Directors
MARK KENWARD
Mark is a director, producer, writer, and performer of solo theater. He has directed over 100 one-person shows, including thirteen that have had runs at The Marsh, and many more that have won awards from international fringe festivals and Bay Area theater groups. He is the producer and co-director of The Formerly Incarcerated People's Performance Project, which helps formerly incarcerated people develop and perform their true stories on stage. FIPPP is the first-ever company-in-residence at Berkeley Repertory Theatre. Additional work as a producer includes a four-year stint as Managing Director and Director of Artist Relations at The Marsh, one of the premier venues in the world for solo theater. As a performer, Kenward has created eight one-person shows, touring his work throughout the US and Canada, including a reception for The U.S. House of Representatives, receiving critical recognition as “a commanding storyteller” and “a master of the craft”. Other kudos include: Marsh 25th Anniversary All-Star Performer (2015), Best of SF Solo Series (2015), and being selected as a Titan mentor by Theatre Bay Area (2021). As a teacher, he has taught The Elements of Solo Performance and The Gift of Your Show, and is currently writing a book for all creative-minded people titled Energy for Creatives. For more information, visit MarkKenward.com and EnergyforCreatives.com
MARK MCGOLDRICK
Before working with FIPPP, Mark had a career at the Alameda County Public Defender’s Office where he represented people in the criminal courts. Mark is also a Co-Producer of Tell It On Tuesday, a monthly solo performance showcase held at the Marsh Berkeley Theater.
Mark started performing publicly in the early 2000s, presenting spoken-word pieces about the people who populate the world of indigent criminal defense. His first full-length show was The Golden Hammer at The Marsh Theater, San Francisco in 2005, and reprised at The Marsh Berkeley in 2016. The Golden Hammer was followed by Countercoup in 2007 at The Marsh, San Francisco, and reprised in a four-part live-online version at The Marsh in 2021. He has performed shorter pieces over the years at various Bay Area venues.
Working with FIPPP brings together two of Mark’s passions: solo performance and advocating for criminal justice. He loves collaborating with performers to bring stories from their lives to the stage, often stories showing sides of the carceral system that get overlooked in mainstream media.
REBECCA FISHER
Rebecca has directed critically acclaimed shows in national and international fringe festivals, regional theaters, as well as several full-length runs at The Marsh. Rebecca is s co-producer of the monthly storytelling series Tell it on Tuesday. She began her solo works as a writer and performer in a David Ford class in 2005. Her first show The Magnificence of the Disaster was described as “smart, challenging, and unmistakably affecting” by the SF Chronicle, and her second piece Memphis on my Mind won a San Francisco Best of Fringe award. Before working in the solo world, she directed many youth theater camps with Julia Morgan Center for the Arts and The Marsh Youth Theater. When she isn’t involved in solo work, Rebecca is a paraeducator at Wildwood Elementary and involved in family life with her husband and two high school sons.
WAYNE HARRIS
Wayne is an award-winning solo performer, writer, educator, curriculum innovator and musician. His plays include Mother’s Milk, The May Day Parade and Jockamo. His last production Train Stories was critically acclaimed earning a Bay Area Broadway nomination and an extended sold-out run. A gifted artist with wide ranging interests Wayne is passionate about storytelling that combines his lived experience with hopeful declarations for the future. Wayne was invited by the U.S. State Department to travel to the Middle East and perform his play, The Letter; Martin Luther King at the Crossroads. From this experience, he developed his one man show, Drapetomania: A Subversive Journey to Activism, which debuted at the Marsh Berkeley in fall 2025. Having just retired from being Program Director for The Marsh Youth Theater in San Francisco, serving underprivileged students in after-school programs, Wayne now travels extensively throughout the U.S. providing “Improvisation & Performance” workshops for Youth Pageantry groups (marching bands, dance teams etc.) In addition, he is currently a facilitator for FIPPP, an exciting and important project guiding formerly incarcerated adults in creating, producing and performing their stories and partnering with Berkeley Rep in bringing storytelling to programs in San Francisco Jails.
