2009 Carbonell Voting Panel Bios
Iris Acker
A working actress in theater & films & television, Iris Acker has produced, hosted and promoted theater on her T.V. show On Stage with Iris Acker for 21 years, currently on BECON T.V. in Miami Broward & Palm Beach County. Acker was the first Actors Equity Liaison for Florida and initiated The Equity Casting Hotline, which is now an Equity National feature. She also brought the half-price theater ticket concept to South Florida, originally titled “Ticket Madness.” Acker directed the Carbonell Award show for several years and has been nominated for Carbonells as well. She currently serves on the board of directors of The Florida International Press Club.
Al Alschuler
A freelance journalist specializing in interior design, architecture and travel, Al Alschuler is a past president of both the South Florida International Press Club and the Interior Design Guild of South Florida. For three decades he has actively supported local theatre, having successively served on the Boards of Directors of the Players Repertory Theatre (and as the founding chairman of its fledgling Conservatory at the Coconut Grove Playhouse), New Theatre, Skyline Theatre Company and City Theatre. He and his wife continue as avid theatergoers, sharing an unabashed respect and appreciation for creative stagecraft and inventive production values.
Beverly Blanchette
With over 30 years experience as a theatre arts educator, Beverly Blanchette has served as Dean of the Dreyfoos School of Arts Theatre Department since 1993. She is past president of the Florida Association for Theatre Education and has received numerous career awards including induction in to the Educational Theatre Association Hall of Fame, Outstanding Career Award from Florida Theatre Conference, and Sponsor of the Year for the Florida Thespians. She enjoys acting and directing professionally when time permits.
Jeffrey Bruce
An Equity actor for 42 years, Jeffrey Bruce moved to South Florida in 1990 after hosting the nation’s #1 local television talk show in Detroit for 21 years. Originally from Fresh Meadows, New York, he has appeared in many national tours as well as at our local Florida theatres including the Broward Stage Door, West Boca Theatre Company and the Delray Beach Playhouse.
Thomas J. Bruckner
Thomas J. Bruckner has been teaching theater at Boynton Beach Community High School since the school’s opening eight years ago. He is a playwright and has been a member of the Dramatist Guild for over twenty years. Bruckner has produced a number of his original plays with his students. It is a process which encourages student input and inspires young writers while creating material which is meaningful and socially relevant to today’s young adults. He is a passionate and outspoken teacher activist on arts education and public education issues as a whole.
Mary Damiano
Mary Damiano is currently editor of the biweekly e-zine MiamiArtZine.com, published by the Miami Beach Arts Trust. She is also the theatre critic for the Miami SunPost and freelance writer/theatre critic for the Sun-Sentinel. A former associate editor of She magazine, Damiano has also written for the The Express and The Independent and served as a radio entertainment commentator.
Ellen Davis
Currently an adjunct teacher/director at Miami-Dade College, Ellen Davis has been a Carbonell panelist for many years. She also has been a teacher at the New World School of the Arts and an active director at professional theaters throughout South Florida during her professional career.
Christine Dolen
The Miami Herald theater critic since 1979, Christine Dolen was a member of the Pulitzer Prize drama jury in 1997, a Journalism Fellow at Stanford University in 1984-85, a Senior Fellow in the National Arts Journalism Program at Columbia University in 1999, and the recipient of the George Abbott Award for Outstanding Achievement in the Arts in 2001. She previously covered arts and entertainment for the Columbus Dispatch (Ohio) and the Detroit Free Press. She is the daughter of Carbonell and Abbott Award-winning performer, the late Bill Hindman.
Cheryl Dunn Bychek
An accomplished actress involved with the development of the Theatre Club of the Palm Beaches, which led to the current Florida Stage, Cheryl Dunn Bychek also became involved in theatrical public relations and marketing until shifting to a real-life family role. She has remained involved in regional arts activities, particularly as a member of the Carbonell Awards voting panels for many years.
