Company One

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Staff + Board

Artistic Director: Shawn LaCount

A co-founder of Company One, Shawn has been acting, directing and producing theatre in Boston since 1998. Recent directorial credits include Stephen Sondheim's Assassins, Shakespeare's Pericles: The Prince of Tyre and The Pillowman by Martin McDonagh at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, and the Boston premieres of Noah Haidle's Mr. Marmalade (Eliot Norton Award nominee for both Outstanding Director/Outstanding Drama); After Ashley by Gina Gionfriddo; Maybe They're Wrong by Kirsten Greenidge; Anthony Burgess' A Clockwork Orange (featuring The Dresden Dolls); Soul Element: Tales from the B-Ball Zone, arranged by Company One resident playwright John ADEkoje; and Ed Bullins' The Doorway. Shawn has taught acting and drama at the Boston Arts Academy, the Huntington Theatre Company, Tufts University, Company One's Stage One, and the University of Massachusetts in Amherst. He holds an M.Ed. from Clark University and is an MFA candidate at the University of Massachusetts.

Managing Director: Sarah Shampnois

A co-founder of Company One, Sarah received her B.A. from Clark University in 1998. Sarah has worked for and helped develop several non-profit agencies including AmeriCorps, New Jersey Community Water Watch and MassPIRG. In Washington D.C., Sarah served the President's Council on Sustainable Development. She was the Educational Team Leader in Camden, NJ in 1998 and has taught environmental-ed and the arts in the Worcester, MA school system. She is a professional Community Organizer. She has received training and has extensive experience in Private and Corporate Fund Raising, Internship Supervision, and Media Relations.Her directing credits include David Ives' The Universal Language, Christopher Durang's 'Dentity Crisis and Sister Mary Ignatius Explains it all for You, as well as Harvey Fierstein's On Tidy Endings. She has assistant directed Tennessee Williams' Out Cry and David Ives' Words, Words, Words. Sarah has extensive production experience with such works as Steve Martin's Picasso at the Lapin Agile, Ives' All in the Timing, Schafer's Equus, and Fierstein's On Tidy Endings.

Director of Public Relations: Mason Sand

M.S. in Professional Communications from Clark University. With Company One, Mason, a co-founder of Company One, works as an artist, educator, administrator and producer. Other professional venues include the New Victory Theater in New York City where Mason worked closely with the Director of Education and other administrators to develop a written history of the New Victory Theatre. He has assistant directed David Ives' English Made Simple and Eric Bogosian's Bitter Sauce. His producing credits include Love's Fire, Triptych, WASP, Mr. Happiness, Geography of a Horse Dreamer, All in the Timing, Samuel Beckett's Come & Go, Out Cry and The Illusion.

Educational Director: Mark VanDerzee

Mark, a co-founder of Company One attended Clark University where he received his B.A. in Theatre Performance and dual certification in Elementary Education and K-12 Performing Arts. Stage One: Teen Theatre, Company One’s Dramatic Education Program is under Mark’s helm. He has developed the curriculum for several different branches of the program, including Stage One’s summer camp, a series of intensive after-school theatre courses and a Stage One professional apprenticeship program. Most recently, Mark has launched a tour of ARTiculation, which travels throughout New England to high schools, colleges, and community centers. Under Mark’s guidance, Company One’s Stage One program has now begun to educate people from the ages of 4 to 40 (and beyond) with quality artistic programming. Mark began his public school teaching career in the Worcester Public Schools, and currently teaches Stagecraft, Design for the Stage and Improv at Brookline High School. Proudly, Mark is also an educator for Stage One.

Marketing Director: Summer L. Williams

Ms. Williams has been with Company One since its inception in 1998. An active member of the Board of Directors, Summer is a producer, director and educator for Company One. Her most recent directing credit include VOYEURS DE VENUS, for which she earned the 2009 Elliot Norton Award for Outstanding Director. The production was also Elliot Norton Award nominated for Outstanding Production. Regional credits: THE BLUEST EYE (IRNE and Elliot Norton Award nominated), THE LAST DAYS OF JUDAS ISCARIOT, SPELL #7 (IRNE nominated), JESUS HOPPED THE ‘A’ TRAIN (2004 Elliot Norton Award for Best Fringe Production) TWILIGHT: LOS ANGELES, 1992 (IRNE nominated). Ms. Williams has also directed for the BU Playwrights Theatre, Clark University, and Huntington Theatre Company. She is also a teacher of drama and director at Brookline High School and holds a B.A. in Theatre and well as a MA. Ed. in Theatre and Urban Education. Ms. Williams serves as a member of the Board of Directors of both Stage Source and The Coolidge Corner Theater.

