JIM KLEINMANN, he/him, co-founded PlayGround in 1994, along with playwright Brighde Mullins and director Denise Shama, and has served as Artistic Director since 1996. For PlayGround, he has provided artistic and administrative leadership for the past twenty-four seasons, developing PlayGround’s unique array of new playwright and new play incubator programs, including Monday Night PlayGround, the PlayGround Festival of New Works, the full-length play Commissioning Initiative, the New Play Production Fund, Potrero Stage: PlayGround Center for New Plays, and most recently the Innovator Incubator. For PlayGround, he has directed more than one hundred short and full-length plays, including works by Garret Jon Groenveld, Aaron Loeb, Geetha Reddy, Lauren Yee, Katie May, and many others. Recent directing and dramaturgy credits include David Steele’s Vignettes on Love and Ruben Grijalva’s Value Over Replacement. He is a veteran arts administrator with more than thirty years of experience, including stints leading Traveling Jewish Theatre, Smuin Ballet and Berkeley Symphony, and received his MFA from the Yale School of Drama.

Tell Me What Happened features the music of Susan Salidor.

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Gaby is a born and bred North Carolinian currently living in Baltimore with her partner and two cats. She is a publicist at Quirk Books and the digital projects coordinator for Witch Please Productions, where she is the video editor and associate producer for Making Worlds. She is a writer, home cook, and storyteller, and she wants to make you laugh.

Tell Me What Happened features the music of Susan Salidor.

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Music is the medium, and helping students feel seen and valued is the goal. This is the fuel behind Maize Elementary School teacher Katie Todd’s music instruction to kindergarten through fourth grade students.

Katie earned her Bachelors of Music Education in 2012 from Kansas State University. She continued her education by pursuing a Masters of Music Education degree at her alma mater, graduating in 2017. Todd is in her twelfth year of teaching and currently teaches in Maize USD 266, where she is admired by colleagues, parents, and students alike.

Katie finds much of the inspiration for lessons from her time spent with her two young daughters, Olivia and Charlotte, and her husband.Being a mother gives her insight into what families need from their educators to help them connect and bond. Additionally, she teaches private oboe lessons, is a New Teacher Mentor, and collaborates with Kansas State University to support new and future Elementary Music Teachers. In January of 2024 Todd was recognized as a Music for All: Advocacy in Action award winner for the Elementary Excellence category. She received this for her efforts over the past three years to connect students and their families with Kindie music artists through their grade level performances. She was also selected as the 2024 Elementary Teacher of the Year Nominee for USD266.

In August of 2024 Katie released her first single Chickadee under the artist name “Katie T”. Her entrance into the Kindie music world came after encouragement received from friends and family as well as members of the Children’s Music Network. She was fortunate to work with Bret Turner and Ian Walters of The Tallest Kid in the Room on this release. The song can be heard on all streaming platforms.

Katie loves building relationships with her students and families and is passionate about helping them connect to each other and finding a deeper understanding of themselves through music. This quote can be found on the wall of her classroom: “ This is why I teach music…not because I expect you to major in music, not because I expect you to play or sing all your life, not so you can relax, not so you can have fun, but so you will be human, so you will recognize beauty, so you will be closer to an infinite beyond this world, so you will have something to clog to, so you will have more love, more compassion, more gentleness, more good. In short, more life.” - author unknown

Chickadee by Katie Todd

Tell Me What Happened features the music of Susan Salidor.

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Martin Ross a nonprofiit leader who specializes in forming Trifectas for community transformation and continues to add to his “10,000” hours in areas of workforce development, partnerships, external affairs and community engagement. In Spanish, he likes to call himself a “puente” or bridge/bridge builder. As an appointed person in Sacramento County, he serves as a chairman, commissioner, or committee member, and is a candidate for school board for the San Juan Unified School District Area 4. For more on the good that he is doing in the neighborhood in practical, compassionate, and innovative ways please follow him on social media and/or go to his website at www.electmartinross.com

Tell Me What Happened features the music of Susan Salidor.

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Alex Kingsley (they/them) is a writer, comedian, game designer, and playwright. They are a co-founder of the new media company Strong Branch Productions, where they write and direct sci-fi comedy podcast The Stench of Adventure and other shows. Their debut novel Empress of Dust will be published by Space Wizard Science Fantasy in Fall 2024. Their short fiction has appeared in Translunar Travelers Lounge, Radon Journal, The Storage Papers, and more. In 2023 they published their short story collection, The Strange Garden and Other Weird Tales. Alex’s sci-fi plays have been produced in LA, Philadelphia, and Chicago. Alex’s SFF-related non-fiction has appeared in Interstellar Flight Magazine and Ancillary Review of Books. Their games can be downloaded pay-what-you-will at alexyquest.itch.io.