Alvin Entin
Alvin Entin is the chairman of the board of the Pembroke Pines Theatre of the Performing Arts, arguably South Florida’s largest and most successful community theater program at present. He is also a successful trial attorney with over 30 years experience, currently of Entin & Della Fera PA. Entin also performs in community theater, and was instrumental in the formation of an association of community theaters in South Florida. His other avocation is boxing, and he was appointed twice to the Florida Boxing Commission and served as its Chairman for two years. He resigned from the Commission in 2006 to become outside Counsel to Seminole Warriors Boxing.
Hap Erstein
Hap Erstein was the Pulitzer Prize-nominated theater critic for the Washington Times and a member of the voting panel of the Helen Hayes Awards and most recently served as theater and film critic for the Palm Beach Post. He has been a long time member of the Carbonell Awards panel, and drama critics circle chairman and officer in the former South Florida Critics Circle. He currently writes about the arts for the Stuart News, blogs and reviews theater and film for the Palm Beach ArtsPaper (www.pbartspaper.com) and talks on films on WJNO radio, 1290-AM.
Nancy Gillen Doyle
Director of Group Sales for Broadway Across America at the company’s Fort Lauderdale headquarters, Nancy Gillen Doyle is experienced in sales, marketing and promotions and is an avid theatergoer and arts patron.
Bill Hirschman
Bill Hirschman writes and reviews on theater for the Sun-Sentinel. He is also a member of the executive committee of the American Theatre Critics Association and chairman of its New Plays Committee, responsible for selecting recipients of the ATCA/Steinberg and Osborn new play awards, with cash prizes totaling $25,000.
Marzi Kaplan
Marzi Kaplan served, for 23 years, on the UM School of Law adjunct faculty. With a J.D. and an M.A. in English, she taught Law, Language, and Literature, teaching drama (from Antigone to Inherit the Wind) and First Amendment freedoms of press, speech, expression. Kaplan was a language columnist for The Florida Bar News and is a Hollywood Poet Laureate. Committed to the Arts for decades, she had served on South Florida cultural Boards, e.g., WPBT-TV (Channel 2); Fort Lauderdale Film Festival; and Miami Book Fair. Her essays and reviews appear in newspapers and journals.
Mark Keller
Mark Keller is president of Keller Monash Productions, and executive vice president of The Event Management Group. He coproduces a Broadway Cabaret Series featuring stars from the Broadway and International Cabaret worlds with The Crest Theatre in Delray Beach. Having recently completed producing special events for The Orange Bowl as well as for The Coca Cola Company, he is also working on two shows on their way to Broadway: The Great Game and Sportin’ Life. Keller began his career in the theatre as a stage manager in New York and is a proud member of The Actors Equity Association.
Dave Knight
Founder and theater reviewer for the weekly Buzz magazine, Dave Knight has served as a theater reviewer for several South Florida publications since the mid-1990s and is a member of the former South Florida Critics Circle.
Jill Kratish
Jill Kratish has worked for the Broward Center for the Performing Arts since its opening in 1991. After first serving as a stage technician, she joined the production department as a full-time assistant and later moved into the programming department. For the past eight years, she has been programming shows for the Broward Center and its affiliate venues and currently focuses on all of the family, educational, Broadway and Off-Broadway programming. A native of South Florida, Kratish is on the board of the Theater League of South Florida and is on the executive board (secretary) of the Florida Professional Presenters Consortium. She holds a B.A. in theater from the University of Florida.
