An award-winning actor, director, playwright, and teacher, Blake studied early in his career with Sanford Meisner and William Esper at the Neighborhood Playhouse School in NYC. In New York he played Mark in the original, now historic, production of Doric Wilson’s The West Street Gang and a dozen other original productions Off Off Broadway. His first play Eb & Flo (co-written with Amy Whitman) was produced at the Walnut Street Theater in Philadelphia. He traveled throughout FL, GA, AL, SC, and NC with FST’s first “Write-A-Play” Workshop introducing playwriting to nearly 20,000 middle and high school students culminating in the Edward Albee Young Playwrights Festival. He helped develop the original PLAYERS PERFORMING ARTS SCHOOL housed on Main Street in Sarasota and became the Director of Acting and Musical Theater. He created a curriculum for students aged 5-80 years, encouraged other artists to teach and present workshops, and taught acting and playwriting for teens and adults. Together with Deb Lombard he developed a summer musical theater camp for teens at the Players Theater. His workshop “That’s My Story And I’m Sticking To It”, encourages others to write solo plays based on life stories. He wrote and performed his first solo play Leading Men (2013 United Solo Festival Award “Best Premiere”) after performing Ann Morrison’s Trevor’s Fire (2012 United Solo Festival Award “Best Premiere”) in the United Solo Festival in NYC. Directing credits include: 42nd Street, Big River, Singin' In The Rain, Marvin's Room, Jest A Second, You're a Good Man Charlie Brown, Babes In Arms, his play The Better Man (Chain Fest NY, Awards: "Best Ensemble" "Best Supporting Actress", Noms: "Best Play", "Best Director"); many solo plays including: Ann Morrison in Linda Lovely Goes to Broadway and Word Painting; Heather Massie in Hedy! The Life and Inventions of Hedy Lamarr. Locally as an actor he has appeared at FST in The Sum of Us and Veronica's Position; Theater Works, Sarasota in I Do, I Do! with Ann Morrison (Best Actor /Musical Sarasota Magazine Award, HANDY and SAMMY Nom.) and as Bette Davis in Me and Jezebel ( Best Actor SAMMY Award); at The Golden Apple in Oklahoma!, It's a Wonderful Life: the Musical, Stop The World..., Forum, Funny Money, Don't Dress For Dinner, Anything Goes and in the Golden Apple Tour of Sweet Charity; The Players (as a Guest Artist) Anything Goes, Into the Woods, City of Angels, Rags, Sweeny Todd. Tampa Bay: Dirty Blonde (American Stage), Snakebit (Gorilla Theater), Jeffrey, Kiss of the Spider Woman, and Me and Jezebel (Central Stage). He is a proud member of AEA, SAG/AFTRA and United Solo Academy.

http://www.blakewalton.net/

Maren is a Sarasota native and during her high school years she was a part of the Booker High Visual Performing Arts program, as well as a member of the Sarasota Youth Opera, which she continued to support as a member of their educational staff when she was in college. She was a dwarf in The Hobbit and a choir boy in Tosca, as well as a number of other productions. Maren has participated in a number of productions of Shakespeare, in which she had the honor of playing Richard III in Henry VI Part 3 and Volumnia in Coriolanus. Last year she was a part of the 2018 Tampa International Fringe Festival as Macbeth in Weyward Sisters which won Best in Fringe as well as Tech’s Choice Award. Maren went to school for English and Theatre at Warren Wilson College where she worked both in the theater office and backstage in multiple forms for a dozen productions over two years, including as Stage Manager for The Importance of Being Earnest. This past year she was the Operations Assistant and Assistant Stage Manager for the 2018 SaraSolo Festival.

Ed's work life began in finance. After making a switch into the printing industry he gained experience in all areas of that business including design, production and binding, eventually working with a wide variety of magazine publishers including Newsweek, American Girl Scout, and Camera 35. In a career switch, after moving from New Hampshire, he worked for the Boston Public Library, helping patrons solve their library problems.

Kim has more than 25 years of experience in branding, marketing, advertising, public relations and grantwriting. Her non-profit and public clients have included Ford Motor Company Fund; Goodwill Industries of Greater New York and New Jersey; the National Action Council for Minorities in Engineering; the DC School System, and the Hebrew Educational Society (HES), as well as many state governments and entities.

For the HES in Brooklyn, she wrote and secured a $1-million-plus grant to the New York City Department of Education for the non-profit to expand its programs, services, and reach to at-risk and minority youth, as well as senior citizens from all walks of life.

She has deep experience in entrepreneurship, organizational strategy, and change management. In her current role, she owns and operates several successful small businesses including The Reserve SRQ (www.thereservesrq.com) and Cressell Simmons Development Group (primarily real estate development). She also provides consulting services to help C-level executives & executive teams envision, develop, & launch transformational initiatives to help meet organizational objectives.

Formerly, she was a senior communications consultant for Aon Hewitt, a global consulting company. She also served as Global Communications lead for a company with 60,000 employees across more than 20 countries. Her career experience includes: AT&T; Aon/AonHewitt; Arm & Hammer; Bayer Pharmaceuticals; Bloomin' Brands (Outback Steakhouse); Campbell Soup Company; Cheer; Coca-Cola/Sprite; Ford Motor Company Fund; Frigidaire; General Motors (Saab); HP; Kohl's; Kraft; Lilly; Nordstrom; Office Depot; PNC Bank; Paychex; Pepperidge Farm Goldfish; Procter & Gamble; Swanson Broth; SYKES; VELVEETA, Walmart, & more.

Additionally, Kim has supported other non-profit organizations with leadership, time, funding, in-kind donations, and resources, including: American Heart Association; Embrace Our Differences (formerly Coexistence); Equality Florida, and the Sarasota Film Festival.

She is a certified Change Management professional and real estate developer, and has written for books, magazines, newspapers, and weeklies.

Carol earned her B.S. from Cornell University and M.ED from NYU in Educational Theater. After an early career in children's theater and then film production, she was partner and Creative Director at NYC ad agencies managing accounts such as Barclays Bank, DeBeers Diamonds and T. Rowe Price.

After producing and marketing educational videos she joined educational media giant Scholastic Corporation, and while there won several AD Age awards. Stints as General Manager and VP Marketing for Harcourt, Houghton Mifflin and McGraw-Hill followed.

"Retiring" from educational publishing, Carol became Marketing Director for Algonquin Regional Theater in NJ. Currently she is President of Wolf Executive Search, recruiting talent for top Ed Tech publishers nationwide. Carol has been a Board Member of Zilker Theatre in Austin and has served on Marketing Committees for Austin Library, Austin Lyric Opera and West Coast Theatre.

Working with schools and other organizations in Sarasota our new pilot program brings together 20 middle school students with 20, 60+ adults over the course of 15 weeks. The generations are paired one-on-one and hone skills such as ‘active listening”, "creative interviewing,” storytelling, and writing. The program will culminate in profound performances from both generations in October.