The artistic staff listed here is lined up for 2025. This list is subject to change.

Jill Bess began her theatre career in Southern California where she performed professionally in shows in the L.A. area, including Fiddler on the Roof, Company, Dames at Sea, Strider, and Godspell at the Huntington Hartford Theatre in Hollywood. Jill holds a BA in Acting from U.C., Irvine and studied the Meisner method with Maria Gobetti at the Victory Theatre in Burbank for two years. In 2013 she received her Meisner Teaching Certification from True Acting Institute, where she studied with Master Teacher Larry Silverberg. In Alaska, Jill performed in A Christmas Carol with the original Alaska Repertory Theatre and spent two madly creative years with Mr. Whitekeys in The Whale Fat Follies. She is a director, visual artist, and award-winning actress and playwright who, during the last thirty years, has worked in over 100 shows with nearly every theatre company in Alaska. Jill has directed over 60 shows including Guys and Dolls, Into the Woods, Blithe Spirit, Macbeth, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, her award-winning one-woman show The Mommy Dance (recently updated and restaged at Cyrano’s in 2022 with Linnea Hollingsworth as Mommy) and her newest play, The Old Woman Who Lost Her Voice. Jill has served as the Artistic Director for Anchorage Community Theatre, Founding Artistic Director for Alaska Broadway Kidz, and taught theatre at Bettye Davis East Anchorage High School from 2007-2020. In 2014 she founded Alaska True Acting, where she coaches acting and teaches Improvisation and Meisner classes. Check out more at www.jillbess.com.

Ryan Buen is an Anchorage-based actor, director, playwright, and producer. He holds a BA in Theatre from the University of Alaska Anchorage and a Master’s in Acting from the Royal Birmingham Conservatoire in England. Over the past 20 years, Ryan has worked with numerous theatre companies throughout Alaska, including Blue Chair Productions (of which he is the co-founder), TBA Theatre, Three Wise Moose, Cyrano’s, UAA Theatre, Anchorage Opera, ACT, TossPot Productions, Out North, and PWSC. Recent productions include the role of William Tell in Greg Romero and Mike Vernusky’s Radio Ghosts (TBA Theatre) and the Narrator in Duncan Macmillan’s one man show Every Brilliant Thing (Blue Chair Productions) which was awarded Best Play and Best Performance by Broadway World Anchorage 2023. In August, he will be traveling to Edmonton to perform the role of Peter Pumpkin Eater in Mother Goose on the Loose at the Edmonton Fringe with TBA Theatre. He has been a reader in the Play Lab for over 20 years, performed in numerous evening performances, and has had three plays read in the Lab. Ryan is committed to continuing to give the best experience possible to all playwrights, actors, and panelists who give us the privilege of presenting and workshopping their art.

Ben Corbett returns for his eighth year at Valdez Theatre Conference. He is an Assistant Professor of Voice and Acting at the University of Arkansas. He is also a Designated Linklater Voice Teacher and a Certified Colaianni Speech Instructor. Ben previously taught voice and acting at the William Inge Center for the Arts/Independence Community College as an Associate Professor of Theatre, and at Oklahoma City University as an Associate Professor of Voice and Acting. He also served a voice residency at the University of Kansas. His professional vocal coaching credits include Ronin Theatre Company, TheatreSquared, City Rep, the William Inge Theatre Festival, the Last Frontier Theatre Conference, the Hollywood Fringe Festival, Nashville Shakespeare Festival, Barter Theatre, Burning Coal Theatre Company, Bare Theatre, Shakespeare Dallas, and Shakespeare Santa Cruz. He is a Senior Editor for the International Dialects of English Archive, and the creator of the Arkansas Accent Project. He will be shooting a documentary based on the Arkansas Accent Project this summer.

