ADVISORS for the LGBTQ+ Artists Archive Project
Pick Up Performance Co., Inc. October 2024
BRUCE ALLARDICE is Executive Director Emeritus of the multidisciplinary Ping Chong + Company and led the organization from 1988-2022.
JEREMY BLOCKER recently left New York Theatre Workshop as Executive Director after nearly a decade, for a new producing position at Audible Theater.
KEN CERNIGLIA Co-founder of the American Archive Theatre Project is a veteran dramaturg, writer, and creative executive. He was dramaturge for the Broadway hits Hadestown (8 Tony Awards, including Best Musical) and Peter and the Starcatcher (5 Tony Awards).
ROBERT CROONQUEST is the Founder of New York Youth Arts, he taught multicultural, interdisciplinary global literature and culture for 20 years with the City University of New York’s Gateway Institute. He is a facilitator of the work of Harry Hay, Joanna Macy, and Anna Halprin’s Planetary Dance. He is a founding member of NYCAN (the New York Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons) and a respected LGBTQIA community activist.
PATSY GAY has been an Associate Archivist at Jacob’s Pillow since 2017. Previously, Patsy was the Archivist and Associate Producer for Ain Gordon and David Gordon’s Pick Up Performance Co., and David Gordon’s archive is now in the permanent collection of the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts. As an Archival/Preservation Technician Fellow with the Dance Heritage Coalition, she also worked with Dance Theatre of Harlem, Eiko & Koma, and Lar Lubovitch Dance Company.
CRAIG HENSALA is a consultant, arts administrator, and producer with extensive experience producing contemporary art and performance projects. For more than 25 years, he has been deeply engaged with multiple creative communities in New York City, including the visual arts, performance, and arts education. For the last 10 years, he has worked with a number of artists and artist estates on legacy planning.
TANISHA JONES is an independent audio and moving image archivist and project manager. Since 2022, Jones has served as a freelance producer for the Criterion Collection and is currently serving as an independent project manager for the Jerome Robbins Foundation. From 2007-2022, Jones worked for the Jerome Robbins Dance Division at the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts. In her nearly 15 years at the Dance Division, she served for 9 years as the Director of the Jerome Robbins Archive of Audio and the Recorded Moving Image and for 51⁄2 years as the Assistant Curator.
SHARON LEHNER has been the Director of Archives at the Brooklyn Academy of Music since 1988.
LINDA MURRAY Linda Murray is curator of the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts Jerome Robbins Dance Division and manages all aspects of its collections and public service. She has previously worked with the dance collections at the Library of Congress and ran a multi-disciplinary arts organization in Washington, DC for seven years.
TIFFANY NIXON is Director of Archives at Roundabout Theatre Company. She is on the Executive Board of SIBMAS (International Association of Libraries, Museums, Archives and Documentation Centers of the Performing Arts) and is on the Steering Committee of the American Theatre Archive Project.
LIBBY SMIGEL has been the Dance Curator and Archivist in the Music Division of the Library of Congress for the past nine years. Formerly the Executive Director of the Dance Heritage Coalition (2009-2015), she headed grants designed to safeguard and share the United States' dance legacies, including projects that developed strategies to digitize archival materials and recordings for access and long-term preservation.
NOREEN WHYSEL of Digital Fish is a digital innovator, entrepreneur, and advisor who specializes in creating trusted, understandable information spaces, digital archives, and accessible technology standards. She develops and manages product integrity strategy, information policy, design operations, and training and advises on usability and sustainability on several technology working groups.