Faculty
Our Faculty and Lecturers
The Randolph MFA in Arts Leadership features a faculty and lecturers of nationally recognized professional arts administrators dedicated to creating the field’s next leaders.
Leadership
Geoffrey KershnerFaculty
Hope McMath
Hope McMath is a nationally recognized arts leader, educator, and social practice artist whose career exemplifies the integration of community-engaged arts and institutional leadership.
As the longtime Executive Director of the Cummer Museum of Art & Gardens, she oversaw a $4M budget and significantly expanded access and inclusion, receiving honors from the Kennedy Center and National Arts Strategies.
Her founding and directorship of Yellow House—an arts hub dedicated to social justice and community dialogue—demonstrates how cultural institutions can center the lived experiences and values of their communities.
With a background in museum education, social practice curation, and strategic planning, McMath brings extensive mentoring experience and deep expertise in aligning the arts with civic life.
Her career powerfully embodies all four of the program’s outcomes, from fostering cross-sector partnerships to cultivating mission-driven leadership rooted in equity and cultural authenticity.
Manuel Prieto
Manuel Prieto is a rising national leader in arts education and nonprofit innovation, with a record of executive leadership that bridges artistic practice, cultural equity, and institutional transformation.
Currently the Executive Director of Boston Court Pasadena, and formerly of the Los Angeles Music and Art School, Prieto has successfully scaled budgets, launched cross-sector programming, and led community-informed strategic plans across diverse organizations.
His credentials include a Master’s in Nonprofit Management and significant teaching artist experience with major performing arts centers.
Prieto’s ability to design inclusive programming, cultivate new audiences, and steward robust funding portfolios speaks to his real-world expertise in the areas of financial resilience, mission-aligned leadership, and arts-based community development.
His commitment to mentorship, bilingual capacity, and decade-long engagement with statewide and national service bodies make him exceptionally suited to guide MFA students working at the intersection of community, culture, and sustainability.
Courtney Sale
Courtney Sale combines a distinguished academic foundation—holding an MFA from the University of Texas at Austin—with over a decade of high-level leadership in regional theatres and cultural institutions.
As the Executive Artistic Director of Merrimack Repertory Theatre and former Artistic Director of Seattle Children’s Theatre, she has driven institutional transformation by embedding racial equity into programming, advancing community-responsive partnerships (notably with the Khmer and Southeast Asian communities), and significantly growing endowments and youth engagement.
Her teaching appointments at institutions such as Butler University and the University of Idaho, combined with real-world innovation in capital campaigns, programming, and strategic planning, make her particularly adept at mentoring students navigating the intersection of theory and practice.
Sale’s work directly addresses the MFA program’s emphasis on fostering inclusive leadership, durable cross-sector alliances, and resilient, mission-driven arts organizations.
Bill Thompson
Bill Thompson brings over 15 years of visionary nonprofit leadership as the longtime Executive Director and now President of Young Storytellers, a nationally scaled arts education nonprofit.
With an MFA from Yale School of Drama and advanced nonprofit training from Stanford’s Graduate School of Business, Thompson exemplifies the dual expertise of creative leadership and institutional stewardship.
Under his direction, Young Storytellers expanded from a small Los Angeles-based program to a multi-city organization with major partnerships, including with Warner Bros. and Disney.
His deep understanding of community-centered program growth, youth development, board leadership, and development strategy aligns precisely with the MFA’s focus on community-rooted resilience and cross-sector collaboration.
Thompson’s ability to translate mission into sustainable infrastructure and his mentorship within leadership cohorts like City Scholars reflect the caliber and ethos of faculty that this program seeks to engage.
Faculty Left: Faculty Mentor
José Zayas is an award-winning director. He has directed over 100 productions in New York, regionally, and internationally.
