Board Nominees and Voting

2026 PTO Board Nominees listed below!

Jim Aherne
May Boucher
Evren Wilder Elliott*
Adam Frank
Talia Gritzmacher
Amelia Hartman
Fjollë/a Hoxha*
Jude Tantay
DeOnyae-Dior Valentina*
James Walsh*

*Current board member seeking reelection to the board.

How Voting Works

The PTO Board has a total capacity of 15 elected board members. For this election term, 2026-2028, each PTO Member will be able to vote on the website for up to eight (8) nominees.  Voting will begin on Wednesday, August 19, 2026, and continues through Friday, August 28, 2026, 11:59pm Central Daylight Time (Chicago). The eight nominees with the most votes will be elected to the board for the 2026-2028 term.

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Click Here to Submit Your Vote!

Jim Aherne

Galway, Ireland.

Statement of Interest:  Membership of the PTO board will enhance my desire to work with board members to promote TO and applied theatre. I see my main strength is organisation with enthusiasm and persistence.

I have been involved community arts for 50+ years. In 2010, after research on Theatre of the Oppressed, I founded Theatre for Change. Galway (TforCG) of which I am the board chairperson. Through the Galway Vocational Education Committee I organised a series of TO workshops using some of the best facilitators including Julian Boal, Sanjoy Ganguly, Adrian Jackson, Gavin Crichton among others and a large number of projects. Through these we developed a team of excellent facilitators.

TforCG’s main object is that through the medium of Applied Drama, we provide opportunities for cultural education, creative engagement and intercultural dialogue regarding social issues that impact on the quality of people’s lived experiences, through support for creative expression, capacity-building and self -advocacy.

I am also a board member of Blue Drum, a specialist support agency, which nurtures  arts and cultural work nationwide.

Many groups are isolated and in an effort to create links between groups and facilitators I developed the TO WW Network WhatsApp group. Presently there are 300+ participants from all over the world.
In conjunction with some Irish applied theatre groups we set up the TO Ireland Network which has organised TO courses. In order to promote TO we are running an annual festival, the first was held in Drogheda last year, the next in Galway this December.

May Boucher

Westerly, Rhode Island, USA

Statement of Interest: Mayday | any/all believes deeply in the power of recreation & re-creation through the praxis of applied theatre & liberatory education. This fundamental value led to their seeking past tenure on the PTO Board where they served previously as Communications Director. Over the past few years they have used theatre as a tool for facilitating education and inclusive practices for other non-profits for queer, trans, polyamorous, and kinky communities. Through this work they have served at The Network/La Red & the LA LGBT Center & the National Advisory Council training other facilitators and guiding professionals in best practices for communities at these intersections of survivorship. They hope to bring this organizing and lens to the movement and help with the incredible activists and communities that bring PTO together.

Evren Wilder Elliott*

Indianapolis, IN, USA

Statement of Interest:

Evren Wilder Elliott loves to tell stories. A transgender facilitator, storyteller, and policy nerd living in Indianapolis, Indiana, Evren has a deep love of playing and dreaming to meet challenges and build community. He has been using TO in his work for over a decade, and attended his first PTO conference in Detroit in 2017. There is no better place to be than surrounded by PTO practitioners from around the world, especially knowing these annual gatherings sow the seeds of liberation in our homes, villages, and cities upon our return. Evren has been honored to have helped plan these gatherings, support practitioners, and dream with the board since first elected in 2021, and is now seeking re-election to another term.

Evren recently completed his MPA, and has spent the last two years working for a national education organization based in DC. While he is still figuring out what comes next, he feels a deep call towards the spiritual, the imaginative, and the subversive. With years of experience across state and local policy, community development, and education, Evren has built a professional life helping people dance together toward shared goals. He has organized across multiple states with HIV, LGBTQ+, city equity, and public-school partners, as well as community based social justice projects funded by Big Car, Indiana University, and the Indiana Arts Commission. If given the opportunity to serve another term on the PTO board, Evren is excited about exploring and supporting further opportunities for connection, shared learning, and cross-national collaboration.

