Board Members
Marcela Brondo • President
Actress, narrator, theater director and promoter of culture, Marcela Brondo studied dance at INBA, theater at the National Association of Actors (ANDA), and music at the National Conservatory of Music. In 2012, she moved to San Miguel de Allende, and collaborated with institutions such as El Sindicato Cultural Center and the San Miguel Playhouse. She is co-founder and creative director of the bilingual theater company La Troupe México, and co-producer of the digital platform smapodcast.com.
In 2018, she directed the Latin American premiere of Stephanie Alison Walker’s Las Madres, with a sold-out run that attracted a half-Mexican and half-expatriate audience. Since 2020, she has directed and narrated numerous episodes of the podcast program Parnassus Project, and in August 2022, she directed El Codex Romanoff by Estela Leñero, in radio theater format, for the 2022 FASMA Arts Festival.
Phoebe Greyson • Treasurer
A founding member of the San Miguel Playhouse, and for eight years its executive director, Phoebe Greyson studied theatre at Brooklyn College in New York in the 60s, where she was also a member of a small repertory company. During her decade and a half in San Miguel, she has been active as a director, producer and actor in numerous productions, at the San Miguel Playhouse and other venues. In 2014 she produced and performed in Broadway Babes, the second production and first musical at the Playhouse.
Her acting credits include roles in Master Class, Lettice and Lovage, The Year of Magical Thinking, Moonlight and Magnolias, Under Milk Wood, Taking Sides, Comedy Tonight: The Lighter Side of Stephen Sondheim, and Talking Heads, a collection of Alan Bennett monologues, which she also directed. Her reading of Truman Capote’s short story “Miriam” was the inaugural offering of the Parnassus Project podcast.
Gerardo Charreton • Secretary
Gerardo Charreton has been a sound engineer and lighting designer for the past 30 years, with projects in Michoacan and other states of Mexico. He has worked regularly on the San Miguel Playhouse productions since the original theater opened in 2014.
A graduate of the University of Guadalajara, with degrees in audiovisual production, film and media, Gerardo is one of the most sought-after sound and lighting technicians in San Miguel. During the Covid lockdown, he recorded all the Parnassus Project programs for SMA Podcast, and his credits for live theater include the majority of productions at the Playhouse. Previously, as a freelance sound engineer in Morelia, he designed and configured sound systems for auditoriums, theaters and schools, and provided expert technical assistance in the field of specialized microphones.
Associates
Fredric Dannen
Journalist, playwright and screenwriter, Fredric Dannen is a former staff writer for The New Yorker and Vanity Fair, and author of Hit Men, a nonfiction bestseller about the American record industry, which ranked second on Billboard magazine’s list of “The 100 Greatest Music Books of All Time.” His New Yorker article on a Chinese gang was turned into a feature film co-produced by Martin Scorsese. He has worked as a writer on movie and television projects with Nick Pileggi, David Black and Michael Jaffe.
With Marcela Brondo, he co-founded La Troupe México and SMA Podcast. His directing credits include Arthur Miller’s The Price at the Shelter Theater, Tooth and Claw and Lost in Yonkers at the San Miguel Playhouse, and Taking Sides for Playreaders, at St. Paul’s Church.
Lee Duberman
Multitalented Lee Duberman has been acting, singing, directing and choreographing for over 40 years. In San Miguel she has directed Little Shop of Horrors, Victoria Roberts’ one woman show and Roads and Roles of Comedy, six comic sketches by Harold Dean James, along with other short plays and readings. At the San Miguel Playhouse, she co-starred in The Roommate, and conceived and directed Comedy Tonight: The Lighter Side of Stephen Sondheim. For JC3/CHESMA, she directed Summer Night with Unicorn, and co-created and performed in The Letters Project, dramatic readings of historic correspondence.
A graduate of the Culinary Institute of America, Lee is also a chef/restauranteur, and along with her husband, Richard Fink, owns Casa Papaya San Miguel.
Judy Newell
A founding member of the San Miguel Playhouse, and widow of past president and artistic director Jim Newell, Judy began acting in Montgomery at age 14, and studied theater at the University of Alabama. She became a travel professional, and pioneered tourism in the Galapagos Islands, Ecuador, where she lived for seventeen years. In 1986, Judy moved to Los Angeles, resumed her acting studies with Tony Barr and David Paymer, and became a member of AFTRA and the Screen Actors Guild. She acted in television commercials, soap operas, and theater, and met her future husband. The Newells settled in San Miguel in 2006.
Judy has starred in numerous Players Workshop and San Miguel Playhouse productions, including Driving Miss Daisy, Steel Magnolias, It Had To Be You and Spoon River Anthology.
Alzenira (Lady Zen) Quezada
Alzenira Santos Amaral de Quezada, also known as Lady Zen, is a Brazilian-born vocalist, poet, actor and composer. A Fulbright scholar raised in Arkansas, with opera training and a talent for soul, gospel, jazz and blues, Zen’s powerful mezzo-soprano voice has been the headline feature of sold-out concerts in San Miguel, Puerto Vallarta and elsewhere. Like many artists who grew up in the south, Zen began singing in church, performing in the revival circuit. Zen has a BA in Music Business Management and an MFA in Creative Writing.
Lady Zen has been commissioned to create original compositions by The Holocaust Museum in D.C., Art Not Hate, The Institute for Civic Leadership, Creative Portland and the Maine Chapter of the NAACP. In 2020, in collaboration with the former TheatreFirst in San Francisco, Lady Zen wrote and performed in the autobiographical film What’s in a Name, directed by Jon Tracy. The film has won over thirty awards since its festival debut in 2021.
Josefina Valentini
A graduate of the University Theater Center CUT/UNAM, top-ranked theater professional Josefina Valentini has been a resident of San Miguel de Allende for more than 20 years. A welcome new addition to the San Miguel Playhouse asamblea — general assembly — she has been most closely associated with El Sindicato Cultural Center, as a teacher and actress. Josefina has performed in Improfighters under the direction of Cristian Zaid, as well as Dios nos coge confessionados, A Dog in an Alien Neighborhood and An Afternoon Without God, directed by Jesusa Rodríguez and Damián Alcázar.
At the San Miguel Playhouse, under the direction of Marcela Brondo, she acted in El Codex Romanoff, and narrated Angeles Mastretta’s short story “La tía Daniela” for Parnassus Project.