts, the Rockefeller Foundation, and the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters. She has won the Margo Jones Award, and the Sidney Kingsley Award and the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Guild Hall Academy of Arts and Letters. Ms. Norman is Co-Chair, with Christopher Durang, of the Playwriting Department of The Juilliard School. She writes and lectures frequently on the theatre and has 18 honorary degrees from American colleges and Universities. She was elected to membership in the Fellowship of Southern Writers and serves on the Governing Board of the Susan Smith Blackburn Prize. She sat on the Board Trustees of Agnes Scott College from 2001 - 2011, and was the Chair of the Academic Affairs committee from 2008 - 2011. She is a former Vice-President of the Dramatists Guild of America. She is a native of Kentucky and currently lives in New York. Most recently, she received the William Inge Distinguished Lifetime Achievement in Theatre Award.

Mark Sylvester - Managing Director of Walnut Street Theatre, has a career that has spanned Summer Stock to Broadway as an actor, stage manager, box office treasurer, theatre manager, marketing and public relations director and general manager. This season he is celebrating his 18th season at the Walnut. At the age of 21 he managed his first theatre, New York's historic Provincetown Playhouse. Mark spent several years working with commercial theatre. Since 1987, he has devoted his career to non-profit theatre companies including six seasons at Miami's Coconut Grove Playhouse. To date, Mark has been associated with more than 400 stage productions. An avid collector of musical theatre recordings, his collection contains nearly 3,000 cast albums from around the world. Widely regarded as a theatrical marketing expert, Mark lectures and consults with organizations internationally. He has served on many boards including the Theatre League of South Florida, Theatre Alliance of Greater Philadelphia and currently the National Alliance for Musical Theatre and the Advisory Committee of Samuel French. With Bernard Havard he co-authored the book Walnut Street Theatre, published by Arcadia Publishing. Since he joined the Walnut in 1994, it has become the most subscribed theatre company in the world.

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