Adam Frank

Conway, Arkansas, USA

Statement of Interest: Greetings from Conway, Arkansas, USA, where I am a professor of interdisciplinary studies in the Schedler Honors College of the University of Central Arkansas. I also continue to work professionally in theatre and film and am a member of both SAG-AFTRA and Actors’ Equity. As a teaching artist/academic, I have been engaged with PTO (although only recently re-engaged as a formal member) for the last decade, primarily through the establishment of a theatre for at-risk youth partnership with the Faulkner County Juvenile Court, here in Arkansas, which has allowed university Honors students to mentor over a hundred 13-17-year-old teens caught in Arkansas’s juvenile justice system. Theatre of the Oppressed lies at the center of the training I put the college students through and informs their everyday work leading theatre workshops for the teens. A second area of application has been the establishment of a social justice-focused theatre company called Ozark Living Newspaper in Little Rock. OLN drew on community concerns to create original radio theatre pieces, stage plays by Arkansas and other playwrights who represented communities at the margin, and generated productive community conversations (particularly among men and transgender Arkansans) about what it means to love.

Regarding what I have to offer, I am an experienced and generally successful grant writer, an experienced editor and conference organizer, and a skilled group facilitator. Most importantly, I am open to filling needs as they arise and very much look forward to working with like-minded artist, activists, scholars, and practitioners. There is so much work to be done in the United States. We need PTO more than ever, and I would very much like to be serving at the center of that process.

Talia Gritzmacher

Columbia, MO, USA

Statement of Interest: Talia Gritzmacher is a PhD Candidate at the University of Missouri (Theatre and Performance Studies) with a heart for Pedagogy and Theatre of the Oppressed work! Research foci include comfort-based theatre practice, embodied learning, devising, and dramatic writing.

I have experience in event/festival management, teaching/workshop development, and general leadership. I have some experience in grant writing and a growing interest in the journal publication process.

I discovered TO roughly eleven years ago and respect for this conference has developed alongside my studies. I see how this conference lights people up in important, kindhearted, meaningful ways. How could I not be a part of that?

Happy to serve in whatever role is needed!

Amelia Hartman

Okabena, Minnesota, USA

Statement of Interest:

I am a licensed clinical social worker with over twelve years of experience across community mental health, disability advocacy, education, and leadership. I am drawn to work that expands access, creates space to explore how power and relationships affect people’s experiences, and navigate systems.
Before starting my own practice, I worked on the leadership team of a growing behavioral health practice, collaborating on operations, policies, budgeting, and strategic planning. These experiences have given me an appreciation for the quiet, unseen work required for organizations to stay healthy, sustainable, and true to their values.

I discovered PTO about four years ago while researching critical pedagogy and Theatre of the Oppressed for my doctoral work on equitable, ethical leadership. I found myself returning to PTO’s website and journal, and two weeks after completing my Doctor of Social Work, I attended my first PTO conference in Omaha. I was as interested in PTO’s behind-the-scenes work as I was about the sessions. After this year’s conference, I knew I wanted to do more than just participate. What started as a place I returned to for ideas has become a living community of people, relationships, and shared practice. I didn’t know a place like PTO existed, and I am so glad it does. I would be honored to serve alongside and learn from the Board while helping care for a community that has come to mean so much to me.

Fjollë/a Hoxha*

Nashville, Tennessee, USA

Statement of Interest:  Operating transnationally between Europe and the United States, based in Nashville, Tennessee, I am a writer, performance maker, and educator whose scholarship and creative practice explore the intersections of memory, lived experience, space, and marginality. Grounded in critical theory and rigorous archival and ethnographic research—including oral histories and personal testimonies—my portfolio spans fiction, dramatic scripts, and cultural criticism. As a cross-media artist, I create site-specific, participatory works that investigate the sociopolitical dimensions of collective and individual interventions in space via placemaking and their mutual impacts.

Additionally, I’m an equity-driven youth development advocate and current Vanderbilt University graduate candidate with over 15 years of international and domestic experience leading inclusive curriculum models for marginalized youth demographics and community-building initiatives. Methodologically, I employ experimental theater and performance art-based research to cultivate critical consciousness and dialogic engagement. Through these frameworks, I aim to amplify marginalized epistemologies and dismantle the psychosocial barriers that impede underserved populations.