Director of Development: Sasha Abby VanDerzee

Sasha has been involved with Company One since its beginning, but officially joined the staff and Board of Directors in 2000. She is the former House Manager, and is currently the Box Office/Ticketing Manager during productions. As Director of Development, Sasha works to make sure Company One can continue to produce relevant plays and create educational programming. She is primarily responsible for all fundraising events, grant writing and annual appeals.


Production Manager: Sarah Cohan

Sarah holds a B.A. in Technical Theatre (Stage Management) from The University of Vermont. She joined Company One as a stage manager in 2004 for A Clockwork Orange, and continued her work with the company on 103 Within The Veil, The Last Days of Judas Iscariot, and After Ashley. She joined the full-time staff as production manager for the 2007 season (The Bluest Eye, The Gibson Girl, Assassins). In 2003, Sarah worked at St. Michael's Playhouse under SM Freda Farrell. Sarah began stage managing in 1996, and has additional experience in direction, performance, lighting design, and sound design.

Production Manager: Alyssa McKeon

Alyssa joined Company One in the fall of 2008 as a House Manager for Voyeurs De Venus. Since then, she has continued to work and grow with Company One as an Assistant Production Manager (The Pain and The Itch, After The Quake, The Overwhelming), Production Manager (The Good Negro), Education Associate, and Development Associate. Alyssa holds a B.A. in Theatre from Westfield State College, where she specialized in Lighting Design, with additional experience in Sound Design and Directing. Favorite credits include Long Ago and Far Away (Director) and The Crucible (Lighting Design).

Board President: Victoria Marsh

Victoria directed The Gibson Girl, 103 Within the Veil (Best New Play IRNE), Lost City, Twilight: Los Angeles, 1992, and 2 one act plays within Rash Acts for Company One. Marsh directed the Rosanna Alfaro, Kate Snodgrass one-acts, Haiku and Sailing Down the Amazon at Boston Playwrights Theatre. She co-founded the Asian American Theater Project and sat on the advisory board of the annual Boston Women on Top Theater Festival. Marsh also served as managing director of New Theatre.

Board Member: John ADEkoje

John Oluwole ADEkoje is a graduate of Humboldt State University with a MFA in dramatic writing and an MA in film production. He is national award winner of the Kennedy Center: ACTF-Lorraine Hansberry playwriting award for the play Streethawker as well as the 2006 Roxbury Film Festival's Award for Emerging local Filmmaker for the documentary Street Soldiers, which shown at Le Festival du Film Panafricain (Cannes) and Festival des Films du Monde (Montréal). He is currently the playwright-in-residence at Company One and an Affiliate Artist at the Providence Black Repertory Theatre. He teaches Theatre at Boston Arts Academy.

Board Member: Barry Andelman

Barry is an active member of the theatre scene in Boston, seeing between 150-200 theatre performances a year. He is a Founding Member of Boston Theatre Works.  He has worked for many years developing relationships with theatre companies in the area for complimentary ticket giveaways for non-profits like AIDS Action Committee and has also worked to bring school-aged children to see live theatrical performances. When he lived in Japan for 5 years, he became very involved with NOH Drama, and he has amassed a library of over 100 translations of NOH Drama, one of the largest individual collections in the world.


Board Member: Sandra Casagrand

Ms. Casagrand is the Vice President of Marketing and Sales for Banner Publications, Inc., the largest and oldest African American newspaper in New England. In this capacity she has spent the last fifteen years developing relationships in the Greater Boston community with the various non profit organizations committed to improving the quality of life for residents of the Boston minority communities. Essential to the mission of the Banner is to support the local arts programs. It is in that role that she became involved with Company One and has become an ardent fan of their mission and the quality of their performances. She is excited to be working with their amazing team on a more formal basis to ensure that this vital theatre program flourishes in the future. She has been a past board member for UNICEF New England, and currently sits on various advisory committees for local organizations. She is a graduate of Simmons College and proud parent of a Company One intern.

