Board of Trustees
Christine Eosco, President
South Dennis, MA
After retiring from a 25-year career in the banking industry including global roles on three continents, Christine (Chris) now serves as an executive advisor for My Next Season, a consulting firm working with executives in transition. Chris brings a depth and diversity of experience to Cape Rep. She currently serves on the board of the International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW) and the Dennis Conservation Land Trust. Previously she held roles on the boards of the Bank of America International Financial Corporation, Bank of America Overseas Corporation, and Merrill Lynch Menkul Degerler A.S., as well as Legacy 2020, an organization created to ensure the local London community retained lasting benefits following the 2012 Olympics.
Chris has an MBA from Simmons College, Graduate School of Management and a BA in political science from Emmanuel College. She and her husband have two grown sons and three grandchildren. They share a passion for travel and split their time between Cape Cod and Italy.
Tom Crowley, Vice President
Orleans, MA
Tom Crowley has been a supporter and admirer of Cape Rep Theatre for many years. He attended The University of Massachusetts in Amherst and earned a degree in business and spent over 40 years in the insurance industry. Tom retired in 2017 and moved full time to Cape Cod. Prior to retirement, he lived in Simsbury, CT and most recently Boston. Tom and his family spent summers in Eastham starting in 1988. He is an avid catboat sailor and volunteers as an instructor at Pleasant Bay Community Boating. Tom looks forward to working with Cape Rep Theatre and continuing the tradition of outstanding work and cutting-edge productions..
Rick Stone, Treasurer
Brewster, MA
Rick Stone is a prominent tax attorney with a practice focused on tax litigation (IRS and state tax audits, tax appeals, etc.) and international business transactions. Rick is an active member of the MA Bar Association, serving recently for several years as Chair of the MA Bar Association’s Tax Section, and has been a frequent lecturer on tax matters to attorneys and accountants. He is a graduate of University of Pennsylvania Law School.
Rick’s passion for theater began when he studied theater art at Lafayette College where he was Stage Manager of the college’s theater. In recent years, he was a Board member of Cincinnati Shakespeare Company, one of the few U.S. theaters to complete the Shakespeare canon.
Rick and his wife Meg live in Brewster, and are in their sixth year of restoring and rebuilding their 170 year old home on Main Street. They both volunteer at the Cobb House Museum of the Brewster Historical Society.
Meri Hartford, Clerk
Eastham, MA
As the parent of an enthusiastic member of The Young Company, Meri has a unique perspective on just how incredible a resource Cape Rep is for the young people in our community. Working with her husband in the art business on the Lower Cape since 1996, Meri has enjoyed the creative energy that comes with collaborating with visual and performing artists and arts educators. After serving on the Orleans Cultural Council for two six-year terms, she is currently serving on the Orleans Cultural District Committee. Meri has a B.S. from the University of Maine that has absolutely nothing to do with art, but does explain why she loves kayaking, camping and hiking with her family when she is not driving kids to rehearsals.
Trustees
Jeff Cusack
Orleans, MA
Jeff Cusack is a lifelong New Englander and was raised on Cape Cod. Educated at Boston University School of Management, he returned to the Lower Cape after a few years of world travel and embarked upon a restaurant career at the famous Land Ho! Restaurant. He entered the real estate business in 2000 and has since transacted nearly $175 million in residential and commercial sales and is active in the Massachusetts, Cape & Islands and National Association of Realtors. Jeff’s passion is conservation, animal welfare and local organizations such as WildCare and the Animal Rescue League of Boston as well as several private dog rescue agencies. A love of live theater and a chance encounter with his former English teacher and former Cape Rep Board President Mary Ellen Ackerman led to his appointment at Cape Rep Theatre.
Marion Hobbs
Brewster, MA
Marion, a Brewster real estate lawyer, saw her first Cape Rep show in 1992: The Distance Between Us, written by Janine Perry and based on the letters of John and Abigail Adams. Marion is a graduate of the Stony Brook School, Smith College and Boston University Law School. She has served on the board of the Cape Cod Lighthouse Charter School and has been a WE CAN volunteer since 2003. Marion lives with her family and cats in Brewster.
Margaret MacLeay
Orleans, MA
Maggie is a native of Massachusetts and grew up in East Taunton and went to school at Union Hospital School of Nursing in Fall River. She joined the Air Force and became a flight nurse during the Vietnam conflict. She attended Johnson State College before working at the University of Vermonts Medical Center in the management area prior to retiring to Cape Cod. Her last position was as a certified nurse navigator in breast cancer.
Her theater journey started at the age of forty five while taking a drama course at college. She has had experience on both sides of the theater in both technical and acting with Lyric theater in Burlington Vt as well as local theater companies. Maggie is a member of VETCO under Art Devine and BOLDCO under Julie Hamilton. Maggie has two wonderful sons, one in Burlington Vermont and one in Wertz Virginia. She lives in Orleans with her best buddy Finn a black standard poodle .
