viBrant board

viBrant leadership

Trevor P. Foley, Chair
Trevor is a marketing and communications vice president at J.P. Morgan. He previously has worked at Macquarie Group, Bear Stearns, J.P. Morgan, and Gargiulo + Partners. Trevor has served on viBe’s board since the organization’s 2002 founding, first as treasurer (2002-08) and now as chair (2008-date).  His involvement with viBe is a reflection of his strong belief in the founders’ mission and an extension of his personal support of the performing and communication arts.  A graduate of Vanderbilt University, he served on the boards of both Vanderbilt University Theatre as business manager and president and Vanderbilt Student Communications as a member-at-large while a student.  In April 2010, Trevor won the 2009 Pro Bono Adviser of the Year Award and viBe received a $A10,000 ($US9,200) prize donation from the Macquarie Group Foundation in recognition of his service as a viBe board member.

Dana Edell, PhD, Treasurer
Dana is the co-founder of viBe Theater Experience and served as Executive Director from 2002-2012. She co-directed more than 50+ productions, written and performed by viBeGirls. She is currently the director of SPARK, a national, girl-fueled activist movement. Dana also co-founded and directed Inside/Out Performing Arts, a playmaking company with girls affected by the juvenile justice system in San Francisco (1998-2000) and ran a technical theater job training program for low-income youth at Brava! for Women in the Arts. As a theater director, Dana has produced, written and directed new plays, rock operas and classical works at small theaters across the country. She was a theater artist-in-residence in public schools in the Bronx and Harlem, and teaches as an adjunct assistant professor in the Theatre Department at Marymount Manhattan College, with the Bard College Prison Initiative at Bayview Women’s Prison and at New York University. She has spoken at conferences worldwide and published multiple articles about the need for creative arts opportunities for girls. Dana holds a BA with honors in Classics/ Ancient Greek from Brown University, an MFA in Theater Directing from Columbia and a PhD from the Performing Arts Department of the Steinhardt School for Education, Culture and Human Development at New York University.

Andrea Bertola

Andrea Bertola is a theatrical director based in New York City. Andrea has taught/directed students of all ages across the Tri-State area, most notably at the Lee Strasberg Theatre and Film Institute working with the Young Actors Program. Production credits include: The Triad Theater, MCC Theater, Comix Comedy Club, Comedy Central and the Palm Beach Film Festival. She is also a member of Pi Lambda Theta, the most selective national honor society of educators. Andrea received a Masters in Educational Theatre from New York University, has a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Theatre from Adelphi University and studied in London at the London Dramatic Academy. In 2010, Andrea was proud to be awarded a New York University Certificate of Distinction at Radio City Music Hall. This honor recognizes outstanding academic achievements, leadership and service to the New York University Community. When she’s not busy making theatre, Andrea is a freelance website designer and marketing consultant. Never reticent or retiring, Andrea throws herself headfirst into cutting-edge, unexpected online marketing strategies.  Under her watch, many of her client’s sites have more than doubled their website hits.  Clients have happily expressed that their increased market share springs in part from Andrea’s diligent and creative online marketing skills.

Kristin Marting

Kristin Marting is Co-Founder and Artistic Director of HERE and has constructed 24 hybrid works for the stage (10 original works, 8 adaptations of novels and 7 classic plays). Most recently, she premiered Lush Valley, a live art interactive experience on citizenship and civic responsibility.  Other recent projects include Sounding, a live cinema performance loosely inspired by Ibsen’s Lady from the Sea and directed James Scruggs’s solo work Disposable Men (winner of an NY Innovative Theatre Award) and his recent new play (RUS)H.  As Artistic Director of HERE, she cultivates artists and programs all events for two performance spaces for an annual audience of 45,000. Under her leadership, HERE has garnered 16 OBIE awards, 2 OBIE grants for artistic achievement, a 2006 Edwin Booth Award (“for Outstanding Contribution to NY Theatre”) from the CUNY Graduate Center, five Drama Desk nominations, two Berrilla Kerr Awards, four NY Innovative Theatre Awards and a Pulitzer Prize nomination. She co-created and co-curates HARP, HERE’s Artist Residency Program. For 19 years, she curated The American Living Room, an annual summer festival featuring over 30 new works by emerging artists; and for 8 years, Queer@HERE, an annual festival of gay and lesbian work. She has lectured and been a guest artist at Bard, Brown, Columbia, Harvard, NYU and Williams. She regularly serves on grant panels for TCG, DCA, NEA and NYSCA, among others. She graduated from New York University in 1988 with honors.

chandra thomas
chandra thomas is the co-founder and director of programming of viBe Theater Experience. She is consistently amazed by the 175+ “viBe Girls” who have shared their creative voices through their original plays, solo shows, music and performances. As a professional actor/ writer/ producer, chandra has worked and studied for over 15 years across the United States and internationally. Her long-standing artistic interest is in the development and creation of fresh, new works. To this end, chandra has originated roles in plays as well as performing in film, television and voiceover. She has also written and produced new plays and theatrical experiences. As an educator, chandra teaches collaborative theatre development, business for performing artists and performance as empowerment. She currently teaches at Columbia University’s School of the Arts. Recently, she completed a performance as empowerment workshop series at the Ferris School for Boys, an all-male juvenile detention center in Wilmington, DE. She has also taught at Creative Arts Team at the City University of New York, New York Film Academy, University of Minnesota, Webster University, among others. chandra graduated, with honors, with a BA in Theatre Arts and BA in Sociology from Vanderbilt University in Nashville, TN and holds an MFA in Acting from Columbia University.