Leadership
Our Mission:
To fulfill big dreams by providing unlimited opportunities for instilling pride, stimulating economic elevation, and to preserve and promote our home town heritage for future generations
Our Vision:
Driving Sanford’s renaissance by celebrating and preserving our communities’ stories
Board of Directors
Creative Sanford, Inc. is a 501C3 non profit organization registered with the state of Florida
and dedication to the production of Celery Soup, Florida’s Folk Life Play
DLN: 1705307503217 Public Charity Status: 170(b) (1) (A) (vi)
Effective date of tax exemption: June 1, 2006 Corporation DLN: N06000005867
Executive Board:
President – Trish Thompson
Vice President – Brian Casey
Treasurer – Linda Hollerbach
Secretary – Dr. Annye Refoe
Founder – Jeanine Taylor
Board of Directors:
Will Saunders
Cheryl Deming
Juanita Roland
Honorary Board Members:
Glenda Hood – former Florida Secretary of State and Mayor of Orlando
Al Scuito – publisher of Seminole Success Magazine
Valada Flewellyn – local poet, author and historian
Jackie Jones – local entertainer and arts advocate
Steve Ryals – Seminole County Convention and Visitors Bureau
Community Performance International
Community Performance International works with communities and organizations around the world to strengthen bonds, dispel fears, ask questions, dig deeper, climb higher and live better by providing a method to hear, tell and present the community’s shared stories, in a professional quality theatrical production. The process becomes a means through which people discover the marvel and wonder of their community, family, history, and heritage, and their own place within it.
Here are the special people that Celery Soup has teamed with:
Founding Partners
Richard Owen Geer, PhD, Founder/Artistic Director
People Magazine says “Director Richard Geer heals troubled communities with the magic of theatre…and the gift of new hope.” Dr. Richard Geer created Community Performance Theater of, by and for the community to empower individuals and bring neighborhoods together. Geer has founded over a score of Community Performance groups, including Georgia’s Official Folk Life play, “Swamp Gravy”, part of the Cultural Olympiad in Atlanta, Georgia, and also featured at the Kennedy Center in Washington, DC. In partnership with the International Storytelling Center, Geer and CPI are pioneering ways to bring this transformational work to organizations and communities nationwide. American Theatre Magazine calls Geer’s work a “gem of cultural democracy.” It has been showcased across America, as well as in England, Scotland, Brazil and Chile. Geer holds a PhD. in Performance Studies from Northwestern University.
Jules Corriere, Playwright/Artistic Director
Jules Corriere has written thirty-eight plays, edited a book of oral histories, and recently completed a season writing and directing a monthly radio-variety show. Her production of Scrap Mettle SOUL’s The Whole World Gets Well won the Presidential Points of Light Award and toured in London and Edinburgh. Other playwright credits include ”Let My People Go! A Spiritual Journey” which performed at the Kennedy Center Concert Hall; and Turn the Wash Pot Down in Union, SC, featured in People Magazine and named by the state legislature as the First Official Folk Life Play of the state. American Theatre magazine said of this play, “Even if Turn the Washpot Down doesn’t save Union ‘s life, it has already saved its soul.” She appears in the 2010-2011 edition of Who’s Who for her work in the field on Theater Arts and Social Activism.
Janna Browning, Director
Janna Browning is a director and drama therapist. Janna received her BFA in Acting from Emerson College in Boston and MA in Drama Therapy from the California Institute of Integral Studies in San Francisco. She has directed and performed in productions across the country including Massachusetts, California, North Carolina, Georgia, Florida, and Tennessee. While in California, she worked with Armand Volkas in his project Healing The Wounds of History, which uses expressive arts to work with groups that share a common legacy of historical trauma. Janna also produced and directed the award-winning film We There based on the stories of inner-city youth from San Francisco. She is currently leading CPI’s school and youth film programs.
Melissa Block, Executive Director
Melissa Block brings years of experience in nonprofit organizational development to CPI. After receiving her MA in Practical Anthropology, Melissa worked for a prestigious social science foundation before moving into arts and community development work. Her greatest accomplishment — raising five creative kids — has prepared her for her most recent role as CPI multitasker-in-chief.
Brackley Frayer, Lighting, Site Designer
Brackley Frayer is Chair and Executive Director of the Department of Theater and the Nevada Conservatory Theater at the University of Nevada at Las Vegas , and has taught at Dartmouth College , West Virginia University, and the University of Florida . He recently designed Oedipus at Polonus at the Delphi theater in Greece , for the International Ancient Greek Theater Festival. Regional design credits include work with Nevada Conservatory Theatre, Las Vegas , Seven Stages-Atlanta, the Hippodrome Theatre, The Texas Shakespeare Festival, The New York Lyric Opera Company, and the American Girl production of Circle of Friends in Chicago . Mr Frayer has been associated with Community performance for 15 years and has designed lighting for productions in Uptown Chicago, Newport News, VA, Union SC, Fort Walton Beach , Florida, Winona Mississippi, and the nationally recognized original production of Swamp Gravy of Colquitt, Georgia, which went on to perform at The Kennedy Center in Washington,D.C., and the Cultural Olympiad in Atlanta. He is a member of United Scenic Artists- Local 829. Mr. Frayer earned an MFA from the Yale School of Drama.