Elia Marnik
South Orleans, MA
Elia Marnik, a teacher/reading specialist, is currently an Education Consultant (ElMar Consulting Co.). She has served as a Trustee of Middlesex Community College for almost 10 years, serving as Chair of the Student Success Committee, Presidential Search Committee, Presidential Evaluation Committee. Elia served on the Massachusetts Board of Library Commissioners for 13 years and held Vice Chair and Chair positions. She also Chaired the Massachusetts Center of the Book (an affiliate of the Library of Congress). Elia has been invited the keynote speaker at state, regional and local community library events and conventions. She has facilitated many educational workshops. She has participated in State House hearings, secured legislative sponsors for MBLC bills, resulting in 12 million dollars to be distributed to Massachusetts libraries for construction projects. Elia has held leadership positions in Catholic Charities North’s Annual Fundraising Galas. She is a Founding Member of RPL Foundation and was Chair of the Board of Trustees for over 20 years.
Paul Niles
Brewster, MA
Paul Niles first came to the Cape Rep Theater in 1995 with a vanload of students looking for a green oasis from the concrete campus of the Cape Cod Lighthouse Charter Public School, then situated in Orleans. This was the beginning of a fruitful partnership between the two mission-driven institutions, which survives to this day.
Paul’s first immersion into theater came as the co-founder, along with Mark X Cronin and Bart Sher, of the Lunchbox Theater at the College of the Holy Cross in 1979. While Mark and Bart went on to illustrious careers in public life, Paul’s creative career crested in college when he played the alien in Sam Shepard’s play The Unseen Hand, Botard in a French version of Eugene Ionesco’s play Rhinoceros, and served as the lead singer in the French punk rock band Le Bateau Ivre.
Paul served in various capacities at the Lighthouse School from 1995 until his recent retirement from the position of Executive Director. Paul has chosen his retirement commitments very carefully, and he now splits his time between rolling around the country in his camper van with his extraordinary wife Annie Dolan-Niles, enjoying all of the spectacular performances at Cape Rep, playing all the sports his body can handle, and serving on the boards of the Friends of Pleasant Bay and the Cape Cod Lighthouse School Educational Foundation.
Karen Quinn
Brewster, MA
Karen’s love of stage productions began when she put on her first pair of ballet slippers at age four and has never looked back. Her personal and professional pursuits have remained creatively driven, always focused on building community and purposeful contributions. After earning her Bachelor’s from Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts, her titles ranged from Merchandising Director at Old Sturbridge Village, to Owner of a home staging and design business, to today’s role as a Realtor at William Raveis and manager of her brand, Lower Cape Cod Living. To Karen, being a Trustee for the Cape Rep Theatre is a true honor. Karen lives in Brewster with her family.
Mary Ellen Ackerman, President Emeritus
Brewster, MA
Mary Ellen Ackerman retired as a Consultant for the College Board. As an Independent Consultant she has been an invited Presenter at International Educational Conferences in Europe, Asia and South America. She is a former Board Member of the Western American Literature Association and retired English Department Chair at Dennis-Yarmouth Regional High School. She is a former Teacher Trainer for the MA Department Education in Portfolio Assessment and former Steering Committee Member of the Advanced Placement Annual Conferences.
Mary Ellen joined the Board in 2011 and became its president two years later. She stepped down in 2019 but continues to serve Cape Rep by chairing the Development Committee.
Fran Weller, Emeritus
Frank Weller, Emeritus
Honorary Board
Elliott Carr
served as the president of Cape Cod Five Cents Saving Bank from 1982-2004. He is the former president and chairman of the Massachusetts Bankers Association and a graduate of Dartmouth and of Harvard Graduate School of Business Administration. He is the co-chairman of the Cape Cod Business Roundtable and is also the vice president of the Brewster Community Preservation Committee. A resident of Brewster, he is also interested in writing and photography. Carr writes frequently on the environment and economy for the Cape Cod Times and Cape Codder. He is the author of Walking the Shores of Cape Cod.
Preston Scott Cohen
Preston Scott Cohen is the Chair of the Department of Architecture and the Gerald M. McCue Professor of Architecture at Harvard University Graduate School of Design. He is the author of Contested Symmetries (Princeton Architectural Press, 2001) and numerous theoretical and historical essays on architecture. His work has been widely published and exhibited and is in numerous collections including The Museum of Modern Art, New York, The Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles and the Fogg Museum of Art, Harvard. He lectures regularly in prestigious venues around the world. Cohen’s work has been the subject of numerous theoretical assessments by renowned critics and historians including Sylvia Lavin, Antoine Picon, Michael Hays, Nikolaus Kuhnert, Terry Riley, Robert Somol, Hashim Sarkis and Rafael Moneo. He was the Frank Gehry International Chair at the University of Toronto (2004) and the Perloff Professor at UCLA (2002). He has held faculty positions at Princeton, RISD, and Ohio State University.