Tell Me What Happened features the music of Susan Salidor.

More information about Susan Salidor can be found at her website

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Ken Trung Tang, the first Vietnamese refugee elected to the Alhambra Unified School District Board of Education in California uses his 27 years teaching experience to guide his new roles as a public servant.

Ken Tang has devoted his life to public education and social justice, advocating for students, families, and teachers as a public school teacher, community volunteer, and labor leader. His special areas of focus are building educational equity, inclusion, and linguistic diversity; developing mental health supports for students and staff; and expanding community relationships.

The first in his family to graduate from high school and college, Tang earned a bachelor’s degree in child development, his multiple subject teaching credential and Master in Educational Leadership at the California State University, Los Angeles. Tang began his teaching career in the Garvey School District in 1997, and he currently serveson the Alhambra Unified School District’s Board of Education.

Tang is active in his local teachers’ union, the Garvey Education Association, a delegatein the California Teachers Association’s State Council of Education, and past Board of Director of the National Education Association.An active member of the community, Tang serves as a merit badge counselor for the San Gabriel Valley Boy Scouts of America and is involved with the Asian Pacific American Labor Alliance (APALA).

Tell Me What Happened features the music of Susan Salidor.

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Victoria Oltarsh is a native New Yorker who grew up playing in Central Park while visiting her grandparents living across the street. Now a mother and grandmother herself, she feels most comfortable in the delightful company of children. Victoria has spent her thirty-five-year career directing original and classical plays, teaching rapid-fire-Improv, and story theater, She is a published lyricist on the song, “Lucky Charm,” produced by Grover Washington Jr. on Atlantic Records. Victoria also received an individual artist grant from The Arts Council of Rockland. Her adaptations of classical fairy tales have been performed for students by an adult touring company at school assembly programs. Whether as a teaching artist working for Arts in Ed agencies in underserved NYC public schools, or teaching in private schools, summer programs, and art centers, she loves encouraging children to find their inner voice by expressing themselves through the creative arts. Inspired by the universal wonder of the mystery of looking up at the stars as a child, she is so excited to be a debut author and share her middle-grade space fantasy adventure chapter book, The Boy and the Secret of the Stars, with all.

The Boy and the Secret of the Stars by Victoria Oltarsh

Tell Me What Happened features the music of Susan Salidor.

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Lisa’s 38-year career in finance has gone from investment banking to microfinance to shareholder activism and corporate accountability. Most recently Lisa was the Director of Investor Engagement at Majority Action, where she led a team supporting institutional investors in addressing racial inequity and climate change in their portfolio companies and service providers. She has lived in Brazil, Argentina and Mexico and holds an MBA from NYU and an undergraduate degree from Georgetown.

Tell Me What Happened features the music of Susan Salidor.

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Jill Hopkins is the Director of Civic Events and New Media for Metro Chicago and Gman Tavern in Chicago. She's served as the host of several podcasts, including Making Beyonce for WBEZ and The Opus for the Consequence Podcast Network, and was a radio personality for CHIRP and Vocalo Radio for over ten years.

`Tell Me What Happened features the music of Susan Salidor.

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Eric is driven by a single, fundamental question: how do we transform how power and resources are shared in our economy, while centering those who have been systematically excluded?

Eric mobilizes resources for underserved communities as both an investor and an educator. He is Vice President for Community-engaged Investing at Earlystone Management, a family office. He also leads an initiative at Harvard Law School focused on supporting labor pension fund trustees advocate for more responsible investing at their Funds.

Previously, Eric served as the Director of Impact Investments at Common Future, where he led the organization's impact-first investments by-for-and-with communities of color. Before, he was at Transform Finance, where he led educational initiatives for activists and organizers exploring paths for their communities to better engage with capital. He’s also worked at the Woodcock Foundation, where he supported the organization’s grantmaking and impact investments.

Eric serves on multiple boards and investment committees (New York Foundation, UUCEF, Invest Appalachia) and teaches “Capital for Good: Finance, Investment and Social Justice” to graduate students at CUNY.

A former Fulbright Grantee, Eric earned his MPA from Syracuse University and his MBA from NYU. He calls Brooklyn home.

Tell Me What Happened features the music of Susan Salidor.

More information about Susan Salidor can be found at her website

Get Susan Salidor’s One Little Act of Kindness Children’s Book

Get Susan Salidor’s I’ve Got Peace in My Fingers Children’s Book

More Information about other quality publications from our sponsor can be found on Sidelineinkpublishing.com