Credits include: El Perro del Hortelano (Gala Theatre), Fandango for Butterflies (and Coyotes) (En Garde Arts), The Queen of Basel (Studio Theatre, DC), Exquisita Agonía (Repertorio Espanol), The Magnetic Fields: 50 Song Memoir (BAM, MASS MoCA, US & European Tours), A Nonesuch Celebration (BAM), Washed Up on the Potomac (San Francisco Playhouse, The Flea Theater), Undocumented (Joe’s Pub), Pinkolandia and El Coquí Espectacular and the Bottle of Doom (Two River Theater), The House of the Spirits (Teatro Espressivo, Gala Theatre, Denver Center, ACE, HOLA, and Ovation Awards for Best Production and Direction), Your Name Will Follow You Home, La Nena Se Casa, Love in the Time of Cholera, In the Time of the Butterflies, In The Name of Salome, Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter, Burundanga (Repertorio Español, ACE and HOLA Awards for Best Production and Direction for the latter two), Corazon Eterno, (Mixed Blood), Southern Promises and Strom Thurmond is Not a Racist (PS 122, The Brick), Useless (IRT), Father of Lies and Vengeance Can Wait (PS 122); P.S. Jones and the Frozen City, Feeder: A Love Story (TerraNOVA Collective); Privilege, Okay, Mrs. Jones and the Man From Dixieland (EST), The Idea of Me (Cherry Lane Theatre), The Queen Bees (Queens Theatre in the Park), Manuel Vs. The Statue of Liberty and Children of Salt (NYMF), Cancun, Chronicle of a Death Foretold (Gala Theatre, DC), Wedding Dress, The Island of Lonely Men (Teatro Espressivo, Costa Rica), Grapes of Wrath, Romeo & Juliet (The American Shakespeare Center).
José has premiered works by Stephin Merritt, Hilary Bettis, Nilo Cruz, Caridad Svich, Robert Askins, Thomas Bradshaw, Duncan Sheik, Steven Sater, Taylor Mac, Marco Antonio Rodriguez, Lynn Rosen, Saviana Stanescu, Carlos Murillo, Rob Urbinati, Kristina Poe, Catherine Filloux, James Carter, Gerardo Cardenas, Matt Barbot, Susan Kim, and Jordi Galceran.
Notable fellowships and affiliations include: a Drama League Fellowship, Lincoln Center Theater’s Directors Lab, SoHo Rep’s Writer/Director Lab, and the NEA/TCG Career Development Program for Directors. He is a member of Ensemble Studio Theatre and he was the Resident Director at Repertorio Español from 2008-2018. José was born in Puerto Rico. He holds a BA from Harvard University and an MFA in Directing from Carnegie Mellon University.
Faculty Right: Faculty Mentor
Dennis Whitehead Darling is an award-winning Stage Director working in opera, theatre, musical theatre and film.
His recent directing credits include:
World Premieres of Marian’s Song (Houston Grand Opera), Sanctuary Road (North Carolina Opera), Why I Live at the PO (UrbanArias), Buried Deep (End Station Theatre) and The Secret River (Opera Orlando).
Other works include Jelly’s Last Jam – A Concert Reading (Long Wharf Theatre), The Falling and the Rising (Arizona Opera), La Bohème (Opera Columbus), Lost in the Stars (Annapolis Opera), The Gershwin’s Porgy and Bess (Red Mountain Theatre), Independence Eve (Opera Birmingham), Lady Day at Emerson’s Bar and Grill (Hattiloo Theatre/Spazio Teatro No’hma – Milan), Jelly’s Last Jam (Hattiloo Theatre), The Parchman Hour (Hattiloo Theatre), Ain’t Misbehavin’ (Spazio Teatro No’hma –Milan), Intimate Apparel (University of Memphis), Movin’ Up in the World (Opera Memphis), Sunset Baby (Hattiloo Theatre), James and the Giant Peach (Circuit Playhouse), Blue Viola (Opera Memphis), Mr. Rickey Calls A Meeting (Hattiloo Theatre), Marcus; or the Secret of Sweet (Hattiloo Theatre).
Film credits include: Hansel and Gretel (Opera On Tap), Giulio Cesare in Egitto (Carnegie Mellon University).
Associate Directing credits include: AITAF on Broadway (Studio 54), The Last of the Love Letters (Atlantic Theatre), Light’s Out: Nat “King” Cole (Geffen Playhouse), Skeleton Crew (Geffen Playhouse).
In 2018, he was selected by Opera Memphis as their Inaugural McCleave Fellow in Directing, a fellowship dedicated to fostering the careers of Stage Directors and Music Directors of color.