Board Member: Carlos PiSierra

Mr. PiSierra became interested in theater while attending college, where he had a non-singing role in Bertolt Brecht's The Threepenny Opera. Born and raised in Manhattan, he was able to take advantage of the theater scene and enjoyed regularly attending shows while living there. Carlos became affiliated with Company One in 2007, after completing "Business on Board," a program developed to pair business executives with local non-profit art organizations. After a brief observorship period, he was elected to join the Company One Board of Directors in September 2008. Mr. PiSierra is currently Vice President of Finance with Fidelity Investments, where he has worked for 15 years in various senior finance positions, including CFO of Fidelity Family Office Services. He holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in Philosophy from the College of the Holy Cross, and a Masters in Business Administration in Finance from Fordham University. Carlos lives in Charlestown, Massachusetts and is the father of two budding artists, Nate and Zoe.

Board Member: Lois Roach

Lois Roach most recently directed the Providence, RI premiere of "Treemonisha," by Scott Joplin for Opera Providence. In recent years, she directed the world premiere of "A House With No Walls," at the New Repertory Theater in Watertown, the world premiere of "Six Rounds, Six Lessons" with Company One at the Boston Center for the Arts, as well as the Boston premieres of "Crowns," and "Living Out" at the Lyric Stage Company of Boston. An award-winning producer and director, she was commissioned to write and direct a performance piece for the 25th anniversary of Casa Myrna Vazquez, a shelter for battered women, which featured actress Phylicia Rashad. In Derry, Northern Ireland, she worked with a group of artists on the theater project, "Borderlands," which brought together women from the Catholic, Protestant and Southern communities. Lois also teaches at Wellesley College, works with First Night and coordinates the Stony Brook Initiative at Northeastern University.

Board Member: Rosalind Thomas-Clark

Rosalind Thomas-Clark received her undergraduate degree in London, and her masters from Brown University, where she taught and directed theatre. For many years, she worked professionally as an actor and director for stage, radio, and film, but her passion has always been the development of arts and educational theatre, in the UK, New Zealand and the USA. A founding faculty member of the Boston Arts Academy, and Chair of Theatre, she was the recipient of a SURDNA Arts Teacher's Fellowship to study with Augusto Boal in Brazil. She traveled with ten BAA students to perform an original play at the Edinburgh International Fringe Festival, and was named Boston's Teacher of the Year. She is on the faculty for the British Studies Summer Program in London. Working with BAA alumni, Ms. Thomas-Clark is forming a company committed to theatre for social change. She is invested in the proposal to open BAA's own Middle School where younger students will have quality access to the arts in their everyday lives. She is a Board member for the Boston Arts Academy and Company One, and works with corporate employee groups and individuals as a Personal Communication Consultant.

Board Member: Lisa Simmons

Ms. Simmons is the founder and president of, The Color of Film Collaborative, Inc. (TCOF), an organization of actors, producers, directors and others with an interest in creating and supporting positive images of people of color in film, theater, and other media. The Color of Film Collaborative co-produces the Roxbury Film Festival, a festival that celebrates the vision and the voice of independent filmmakers of color. Ms. Simmons has been producing independent film and theater in the Boston area for over 10 years and serves on the Board the Massachusetts Production Coalition, and The League of Women for Community Service, is an Advisory Member of Press Pass TV and Company One and is a founding member of The Alliance for Independent Motion Media. Ms. Simmons has received an Image Award from Women in Film New England, the Diversity award from Our Place Theater Project and a leadership award from the Urban League Guild of Eastern Massachusetts. Currently Ms. Simmons spends her time behind the camera producing, mentoring and creating more and better opportunities for filmmakers of color. In addition to supporting and producing filmmakers' work, Ms. Simmons is also an independent producer and is currently producing and writing a documentary on the history of Boston's Black theatre during the WPA. In addition to her filmmaking and theater activities, Ms. Simmons serves as the Communications Director for the State Office of Travel and Tourism.


Board Member: Michael Tow

Michael Tow is a Certified Financial Planner with over 15 years experience in the Financial Services Industry. After working many years as an Account Vice President at UBS, Michael opened his own boutique firm New Boston Financial in 2005. Michael demonstrates his belief in giving back to the community through his involvement in a variety of organizations. He is the President of the Board of the Asian Community Development Corporation (ACDC), a member of the board of the Massachusetts Workforce Investment Board, a member of the board of the Governor's commission on Asian American affairs, on the advisory committee of the Asian American Civic Association, on the advisory committee of the Massachusetts Asian American Commission and the past President of the Friends of the Needham Elderly.