Boo Froebel

Boo Froebel, Independent Producer, Curator, and Creative Consultant, works with various performing artists and companies; is General Manger for Tamizdat, a non-profit that advocates for international artist mobility; consults for the DeVos Institute of Arts Management and Bloomberg Philanthropies’ AIM/Arts & Innovation Management program; and produces events and festivals such as ContraBanned: #MusicUnites at SXSW, a showcase of artists from the Banned Countries, and the 2018 Onassis Festival among other projects.

Previously, Froebel served as Producer of Lincoln Center Festival; Co Executive Producer of the Imagine Festival of Arts, Issues & Ideas (OBIE Award); Curator/Producer of live art at The Whitney Museum; and Artistic Director of Galapagos Art Space (OBIE Award).

A performance generalist, Froebel has nominated, evaluated, and served on panels for numerous foundations and cultural councils such as Creative Capital (also program officer and lead consultant), the CalArts Alpert Award, US Artists International, Foundation for Contemporary Arts, the Lambent Foundation, the French Cultural Services, the MAP Fund and more. She currently sits on the Boards of The Poetry Project, and Movement Research. A Minnesota native, Froebel graduated from Sarah Lawrence College and is interested in storytelling across disciplines, as artists look for the best way to tell a story and consider how much to tell.

Michael John Garcés

Michael John Garcés has been the Artistic Director of Cornerstone Theatre Company, a community-engaged ensemble based in Los Angeles, since 2006.

Directing credits at the company include California: The Tempest by Alison Carey; Plumas Negras by Juliette Carrillo; Café Vida by Lisa Loomer; Making Paradise by Tom Jacobson, Shishir Kurup, and Deborah Wicks La Puma; and 3 Truths by Naomi Iizuka. For Cornerstone, he has also written Consequence, out of story circles with students, teachers, administrators, and parents in South Kern County, and Los Illegals, created in residence with communities of day laborers and domestic workers. Directing credits at other theaters include, most recently, Lights Rise on Grace by Chad Bekim (Woolly Mammoth Theatre), The Body of an American by Dan O'Brien (Wilma Theater), Wrestling Jerusalem by Aaron Davidman (Intersection for the Arts), The Motherfucker with the Hat by Stephen Adly Guirgis (South Coast Repertory) and Red, Black, and Green: A Blues by Marc Bamuthi Joseph (Yerba Buena Center for the Arts and The Brooklyn Academy of Music). His full-length plays include The Web (needtheatre), Points of Departure (INTAR Hispanic American Arts Center), and Acts of Mercy (Rattlestick Playwrights Theatre), as well as a solo performance, Ague Ardente (The American Place).

Mr. Garcés is on the executive board of the Stage Directors and Choreographers Society. He is a recipient of the Rockwood Arts and Culture Fellowship, the Princess Grace Statue, the Alan Schneider Director Award, a TCG/New Generations Grant, and the Non-Profit Excellence Award from the Center of Non-Profit Management. He is a Southern California Leadership Network Fellow, a company member at Woolly Mammoth, and a proud alumnus of New Dramatists.

Sandra L. Gibson

Sandra L. Gibson’s arts and culture training, teaching, and practice over three decades have given her a unique understanding of partnership, creativity and collaboration.

Ms. Gibson’s professional experience began with her role as program representative for UCLA Extension’s Department of the Arts, where she developed and managed 180-200 nationally recognized programs annually. Ms. Gibson later became Director of West Coast Operations at American Film Institute. Her work as the Executive Director of the Long Beach Regional Arts Council in California developed her gifts for working with diverse cultural communities, individual artists and patrons of arts and culture.  She directed the city’s first Cultural Masterplan and launched the first Smithsonian Institution Program Affiliation in Long Beach.

In 2000, Ms. Gibson was appointed the fourth president and CEO of the Association of Performing Arts Presenters, the leading service and advocacy organization for the presenting industry worldwide. Ms. Gibson engaged the association in new technologies and expanded its reach globally and across industry sectors, including partnerships with the leadership of Consejo Nacional de la Cultura y las Artes in Mexico, the French Embassy Cultural Services Division, the Netherlands Consulate, and the Cultural Ministry of Colombia, among others. She served as a Commissioner on the Culture Committee of the U.S. National Commission for UNESCO from 2005 to 2009. 