Coaches
CANDACE JOHNSON
Candace is a singer, actress, and educator, as well as the Director of the UC Berkeley Gospel Choir. She is versatile and equally comfortable performing in opera, musical theater, GOSPEL, and jazz. In 2018, Johnson premiered her first one-woman show, VOX in a BOX– the musical biography of how she found her “voice”. And she has performed seven original shows since then and continues to develop new work. In 2025, her show Scat-ter Brain: The Music of ADHD debuted at The Marsh Theater in Berkeley. It was hailed as “a tour-de-force” in Stage & Cinema. She came to FIPPP with her skills as a voice instructor for the Power of Storytelling Master Class series and continues to work with the FIPPP Fellows. You can learn more about Candace at cjsings.com.
DAN HOYLE
Dan is an actor and writer whose brand of immersion research theater has been hailed as "riveting, funny and poignant" (New York Times) and "hilarious, moving and very necessary" (Salon). His solo shows TAKES ALL KINDS, BORDER PEOPLE, EACH AND EVERY THING, THE REAL AMERICANS and TINGS DEY HAPPEN have toured the country and overseas including The Public Theater, Culture Project, Baltimore Center Stage, Berkeley Rep, Cleveland Playhouse, Mosaic Theater Company (D.C.), Portland Center Stage, Pure Theater (Charleston, SC), Playmakers Rep, Painted Bride (Philly), San Miguel de Allende, Mexico, Kolkata, India, Dublin, Ireland, Swansea, Wales, and a five-city tour of Nigeria. Hoyle has been recognized with many awards, including the Will Glickman, Prize of Hope, Bay Area Theater Critics Circle, and multiple TBA awards. He holds a double degree in Performance Studies and History from Northwestern University and was a Fulbright Scholar in Nigeria in 2005-2006.
DYLAN RUSSELL
Dylan is a director, educator, new play developer and community engagement specialist whose passion for interactive storytelling has influenced her work with schools and organizations such as Berkeley Repertory Theatre, Laguna Playhouse, American Conservatory Theatre, Berkeley Repertory Theatre, Oakland Public Schools, and TheatreFIRST. Dylan is the Associate Director of the School of Theatre at Berkeley Rep and has led the creation of the BRT Transformational Arts Program in SF Jails with FIPPP Artists. Dylan has served as Director of Education & Community Engagement at Laguna Playhouse and Founding Drama Director & Theatre Teacher at Jewish Community High School of the Bay, where she directed/produced over 45 productions, twice performed at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, Scotland.
JOYFUL RAVEN
Joyful is an award-winning actor, director, and "story midwife" known for her powerful and thought-provoking solo shows. Born into an iconic political theater family, she has been creating theater for as long as she can remember. Her first solo comedy, Tales of a Sexual Tomboy, won Best of the Fringe at the 2016 San Francisco International Fringe Festival and had an Off-Broadway run in 2017. Her current show, Breed or Bust, recently completed an extended solo out run at The Marsh in Berkeley and was named a 'Critics' Pick' by the San Francisco Chronicle after receiving critical acclaim at the 2023 Edinburgh Fringe Festival, where it was nominated for an Offie. The show was also nominated for Best Comedy at the 2022 Hollywood International Fringe Festival, receiving a Producer’s Encore Award and a Gold Medal from TV-olution. Raven has acted alongside big names such as Will Smith in The Pursuit of Happyness, directed and mentored hundreds of storytellers, co-founded Rococo Risqué, and co-authored four plays for the Prize of Hope-winning company Human Nature. She holds an MFA from UC Davis and teaches solo theater and storytelling at the Berkeley Rep School of Theater and at the Marsh.
Ops
MICHELLE MITCHELL
Michelle has been a nonprofit director and event producer in the Bay Area for more than 25 years. She is a writer (and ghostwriter) with a background in dramaturgy and the arts and has worked with Bay Area organizations such SFSketchfest; Speechless, Inc.; the California College of the Arts; the Z Space Studio; the Craftsmanship Initiative, and now FIPPP. Michelle has focused on supporting organizations that are making our big blue marble in space a little bit better, smarter, or funnier. And she's pleased to help FIPPP grow as the Director of Ops, Communications, and Development. She is currently shopping around her first novel, My Chop Saw Dress, and produces custom silly, stealth education books for kids as the owner of Tales of Hugger-Muggery. You can learn more about her meeting Roald Dahl, her accidental start as a ghostwriter, and silly side hustles at: michelleomirth.com