Laura Gardner appeared on Broadway in Smile, Off Broadway in The Cocktail Hour, Other People’s Money, and Welded, directed by Jose’ Quintero. She toured nationally in Showboat, Doonesbury, Oliver, and My Fair Lady. Her extensive regional credits include the Arena Stage (DC), Huntington Theatre (Boston), Cleveland Playhouse, McCarter Theatre, and the NC Shakespeare Festival in roles that ranged from Lady Macbeth to Miss Hannigan. Los Angeles credits include six plays for the Pasadena Playhouse, Will Geer Botanicum, Westwood Playhouse, Tiffany Theatre, Fountain Theatre, Deaf West, and the Celtic Arts Centre. She is a member of the Road Theatre and Rogue Machine. Some of her TV and film credits include Guest Star appearances on Chicago Med, Law and Order: SVU,  Seal Team, Animal Kingdom, Outcast, The Romanoffs, and Criminal Minds. She was a lead in Marriage Material, a short film Oscar finalist in 2019. Laura kept busy during the pandemic doing three Zoom benefits for the Actors Fund: Two performances of Marilyn, Mom, and Me by Luke Yankee, playing his mother, Oscar- and Tony-winner Eileen Heckart, which she recently performed at the International City Theatre in Long Beach, Lia Romeo’s Sitting and Talking, with Frank Collison and directed by Dawson Moore, and a radio version of Janice Goldberg’s Rose Colored Glass. Laura was on the faculty of the Howard Fine Acting Studio in Hollywood for over 19 years and then at the satellite school in Australia. She has taught actors with disability in Los Angeles and Berkeley. Ms. Gardner has taught in NYC at HB Studio, Stella Adler Institute, and the American Academy of Art. She teaches workshops all over the country as well as in Great Britain. www.lauragardner.org

Leslie Ishii (Perseverance Theatre, AD) debuted in Northwest Asian American Theater’s Breaking The Silence to raise legal defense funds for WWII US Concentration Camp Resister, Gordon Hirabayashi’s Supreme Court Case. This ignited Leslie’s passion for justice, directing, working cross-racially and cross-culturally deep in community. She developed anti-racism/liberation actor/director training based in decolonizing/liberation theory and practix. Directing/Acting/Dramaturgy: Co-Pro Penumbra Theatre & Theatre Mu; East West Players, Native Voices, El Teatro Campesino; Oregon Shakespeare Festival; FAIR, APII 2×2 New Work Lab, Founder/Producer; South Coast Repertory Theatre, and other regional theatres; Broadway, TV and Film. Service: CAATA: Board President, National BIPOC/BITOC Coalition/Commons, Founder; artEquity: National Faculty; Tsuru For Solidarity; National New Play Network: Board Member; National Theatre Conference; Professional Non-Profit Theater Coalition: Co-Lead, Coalition/Website Subcommittee. Awards: Teachers Making A Difference; Los Angeles Women’s Theatre Festival Integrity Award; US Artist Fellow 2023; SDC 2016,2017 National Standout Recognition for championing equity/inclusion.

Arthur M. Jolly (he/him) is thrilled to be back in Valdez for a twelfth time – and his sixth time as a respondent. As a playwright, Jolly has penned over 75 produced plays, drawing from his typical playwright background of starting in the NY film industry as a stunt performer, snake wrangler, and special effects artist, then becoming a helicopter pilot, training pilots for the US Army in Alabama, and later flying tourists from Las Vegas into the Grand Canyon. Given such a predictable trajectory, his decision to quit flying and move to Los Angeles to write is all too familiar. As a screenwriter, Jolly was recognized by the Academy with a Nicholl Fellowship in Screenwriting. Produced screenplays include Where We Disappear on Amazon Prime, based on his play A Gulag Mouse; and the short films Still Waters, Childish Things, and Eight Ball. Valdez productions include A Very Modern Marriage (2017) and A Gulag Mouse (2013); previous Play Lab readings include The Lady Demands Satisfaction (2018), Straw, Sticks, Bricks (2015), Mission: Colusa (2014), A Very Modern Marriage (2013), and Trash (2012). Jolly is a proud member of The Alliance of Los Angeles Playwrights and the Dramatists Guild. Repped by Brant Rose Agency. More at www.arthurjolly.com

