The Young Shakespeareans

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ALISON KORMAN Artistic Director / Founder

Alison is an entrepreneur and classically trained actor who, after working in Mexico and Senegal, returned to New York City's Metropolitan Opera and 92nd Street Y before founding her own arts management company, Korman+Company. During 25 years procuring and producing $5 million annually in still photography, she simultaneously performed off-Broadway and in various theatrical venues abroad. Living in Los Angeles since 1997, she has served as an Account Director for the Taproot Foundation, performed for hundreds of schoolchildren with the LA Assistance League’s Nine O’Clock Players, and began teaching Shakespeare to Title 1 elementary school children in South Los Angeles in 2009. She conceived the idea for The Young Shakespeareans Program in 2010, officially founded the organization in 2017, and has developed its curriculum in the conviction that unleashing the awareness and potential of Title 1 public school children transforms their lives while serving the broader community. Alison continues to perform in theatre, film and television. She received her degree in Special Education and Foreign Language from Washington University in St. Louis.

of John Adams Middle School

The Young Shakespeareans

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ELSA GIBSON BRADEN

Elsa is a Scenic and Production Designer with theatre credits including "shakespeare's as u like it", "Othello", "Alma", "Red Speedo", "The Swallow and the Tomcat", "Latinos Who Look Like Ricky Martin", and the east coast premiere of "Testmatch" (canceled due to COVID-19). She served as the Production Designer on the short film "An Occurrence at Arverne", and as an Art Department Assistant and Clearance Coordinator on multiple television shows including "The Deuce" (HBO), "The Sinner" (NBCU), "Gotham" (WB), and "Elementary" (CBS). Elsa holds a BA in Theater (minor in Philosophy) from Barnard College, an MFA in Scenic Design from the Yale School of Drama, and is a 2020 recipient of the Donald and Zorka Oenslager Fellowship Award in Design. She wrote the curriculum for The Young Shakespeareans Virtual Program Scenic Design component, and is excited to deliver it to the students at John Adams Middle School in Spring 2021.