I am eager to serve another term as a PTO board member because I believe in PTO’s organizational mission in multiple layers; It corresponds to my understanding of theater and performance art as socially engaged practices aimed at bringing to the forefront crucial social issues and provoking transformative justice through dialogue, praise of diversity and mutual care between all beings. During my second term, I will have an interactive approach and a wider contribution that comes from the learning experience from the previous term as well as my added experience as a practitioner and human being.

Jude Tantay

Ferndale, Michigan, USA

Statement of Interest: I’m Jude Tantay (she/they), and I’m a second generation Filipina-American queer trans woman. Over the past two years, I’ve been deeply moved and inspired by the PTO Conference. I’m excited for the chance to help this organization thrive, and I believe my experience could support the growth and sustainability of PTO. I have a Masters in Applied Theatre from the City University of New York as well as nearly 25 years of experience in the field. As an applied theatre practitioner, I’ve worked on multiple projects – my most prominent work being a director, actor, and writer in Filipino-American productions addressing the effects of acculturation, colonialism, and gender based violence. I was also the co-director of NYC’s TransGenerational Theatre Project in collaboration with SAGE which brought trans elders and young adults together to devise pieces of theatre, sharing wisdom between generations of trans people.

Currently, I’m a co-facilitator with the Trans Advocacy Theatre Collective which will work with trans and gender diverse people in the Detroit Metro area. Throughout my career, I’ve served queer and trans people of color – through both direct service at multiple non-profits and policy work within NYC government. I’ve served on three boards, including the NYC Gay Men’s Chorus and served as the Board Liaison to their youth group. Part-time I work as a non-profit consultant offering executive coaching, strategic planning, development, and grant writing support. Mainly, I work as a social worker and therapist, having received my MSW at University of Michigan.

DeOnyae-Dior Valentina*

Indianapolis, IN, USA

Statement of Interest: My name is DeOnyae-Dior Valentina (she/her/ella), and I am honored to seek re-election to the PTO Board. I am a community organizer, facilitator, and systems strategist whose work centers on advancing equity through lived expertise, popular education, and collective leadership. Across child welfare, HIV advocacy, youth justice, and movement-building spaces, I work alongside communities to challenge oppressive systems and create structures that share power with those most impacted.

Serving on the PTO Board has deepened my appreciation for the organization’s commitment to collective governance, liberatory education, and community accountability. I am seeking another term because I want to continue supporting PTO’s growth while helping strengthen its infrastructure, sustainability, and connections across movements.

Professionally, I serve as Campaign Coordinator at PWN-USA and am the Founder and Principal Strategist of the Center for Lived Futures, where I help organizations build meaningful lived expertise infrastructure. I bring experience in strategic planning, facilitation, communications, social media, grant writing, coalition building, documentation, conference planning, and organizational development. I also bring a collaborative leadership style grounded in listening, consensus-building, and a willingness to contribute wherever the work is needed.

I would be grateful for the opportunity to continue serving the PTO community and advancing our shared commitment to liberation through education, creativity, and collective action.

James Walsh*

Boulder, Colorado, USA

Statement of Interest: My name is James Walsh. I am completing my first 2-year term on the PTO board and am seeking re-election to the board. The skills that I bring to the board are community organizing and connections between the work of PTO and higher education, including the classroom. For the past twenty years, I have organized and run Denver’s Romero Theater Troupe, a radical, organic community theater that uses the stage to preserve erased histories and provide public education about human rights issues. Organizing and maintaining this all-volunteer community was challenging and inspiring and I have a lifetime of skills in my memory that I hope to contribute to the work of PTO. I have used PTO techniques and strategies in my classrooms for nearly 25 years with great success, including in a prison setting and my hope is to attract more educators will a desire to use these kinds of strategies. At the recent PTO conference in Minneapolis, I offered a workshop that was designed and planned by incarcerated students. The workshop was so successful that attendees want to see if offered each year. These are the kinds of contributions that I hope to continue on the board.

 

*Current board member seeking reelection to the board.

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