Gabriel J. Shanks
Executive Director

Gabriel Shanks joined The Drama League of New York in 2001, and has been its Executive Director since 2006. As both an artist and national arts leader, his work has been honored with commendations by the Washington, DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities, the 1998 Outstanding Vision in the Theatre Award from the Theatre Project, numerous playwriting and directing honors, and a 2007 Obie Award for Peculiar Works Project, in honor of The Greenwich Village Fragments, which he co-directed.

Mr. Shanks has been involved in numerous international collaborations over the course of his 20-year career. In the 1990’s, he worked extensively in Hungary, producing and directing performances at RS9 Szinhas in Budapest with Katalin Laban and lecturing in the theatre departments of Szeged and Debrecen Universities.  Two of his plays, “Echoes/Silence” and “Overanalysis,” have received translations and productions in Vienna, Tokyo and Buenos Aires, respectively. In 2009, he was asked to be part of a U.S. delegation to Bulgaria by the Center for International Theatre Development (CITD), which resulted in a five-year educational theatre exchange project between The Drama League of New York and Art Office in Sofia.

Mr. Shanks has previously held leadership positions at George Street Playhouse, Alliance Theatre Company, Baltimore Theatre Project and the Mid Atlantic Arts Foundation. He received his B.A. in Theatre and Communications from Georgia State University and M.F.A. from Towson University.

Having directed over fifty theatrical productions in New York City, Baltimore, Budapest, Chicago, Atlanta, Dallas, Philadelphia and Washington DC, he is currently at work on the world premiere of The Gilgamesh Variations, which will open in July 2010 in New York City before its planned European transfer in London in 2011.  His prose and play anthology, Glitterdirt, will be published in late 2010.

Roger T. Danforth
Deputy and Artistic Director

Roger Danforth has extensive credits as a producer, director, educator and arts administrator. Since 1996 he has been the artistic director of the Drama League Directors Project, the country’s foremost career development program for directors, which was honored with the Theatre Museum’s 2006 Award for Excellence in Theatre Arts Education.

Previously, Danforth spent seven years at The Cleveland Play House as associate producer and literary manager, and as acting artistic director for the 1994-95 season. He created their new play development series (garnering three awards from AT&T On Stage and the Kennedy Center Fund for New American Plays), and in 1995 he directed the world premiere of Jungle Rot by Seth Greenland which received the American Theatre Critics Association New Play Citation and was published in The Best Plays of 1995-1996.  In addition to many productions at The Play house, other regional work includes the Kennedy Center, Florida Studio Theatre, Capital Rep, InterAct Theatre, the National Showcase of New Plays, Two River Theatre Company, Capital Rep and several productions for the Berkshire Theatre Festival. His New York directing credits include productions for Ensemble Studio Theatre, New York Shakespeare Festival, Blue Heron Theatre, Circle Rep, Westbeth Theatre Center, Urban Stages and Galt MacDermot’s musical The Human Comedy for the York Theatre Company.  As a producer he has been on the artistic staffs of the National Alliance for Musical Theatre’s Festival of New Musicals, the WPA Theatre, Manhattan Ensemble Theater and Urban Stages.

Danforth has taught and done guest artist residencies at numerous colleges, and is currently on the directing faculty of Marymount Manhattan College and is the directing mentor of the O’Neill Theater Center’s National Puppetry Conference. He also served as a theatre panel adjudicator for the Michigan and Pennsylvania Arts Councils. Danforth holds an MFA in Directing from the School of Theatre at Florida State University and is a member of the Stage Directors and Choreographers Society.

Trevor Tamashiro
Executive Administrator

Roger Calderon
Special Events Manager

Mr. Calderon has been heavily involved in the theatrical industry since moving to New York in 2000.  He has worked as a representative for Play by Play, as an event coordinator for Event Ergonomics, and as Supervisor of the Broadway League’s Broadway Ticket Center in Times Square for three years.  He was the company manager for the Off-Off Broadway production of The Nuclear Family, which enjoyed an extended, capacity run at New York City’s now-defunct Belt Theatre.  Since 2004, Calderon has been part of the staff at the Harold & Miriam Steinberg Center for Theatre/Laura Pels Theatre, where he functions as an assistant house manager and substitute company manager.  Prior to moving to New York City, Mr. Calderon worked as a guest relations associate for Dallas Summer Musicals in Texas.

Mr. Calderon began at The Drama League in 2002 as the Events Intern; he rejoined The Drama League full-time in March 2008 as the manager of special events.  He is a graduate of Marymount Manhattan College.

Dustin Bryant
Audience Project Manager

An experienced theatre professional, Dustin recently relocated to New York City from San Diego, where he worked for San Diego Repertory Theatre, serving for many years as the Marketing and Development Manager.  A seasoned professional with experience in audience development, he received his degree at the University of Little Rock in Arkansas.

Rob Weinstein
Business Manager

Katherine Carter
Program Administrator

By Telephone: (212) 244-9494