In 2004, Ms. Gibson launched the Creative Campus Initiative with a landmark meeting of the American Assembly at Columbia University, and in 2007 the Creative Campus Innovations Grant Program to support exemplary cross-campus, interdisciplinary projects that integrate the arts into the academy.

Ms. Gibson became an independent consultant in July 2011 and the following year formed Sandra L. Gibson and Associates, LLC, a consulting practice dedicated to advancing the arts, culture, and education globally. She is an ethnomusicologist and musician with a master’s degree in music from Northwestern University.

Brent D. Glass

Brent D. Glass is Director Emeritus of the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History, the world’s largest museum devoted to telling the story of America.

A national leader in the preservation, interpretation, and promotion of history, Mr. Glass is a public historian who pioneered influential oral history and material culture studies, an author, television presence, and international speaker on public memory and museum management. As director of the National Museum of American History from 2002 to 2011, Mr. Glass led a two-year, $87 million renovation and development of 20 new exhibitions including a new gallery for the Star-Spangled Banner, the flag that inspired the national anthem.

Mr. Glass is an active member of and consultant to the diplomatic, cultural, and academic communities. For 10 years, he was a member of the Flight 93 Memorial Advisory Commission. He travels frequently as a featured speaker and participant in U.S. State Department cultural diplomacy programs and currently serves as a consultant and advisor to cultural and educational organizations including The Presidio in San Francisco, the DeVos Institute of Arts Management, and Drexel University in Philadelphia. Before joining the Smithsonian, Mr. Glass served from 1987 to 2002 as executive director of the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission, managing the largest and most comprehensive state history program in the country.

Mr. Glass earned his doctorate in history from the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, a master’s degree in American Studies from New York University, and a bachelor’s degree from Lafayette College.

Jane Golden

Since the Mural Arts Program began in 1984 as a component of the Philadelphia Anti-Graffiti Network, Jane Golden has been its driving force, overseeing its growth from a small city agency into the nation's largest mural program, a catalyst for positive social change and a model for community development across the country and around the globe. Under Ms. Golden’s direction and in partnership with communities, grassroots organizations, city agencies, schools and philanthropies, the Mural Arts Program has created more than 3,800 landmark works of public art, earning Philadelphia international recognition as the “City of Murals."

Sought after nationally and internationally as an expert in urban transformation through art, Ms. Golden has received numerous awards, including the Philadelphia Award, the Girl Scouts Take the Lead Award, the Moore College of Art Visionary Woman Award, an Eisenhower Exchange Fellowship, the Katharine Hepburn Medal, and recognition as a Distinguished Daughter of Pennsylvania. Ms. Golden holds a Master of Fine Arts from the Mason Gross School of the Arts at Rutgers University, and degrees in Fine Arts and Political Science from Stanford University. In addition, Ms. Golden has received honorary PhDs from Swarthmore College, Philadelphia’s University of the Arts, Widener University, and most recently Haverford College and Villanova University.

Juana Guzman

For more than 30 years, Juana Guzman has served as a nationally acclaimed arts manager, earned income specialist, and consultant to non-profit organizations and the philanthropic sector.

Throughout her career, Ms. Guzman has championed the promotion and preservation of arts, culture, and heritage as a catalyst for social change for diverse American populations. Since 1980, she has developed and implemented strategies that focused on organizational capacity building, alternative sources of revenue, entrepreneurialism, and tourism, as well as facility development initiatives for non-profit organizations.

In 2012, Ms. Guzman left her position of 13 years as the Vice President of the National Museum of Mexican Arts (NMMA) in Chicago, the largest accredited Latino arts institution in the United States, to start her own consulting company I Juana Know Inc, with a focus on enhanced revenue for creative markets and creative place-making.

Ms. Guzman previously served as the Director of Community Cultural Development for the City of Chicago’s Department of Cultural Affairs (DCA) for 18 years. Ms. Guzman also served as a team technical advisor and consultant for the Ford Foundation’s Shifting Sands Initiative, managed by Partners for Livable Communities in Washington, D.C. The initiative worked to reframe arts and cultural organizations as vital agents of community development through improving neighborhood identities, social mobility, and economic growth. In addition, Ms. Guzman’s served as a consultant for Leveraging Investments in Creativity (LINC) in New York City. LINC is a national initiative aimed at improving the living and working conditions for artists in all disciplines.

Ms. Guzman is currently a technical advisor/reviewer for the NEA and ArtPlace America. She is the co-founder of the National Association of Latino Arts Culture, serves on national boards, and has a background in visual arts.