Rob Lecrone, attending his fifteenth Conference, celebrates his ninth year as a coach in the Monologue Workshop and as a host and co-producer of the nightly Valdez Theatre Fringe. Since 2012, he’s moved from Anchorage to LA to Albuquerque and, in November, to Denver. He teaches a weekly online Scene Study & Acting Exploration and recently joined the improv faculty at Denver’s Rise Comedy. Rob has trained at Howard Fine Acting Studio in Hollywood; Cal State LA (MFA in Acting); HB Studios in New York (Hagen Teacher’s Lab), Upright Citizens Brigade (improv), and at other institutions. Besides his MFA in Acting, he has a BA in Creative Writing from the University of Alaska. He performs improv with Future Ghost in Denver, Left on Read in Albuquerque, and Squirrely Bird online (and once in New York). Rob co-produced and acted in the world premiere of Conference playwright Nicholas Walker Herbert’s Bloodless (2020) and the Conference mainstage performance of Julia Lederer’s With Love and a Major Organ (2017). He’s also proud of his work as lead producer for the U.S. version of international digital theatre production, The Art of Facing Fear (2020), partnering with Brazil’s Os Satyros, Sweden’s Darling Desperados, and LA’s Company of Angels. The Art of Facing Fear won Best Production in India’s Good The@tre Festival, the Worldwide Award for Collaborative Work of the Year in the Young-Howze Theatre Awards, and received seven nominations in the 2020 Broadway World LA Awards. Last year, he wrote his own lines for a small part in a feature film called The Unexpecteds. Rob was once shot in the ankle during a carjacking attempt in New Jersey. Most importantly, he ate the bear that almost ate him and worked on the cleanup of the Valdez oil spill. www.roblecrone.com

Dawson Moore just completed his twenty-first year as Coordinator of the Valdez Theatre Conference.  He recently moved to San Francisco, where he is renovating the family home and wondering what to do with twenty-thousand books. He is a member of the Dramatists Guild of America and the National Theatre Conference.

Gregory Pulver is the Theater Program Director and Professor of costume design, make up and choreography for the University of Portland (UP) Performing and Fine Arts Department and a Resident Artists at Artists Repertory Theatre in Portland, Oregon. At UP Gregory has developed the New Works/New Voices annual staged reading series featuring new plays dedicated to women and BIPOC playwrights. He is the creator of UP’s British Theater Experience where he and 10 students curate a production of 10-minute plays for annual performances and theater workshops in towns around Oxfordshire, England. Gregory is also a faculty member of the Dramatist Guild Institute of Dramatic Writing and teaches Storytelling Through Design each fall. Mr. Pulver holds an MFA in costume design and choreography from Humboldt State University, CA. He is the 1993 Kennedy Center American College Theatre Festival National Costume Design Winner for his work on Threepenny Opera. Among designing both sets and costumes for Bag and Baggage Theatre, and costumes for Broadway Rose Theatre and Corrib Irish Theatre, and designs for Artists Repertory Theatre which include The Hombres, Small Mouth Sounds, The Humans, Tribes, Broomstick, Cuba Libre, and Foxfinder. Gregory has also designed for several short films and TV spots in Washington including a dance for the camera film titled Egg Skin. Gregory is an accomplished director, singer, actor, and dog owner.

Kalli Randall is an Alaskan actor and director whose journey in theatre began as a casual engagement with her college community, ultimately blossoming into a lifelong passion, particularly after discovering her love for directing during her senior year at UAA. Following her graduation, Kalli relocated to Chicago, where she spent six years honing her craft. It was during this time that she founded Midnight Summit Ensemble, a theatre collective dedicated to both reviving classical works and showcasing new pieces from emerging playwrights. Kalli’s directing credits are a series of plays by Ashley Rose Wellman, including Shrines and You Are The Blood; Jean-Paul Sartre’s No Exit, Don Zolidis’ The Brothers Grimm Spectaculathon; Joanna Castle Miller’s Around and Around and Around The Static Sun, Karen Zacarías’s Book Club, Gary Steven’s Uncle Ted, and Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice’s Jesus Christ Superstar. This is Kalli’s 13th Conference and she could’t be more excited to be here with all you fine folks…and Potato Head!!