Throughout his career, Dennis has expressed one major goal, “to tell emotionally engaging and provocative stories that challenge the viewer to see the world from a different perspective.”
Lecturers
William H. Evans III
William H. Evans III is an award-winning writer, educator, and editor whose work spans poetry, cultural criticism, and creative nonfiction.
Evans is a graduate of the Randolph College MFA in creative writing program, where he received the first Nancy Craig Blackburn ’71 fellowship.
He is the author of We Inherit What the Fires Left and Black Nerd Problems, and a recipient of the 2025 Hugo Award. His poetry and essays have appeared in The Yale Review, Rattle, Waxwing, and numerous anthologies.
Evans served as the Pearl S. Buck Writer in Residence at Randolph College. He has also held a residency with Chatham University and served as a juror for the Sustainable Arts Foundation.
He teaches at Columbus State Community College and has facilitated workshops nationwide.
As Lead Poetry Editor at Revolute and co-founder of Writing Wrongs Poetry Slam, Evans fosters inclusive literary spaces that amplify underrepresented voices.
Tiffany Sturdivant
Tiffany Sturdivant is the Executive Director of Appalshop, a media, arts, and cultural organization rooted in southern Appalachia.
A Florida-born, Mississippi-raised former pediatric and geriatric nurse with over a decade in community organizing, she joined Appalshop in 2020 as lead organizer for Performing Our Future, a national arts-and-community coalition.
After serving as interim executive director beginning July 2024, she was formally appointed to the role in September 2024, bringing renewed focus to organizational health, equitable governance, and mission‑driven storytelling.
In late 2024, she accepted Appalshop’s prestigious 2022 National Humanities Medal from President Biden—a testament to her leadership in preserving and elevating Appalachian culture.
Leadership
Geoffrey Kershner: Director
Geoffrey Kershner is a veteran nonprofit arts leader and cultural strategist – holding an MFA from the Florida State University – whose work exemplifies the program’s focus on resilient, community-centered leadership.
As CEO of the Academy Center of the Arts in Lynchburg, VA, he oversaw a decade of institutional transformation – expanding the operating budget more than fourfold, increasing need-based scholarships by 124%, and completing a $30 million restoration of the Academy’s historic theatre.
He is also the founder of Endstation Theatre Company, a locally-focused ensemble in residence at Randolph College.
Kershner’s leadership extends nationally through board service with the Mid-Atlantic Arts Foundation and his current role as Chair of Virginians for the Arts. He has served on funding panels for the Virginia Commission for the Arts and the Rhode Island Council on the Arts.
A National Arts Strategies fellow, he has spoken on creative placemaking, nonprofit resilience, and rural arts development at national conferences.
His career reflects deep expertise in cross-sector collaboration, organizational growth, and values-based leadership.
Ally Farzetta: Assistant Director
Ally Farzetta is a professional actor, theater-maker, and educator. In addition to serving as Assistant Director of MFA Theatre Ally directs productions and teaches classes for the Randolph College Performing Arts Department.
Ally earned her BA in Theatre Arts from the State University of New York at New Paltz and her MFA in Acting from FSU/Asolo Conservatory for Actor Training.
Over the last decade Ally has performed in classical, contemporary and new works at numerous regional theatres around the country, including Asolo Repertory Theatre, Shakespeare and Company, Virginia Stage Company, Virginia Repertory Theatre, American Stage, Shadowland Stages, and more.
Ally spent two years touring the country with the American Shakespeare Center, where she played many roles in over ten productions, including Elinor Dashwood in Sense and Sensibility, Lady Macbeth in Macbeth, and Hermione in The Winter’s Tale.
Advisory Board
Sue Ott Rowlands
President, Randolph College
Stephanie Earl
Associate Professor of Theatre and Director of the MFA Theatre Program, Randolph College
Gary Dop
Professor of English and Director of the MFA Creative Writing Program, Randolph College
Administrative Faculty
Patrick Earl
Adjunct Assistant Professor of Theatre
Randolph College
Heather Sinclair
Assistant Professor of Theatre,
Technical Director
Randolph College
Meghan Halbrook
Director of Graduate Studies, Associate Professor of Sport and Exercise Studies
Randolph College