Ron Levitt
Editor/theatre critic of Florida Media News and theater critic for ENV Magazine, Ron Levitt is also a contributor to the Huffington Post and various national and state media. He is president of the South Florida International Press Club; secretary of the local chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists and is a free lance writer and theater critic/columnist for a number of publications. Levitt served as Florida Assistant Secretary of State, overseeing Florida/s art and cultural affairs. A former United Press Staff Correspondent, Mr. Levitt also founded Levitt Public Relations Group. He has served as president of the Dade Cultural Alliance, vice chairman of the Miami-Dade Cultural Affairs Council, Florida and Southeastern Chairman of the Public Relations Society of America and as president of both the French-American and European-American chambers of commerce. He currently is also vice-president of the Theatre League of South Florida and serves on the advisory board of WLRN Public Radio /Television, on the Executive Committee of the University of Miami Citizens Board, and is a member of the American Theatre Critics Association. A Carbonell judge for the past four years, Levitt also has taught creative writing at the University of Miami.
Paul Levine
Paul Levine is a film reviewer and columnist for Around Town newspaper and president of Famous Faces Entertainment and Special Events Company, with divisions including a SAG franchised talent agency. Prior to establishing his own firm, he was a branch manager with United Artists and sales representative for Warner Brothers.
Michael Peyton
Michael Peyton is the Senior Corporate Marketing Representative for WLRN Public Radio & Television. He plays a major role in the regional marketing of the theater community. In association with the Theatre League of South Florida, he developed and administers (with WLRN) www.culturalconnection.org, the same day half price ticket program. Peyton also founded the South Florida Theatre Festival. An avid arts patron and philanthropist, he sits on the advisory boards of The Arts and Business Council of Miami and Arts Park, City of Hollywood and is a board member of PRADO, Public Radio Association of Development Officers.
Karen Poindexter
An independent theater and film producer, Karen Poindexter previously served as producer and/or associate producer with the Clematis Street Theatre at The Cuillo Centre, Hirschfeld Theatre [Miami Beach], Burt Reynolds Jupiter Theatre as well as with national and international theater/film productions.
Jennifer Sierra-Grobbelaar
Jennifer Sierra-Grobbelaar has been with Broadway Across America for over 12 years dating back through the national organization’s former incarnations as Clear Channel, SFX Entertainment and PTG-Florida, Inc. (a subsidiary which still exists). During her time with Broadway Across America, she has managed subscription ticketing, venue operations for Parker Playhouse as well as her current duties as public relations and marketing operations director for Broadway Across America events throughout the state of Florida. Sierra-Grobbelaar is a board member and treasurer for the Theatre League of South Florida and mentors for Women of Tomorrow.
John Soliday
John Soliday is a Carbonell Award-nominated theater director, long time member of the Society of Stage Directors and Choreographers and associate professor of theatre and motion pictures at the University of Miami. Dr. Soliday served as UM’s School of Communication director of graduate studies for seven years developing and supervising the school’s M.A., M.F.A. and Ph.D. programs in motion pictures, journalism, public relations and communication studies. He teaches graduate and undergraduate theatre and motion picture/video directing, screenwriting, and history. He directs the Czech National Film School Summer Program in Prague. A longtime Carbonell panelist, he has been a member of several national companies including the Tyrone Guthrie Theatre. He is also a former member of Actor’s Equity. Six of the 70 professional productions he has directed have set box office records for the producing theatres.
John Thomason
John Thomason is the entertainment editor and chief critic and reporter with Forum Publishing weekly newspapers, a subsidiary of the Sun-Sentinel. A regular contributor to City Link Metro Mix and the Detroit Metro Times, Thomason has also written extensively for the Orlando Weekly.
Brandon Thorp
Brandon K. Thorp is the theater critic for Broward/Palm Beach New Times, Miami New Times, and NPR’s South Florida affiliate, WLRN. Before writing about theater full-time, he edited an online magazine for gay and lesbian youth, The Mogenic Free Press, and worked as the assistant editor of Quintessential Magazine. His work has appeared in the Village Voice and Spin and he has edited two books.
Betsy Weisman
A Carbonell Awards panelist for several years, Betsy Weisman is accounting manager of the Broward Performing Arts Foundation, Inc. and has extensive experience at the Broward Center in the marketing, public relations and other administrative operations.