Joanne Devine
has spent over the last 43 years in health care administration, management and development. Her primary focus has been quality community based long-term care programs for adults with brain and spinal cord injury. She has worked to promote the least restrictive living environments for very medically compromised people. Devine currently is the proud owner and operator of Rose Meadow, two specialized Supported Residential Care facilities in New Boston, New Hampshire. Her other love is promoting the arts and theater and the wonderful productions of Cape Rep Theatre for her brother Art Devine and very talented sister-in-law Maura Hanlon.
Dermot Mulroney
has appeared in over 65 films, and will next star in the highly anticipated film adaptation of the Pulitzer Prize and Tony Award winning play, August, Osage County opposite Meryl Streep and Julia Roberts. Additionally, he will star in jOBS as Apple’s first financier, Mike Markkula. Dermot recently starred Nicole Kidman in Stoker. His film credits include: The Grey with Liam Neeson, Clint Eastwood’s J. Edgar with Leonardo DiCaprio, Baltasar Kormukur’s Inhale, Big Miracle with Drew Barrymore, Struck By Lightning with Allison Janney and Rebel Wilson, Marc Abraham’s Flash Of Geniuswith Greg Kinnear, Garry Marshall’s Georgia Rule with Jane Fonda, David Fincher’s Zodiac, The Family Stone with Diane Keaton, Sarah Jessica Parker and Claire Danes, Must Love Dogs with Diane Lane and John Cusack, The Wedding Date with Debra Messing and Amy Adams, David Gordon Green’s Undertow,About Schmidt with Jack Nicholson, The Safety Of Objects with Glenn Close, Where The Money Is with Paul Newman, My Best Friend’s Wedding with Julia Roberts and Cameron Diaz, Robert Altman’s Kansas City with Jennifer Jason Leigh, Copycat with Holly Hunter and Sigourney Weaver, Tom DiCillo’s Living In Oblivion, Point Of No Return with Bridget Fonda, Young Guns with Kiefer Sutherland and Blake Edward’sSunset with James Garner and Bruce Willis. On television, he recently guest starred in the second season of HBO’s Enlightened opposite Laura Dern and as Zooey Deschanel’s love interest on Fox’s New Girl. He will next star as the lead in NBC’s new series Crisis opposite Gillian Anderson.
Dermot is a classically trained cellist who has played with the scoring orchestras for Academy Award winning composers such as James Newton Howard and Michael Giacchino.
Nick Paleologus
is an American film producer and politician. A two-time Tony Award winning producer, Paleologos was also the recipient of a prime time Emmy Award nomination for the HBO film In the Gloaming. His last production on Broadway was Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. Feature films include Ghosts of Mississippi and Hurlyburly. He was the executive director of the Massachusetts Film Office from 2007 until 2011. During his tenure at the film office, he was responsible for bringing several major motion pictures to shoot in Massachusetts including The Town, Shutter Island, The Social Network, Knight and Day, The Fighter, Edge of Darkness, The Proposal, and The Company Men. In addition, Quixote Studios opened a $1.5 million operation in Boston. Paleologos represented the 33rd Middlesex district in the Massachusetts House of Representatives from 1977–1991. He was appointed Executive Director of the New Jersey State Council on the Arts in 2011.
Hon. Sarah K. Peake
has served in the Massachusetts House of Representatives since 2007. She represents the Fourth Barnstable district, a Cape Cod district that includes her hometown of Provincetown. She previously served on the Provincetown Board of Selectmen. Peake earned an A.B. from Colgate University and a Juris Doctor from Pace University School of Law. In the legislature, she serves as the vice-chair of the Joint Committee on Tourism, Arts and Cultural Development, as well as being a member of the House Committee on Post Audit and Oversight and the House Committee on Bonding, Capital Expenditures and State Assets.
Laila Robins
is an American stage, film and television actress. She was born in St. Paul, Minnesota, Robins attended the Yale School of Drama, (MFA) and received her undergraduate degree at the University of Wisconsin–Eau Claire, (BA). She has won several awards for her work including the Actors’ Equity Foundation Joe A. Callaway Award, the Helen Hayes Award nomination, the Jefferson Award, the Drama League Award and the Lucille Lortel Award nomination for Outstanding Featured Actress.