Schatzie Schaefers first came to the VTC in its second year in 1994 as a UAA Theatre student and slept on the floor in the gym. Playwright, director, actor, and producer. Vocalist for Alaska’s Agents of Karma and Karmic Reduction. Development Director for Anchorage Concert Association. Proud member of Blue Roses Theatre Company. Schatzie will direct Eric Coble’s dark comedy Bright Ideas for Anchorage Community Theatre in 2025. Schatzie is a single mother to Lionel Richie, Chandler Bing, and Knox. You will see Schatzie every night of the conference at Magpie’s on the Fly where she co-hosts the Valdez Fringe.

Jayne Wenger is a director and dramaturg whose exclusive focus is the development of new works for the theater. Her work is interdisciplinary, encompassing opera, dance, solo performance, new music and site-specific collaboration. She is the past Artistic Director of the Bay Area Playwrights Foundation and Women’s Ensemble of New York. She was the original director and dramaturg for The Winter Bear Project, written by Anne Hanley, an on-going performing arts and social outreach initiative focused on teen suicide in rural Native Alaskan communities.  She has collaborated with many playwrights and performers from Alaska including Arlitia Jones, Schatzie Schaefers, Sandy Harper, among many other talented artists. She has been working for over 30 years with longtime collaborator Deke Weaver; her latest work with Deke was his new multimedia performance piece entitled Cetacean (WHALE), the fifth installment of his lifetime work, The Unreliable Bestiary (www.unreliablebestiary.org), which premiered at the University of Illinois in September 2023. Current and upcoming projects include a new solo work by Margery Krietman for 3Girls Theatre in SF entitled The Fall/Out. She is working on a new jazz opera entitled Leelah, an international collaboration by Renee Benson and Vincent Pongracz and The Trees, an eco-home-erotic musical by Larry Lariosa and Kristy Lin Billuni. Recent work includes Vivien Straus’s solo show about the Straus Family Dairy and her mother Ellen’s work to save the farms along the coast of West Marin from overdevelopment, the piece was performed in the family barn in Marin County; and Loving Janis, a solo work with music by Kyra Gordon focused on the lives of Janis Joplin and Janis Ian. A selection of other projects include: The Lariat, an opera about colonial Spaniards’ destruction of the California Esselen Native American world, by Lisa Scola Prosek; Michelle Carter’s Rose In America; Blues is a Woman by Pamela Rose; Men Think They Are Better Than Grass with the Deborah Slater Dance Theater; and Colette Uncensored by Lorri Holt and Zack Rogow. She wrote the libretto for Neuromancer, a new opera adapted from William Gibson’s novel. From 2018 to 2022 she was the Director of Creative Process for the Bay Area Playwrights Festival. She is an alumna of Djerassi Resident Artist Program; a frequent guest artist and advisory board member for The Valdez Theatre Conference; has taught at  ArtWorkshop International in Assisi, Italy; and is an annual guest artist at San Francisco State University teaching dramaturgy and new play direction. She is a member of the Dramatists Guild, Literary Managers and Dramaturgs of the Americas and the League of Professional Theater Women and a board member of Playwrights Foundation. She works privately with playwrights across the country.

Carrie Yanagawa has been painting old plywood to look like rich mahogany to the delight of audiences around the world since the late 1900s. Described as a “theatrical Swiss Army knife,” Carrie is a director, set designer, and scenic artist whose work has been hailed as “marvelous” by Anchorage Daily News and “no less than perfect” by F Magazine. Whether working in a black box or on a grand opera, Carrie is passionate about honoring text and is uniquely skilled at creating high-quality, imaginative productions in a vibrant and practical fashion. Favorite directing credits for the VTC main stage include serving as the Ten-Minute Play Slam’s longest tenured director (2014-2019) and Kevin Armento’s Good Men Wanted (TossPot Productions). Notable scenic painting residencies include Anchorage Opera, Bermuda’s Earl Cameron Theatre, and London’s National Theatre. In search of new adventures, Carrie and her wife, Stacy, have recently relocated to Portland, Oregon. They belong to the trees now.