Kevin Iega Jeff, Choreographer
Iega is an accomplished choreographer, director, teacher and performer. In 1982, Iega founded the internationally acclaimed JUBILATION! Dance Company in New York . In 1994, he served as Artistic Director of Joseph Holmes Chicago Dance Theater and presently is Co-Founder/Artistic Director of Deeply Rooted Productions in Chicago , IL . Iega’s choreography and direction is familiar to audiences worldwide from an international tour of Gershwin’s Porgy and Bess to Spike Lee’s film She’s Gotta Have It. Iega’s choreography is part of the repertoire of the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater Ensemble, Cleo Parker Robinson Dance Ensemble, Williams/Henry Dance Theater, Kansas, Dallas Black Dance Theater, SUNY Purchase and Howard University ’s Dance Programs and DC Contemporary Dance Theater in Washington . His intricate and explosive work Walls, premiered during the 1996 Summer Olympics Festival in Atlanta . His seminal work Church of Nations received the award for Best Choreography from the 1996 Black Theater Alliance committee. Iega made his professional debut in the Broadway musical The Wiz. He was the principal dancer in the Broadway production, Com’in Uptown starring Gregory Hines. With America ‘s premier ballerina Cynthia Gregory, he performed as The Beast in Beauty and the Beast in the 1994 Academy Awards Broadcast.
Heather McCluskey, Composer, Lyricist
Heather McCluskey grew up in Southern California and has been a musician since she started piano lessons at the age of five. She began songwriting in her teens and began dabbling in what she now considers to be her forte, Musical Theater during her college days. For her senior project while attending California State University in San Bernardino, Heather wrote “The Legend of the Arrowhead”, a two act Broadway style musical based on the history of the area. The musical was recognized by the State of California and won the 1st Place Award for Creativity from the International Downtown Association. It was performed numerous times at the historic California Theater in San Bernardino. Since moving to beautiful Northeast Georgia in 2006 she began writing music for Community Performance International. She has composed for the projects Land of Spirit in Lavonia, GA, Salkehatchie Stew in South Carolina, Just Home in the Mountains in Asheville, NC, Celery Soup in Sanford, FL, and The Jonesborough Yarn Exchange in Jonesborough, TN.
Joseph Varga, Set, Site Designer
Joe Varga has designed sets for numerous regional professional theatre companies across the country. His New York Credits include designs for Playwrights Horizons, SoHo Rep, Manhattan Punchline and several Off-Off Broadway productions. He has also deigned for the Actor’s Theater of Louisville, Cincinnati Playhouse, Philadelphia ‘s Walnut Street Theater, and Alabama Shakespeare Festival. Mr. Varga has worked with Community Performance for 15 years, designing both sites and sets. His theaters can be seen in Virginia , South Carolina , Georgia , Florida and Mississippi . Mr. Varga is a longtime member of the union of professional American stage designers, and he serves on the faculty of the University of Wisconsin-Madison where he is a professor of scenic design.
Brett McCluskey, Composer, Accompanist/Music Director
Brett McCluskey received his degree in music from California State University San Bernardino. His first big professional gig came at age 16, where he sat in as guest drummer for the Coasters and the Drifters in Los Angeles. Brett served as district choral accompanist for the Rialto Unified School District and the San Bernardino School District from 1997 to 2008. During this time he also served as the pianist for the Cal State Jazz Ensemble. He is also fluent in the Japanese language, after having lived and taught in Japan for six years. Brett has composed several songs with Community Performance International, including “Change Will Come” for Touch and Go, and “The Long Climb Up” for Land of Spirit.
Louey Speer, Costume Designer
Louey Speer joined the CPI group in 2001 during their first production in her hometown of Union, SC, Old Fashioned Radio Christmas, as both costume designer and cast member and again with Turn the Washpot Down in 2002. She has continued to work with many CPI productions as costume designer for Swamp Gravy in Colquitt, GA, Salkehatchie Stew in Hampton, SC and most recently Celery Soup in Sanford, FL. Louey has designed costumes for collegiate and community theaters in Upstate SC including the University of South Carolina – Upstate, Caravanserai, and Spartanburg Repertory Company as well as working technical aspects and performing for Spartanburg Little Theater, Spartanburg Repertory Company and Caravanserai.