Bob Seay
is currently the Morning Edition host for WGBH, 89.7 – FM radio. He was also the former morning host at WRNI Rhode Island Public radio. He served for several years as the executive director at WOMR in Provincetown, Mass., and was the former news director at WQRC on the Cape. In a former life Seay was an actor whose work was seen in many productions and theatres throughout the Cape including developing new plays by Gip Hoppe at WHAT and The Academy of Performing Arts with his dear friends Art Devine and Maura Hanlon.
Omar Sharif, Jr.
Born on November 28, 1983 to a Jewish mother and Muslim father, Omar Sharif Jr. was given his name by his iconic grandfather. With maternal grandparents who were Holocaust survivors and paternal grandparents who were famous actors, Omar was assured a colorful life. As a child, he shuttled frequently between his birthplace of Montreal, and Paris and Cairo. Omar obtained a Master’s Degree in Comparative Politics from The London School of Economics at Queen’s University, by the age of 23. Omar balanced his studies with living the life of an irresponsible socialite. He garnering considerable attention from international ad and spokesperson campaigns for Calvin Klein and Coca Cola, as well as from his celebrity relationships. He was offered a role in a hit Egyptian TV series in 2007, which piqued his interest in “the family business”.
In 2013, shortly after the Muslim Brotherhood was elected to parliament in Egypt, Omar published an open letter in The Advocate, in which he came out as gay and half-Jewish and questioned the new Egyptian government’s commitment to basic human rights and diversity. He is the first public personality to ever come out as openly gay in the Arab World. He immediately faced a barrage of condemnation, criticism and threats of violence. From 2013 to 2015, Omar served as the Eastern National Spokesperson for GLAAD; an organization which serves to promote LGBT equality by ensuring positive media portrayals of the gay, lesbian and trans community.
Jonathan Silverstein
is a New York City based freelance director and acting coach. Off Broadway credits include The Temperamentals (Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Ensemble); Lemon Sky, The Dining Room (Drama Desk Award Nomination for Outstanding Director; Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Ensemble), Tea and Sympathy, I Never Sang For My Father, and The Hasty Heart (Keen Company, Resident Director); Red Herring (New York International Fringe Festival, Outstanding Direction Award); Indiscretions (Phoenix Theatre Ensemble); Blueprint (Summer Play Festival); The Rats Are Getting Bigger (New York International Fringe Festival); Greater Messapia (Queens Theatre in the Park); and The Train Play (Clubbed Thumb). His regional theatre credits include The Old Globe, Cleveland Play House, Dorset Theatre Festival, and The Theatre at Monmouth. In the Boston area, he has worked at Merrimack Repertory Theatre and Cape Rep Theatre. Mr. Silverstein is a graduate of the MFA directing program at University of California, San Diego, an alumnus of The Drama League Director’s Project, and a member of SDC.
Saviana Stanesco
is an award-winning Romanian-American poet, playwright and journalist. She is currently the NYSCA playwright-in-residence for Women’s Project, writer-in-residence of East Coast Artists, and Director of New Drama Program for the Romanian Cultural Institute in New York. She taught at New York University, Tisch School of Arts, Drama Department, and currently is a BA Generalist faculty member at Ithaca College, where she teaches script analysis and playwriting. She holds an MA in Performance Studies (Fulbright fellow) and an MFA in Dramatic Writing from NYU, Tisch School of the Arts. Works include Aliens with Extraordinary Skills – a play, world premiere 2008 at the Women’s Project,Waxing West – a play, 2007 New York Innovative Theatre Award for Outstanding Full-Length Script “Google Me!” – poetry in English Black Milk – An English-Romanian anthology of 4 plays The Inflatable Apocalypse – a play which won Best Play of the Year 2000 Uniter Award.
Judi & Terry Vose
make their home in Duxbury, Massachusetts, where they are involved in a number of community initiatives, including Sustainable Duxbury, for which Judi served as a co-chair. Terry is co-president of Vose Galleries Inc., a prominent art gallery on Newbury Street in Boston. He recently published Tales of an Art Dealer: The History of the Vose Galleries Boston from 1841 to 1995, written by his father Robert C. Vose, Jr. Terry is also part of several organizations focused on preserving the history of Duxbury, including the Duxbury Historical Commission and Duxbury Community Preservation Committee.
Dan Wolf
He is a resident of Harwich and a member of the Democratic Party. He is also the president, CEO, and a founding member of Cape Air, an airline based in the Hyannis village in Barnstable, Massachusetts. Wolf has served on a number of boards, including the Advisory Council for the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston, the Regional Airline Association, the Cape Cod Business Round Table, the Association for the Preservation of Cape Cod, the Housing Assistance Corporation of Cape Cod, and the Arts Foundation of Cape Cod. He was named the Ernst and Young Entrepreneur of the Year for New England in 2008. Wolf is a 2014 gubernatorial candidate for the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.