Gallimaufry Performing Arts

Artistic Personnel

Steve Josephson (Executive Artistic Director)

Steve Josephson has worked professionally as a Producer, Director, Choreographer, Author, Lyricist and Performer for the past twenty years. His critically acclaimed and award winning works have been seen across the country and internationally, and include many American, European and World Premieres by renowned authors.

A native son, Mr. Josephson is a graduate of Laguna Beach High School, and attended USC with scholarships from the Festival of Arts in both Theatre and Dance. His association with USC extended for 20 years as he became a Producer and the Resident Director/Choreographer and a Playwright in Residence with Festival Theatre USC/USA, a repertory company that attends the Edinburgh International Festival Fringe. For Festival Theatre he directed the European premieres of A. R. Gurney's A Perfect Party, Christopher Durang's Sister Mary Ignatius Explains it All for You, Alan Menken's Weird Romance, Harold Arlen and Truman Capote's House of Flowers, William Finn's March of the Falsettos, Kenneth Lonnergan's This is Our Youth, as well as his own production's of Tea & Crumpets and The Aspern Papers.

In 2002 Mr. Josephson began a two-and-a-half year project in conjunction with Lucasfilm, Ltd. He produced the wildly successful production of Star Wars Trilogy in 30 Minutes. SW30 was presented at the Lucasfilm Star Wars Celebration II in Indianapolis, Indiana and then subsequently in Los Angeles for the media release of the Star Wars episode II DVD. Following this production he produced the long-running production at the Coronet Theater in Los Angeles, and finally a performance for Comic-Con at the San Diego Convention Center.

In New York, he wrote, directed and produced the critically acclaimed Off-Broadway farce Some Summer Night which subsequently won the 1992 New American Musical Writers Festival. He also directed productions at NYU and for Circle Repertory. In Los Angeles, he produced and directed the West Coast premiere of Weird Romance, recipient of a Dramalogue Award. For Scottsdale's Ensemble Theatre Company he directed productions of Loot, The Lonesome West and 2 1/2 Jews, which later performed in Baltimore's Gordon Center for the Arts. In San Francisco, his production of Tea & Crumpets, which he produced, directed and authored, won the 1998 San Francisco Bay Area Theatre Critics Circle Award for Best New Musical.

His eclectic background has brought him work crossing beyond normal boundaries. For Fox Sports and Primeticket he wrote and directed the televised USC Inaugural Sports Hall of Fame Induction hosted by Frank Gifford, which included his writing the last public address for former president Ronald Reagan. As a faculty choreographer for USC's Dance Theatre and as an original member of the Lula Washington Dance Theatre, his choreography was chosen as part of the inaugural International Modern Dance Colloquium in Mexico City.

Locally he choreographed both Manet and A Wonderful Life for the Laguna Playhouse and produced and directed Love Letters starring Tom Skerritt and Kathy Baker for the Laguna Art Museum. In May of 2004, Mr. Josephson founded Gallimaufry Performing Arts as the culmination of his work in the performing arts.

Jonelle Allen (Associate Artistic Director for Theatre)

Ms. Allen, who spent six years as Grace, the entrepreneurial post-Civil War frontier café owner in CBS-TV’s Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman, was four years old when she was cast in the revival Wisteria Trees starring Helen Hayes, Ossie Davis, Cliff Robertson and others at the New York City Center Theatre. In the course of the play’s run, Ms. Hayes took Ms. Allen’s Aunt Bea aside and advised her, “Keep this child in the theatre, she has a natural gift.” It wasn’t until some twenty years later at Sardi’s that Jonelle again saw Helen Hayes in person. Ms. Allen was in the spotlight at the famed theatrical hangout awaiting the first reviews following her opening night of the musical Two Gentlemen of Verona, in which she starred and which Ms. Hayes had attended. Rushing up to a great actress and assuming that she would not recognize her, Ms. Allen recounted the circumstances and what Ms. Hayes had said to her Aunt Bea years earlier. Ms. Hayes smiling simply said, “See. I was right.” Ms. Allen received a Tony nomination as "Best Actress in a Musical" and won the Drama Critics, Drama Desk, Theater World, and Outer Circle Awards for her performance as "Silvia" in the New York Shakespeare Festival production. Other Broadway credits include the original casts of Hair and George M!, starring Joel Grey and Bernadette Peters. Ms. Allen has appeared in numerous feature films and television productions including Hotel New Hampshire, Cagney and Lacey, Hill Street Blues, Generations, Twice In A Lifetime for PAX-TV and Strong Medicine for Lifetime Network. Ms. Allen won a Dramalogue Award for her performance of "Aldonza" in Man of La Mancha prior to embarking on the phenomenal run on Dr. Quinn.

Ellen Prince (Associate Artistic Director for Dance)

Ellen Prince has been involved in the dance world for many years and in many capacities. She earned her degree from the University of California at Irvine with a major in Dance. She has both performed and choreographed. Ms. Prince danced professionally on both the East and West Coasts. She danced with the Norman Walker Dance Company in New York, the Ben Howard Company in Los Angeles and has danced in the ensemble of many musicals. She has choreographed in academia and professionally for over twenty years. Ms. Prince has spent most of her choreographic career in California. Some of her credits include original shows at the Santa Monica Civic Auditorium and at the Tiffany Theater in Los Angeles. Ellen has been, and still is, choreographing for the Laguna Playhouse spanning over fifteen seasons where she has had the privilege of choreographing The Secret Garden, The Wizard of Oz, among others. She also choreographed both the pilot and all four seasons of The Great Pretenders for Fox Network in Hollywood. Ellen has choreographed for many Civic Light Opera Companies, such as Saddleback Civic Light Opera. She has served as the resident choreographer for South Coast Musical Theater and for Irvine Civic Light Opera where she choreographed numerous shows including A Chorus Line, Company, Evita, The Music Man, Cabaret, and won the Los Angeles Dramalogue award for choreography for the production of Pacific Overtures.

Lisa Morrice (Associate Artistic Director for Music)

Amy Hitchcock (Associate Director for Education)

Kym Sawtelle-Castuera (Associate Director for New Works)

Kym has worked as a Producer, Director, and Performer in Los Angeles and Orange County for the past twenty years. She was featured on the cover of the Los Angeles Times Calendar for her portrayal of "Lady Macbeth" in Narthex’s award winning and critically acclaimed Macbeth in Los Angeles, and received Critic’s Choice Awards for Best Production, Best Director and Best Actor from the Los Angeles Times, Dramalouge and LA Weekly. She received critical acclaim from Los Angeles Time’s critic Kenneth Turan for her role of "Mabel" in British Playwright Snoo Wilson’s Soul of the White Ant and won Outstanding Performance Awards for such roles as "Lady Teazle" in Richard Sheridan’s School for Scandal, "Lady Bracknell" in Oscar Wilde’s The Importance of Being Earnest, and "Dolly" in George Bernard Shaw’s You Never Can Tell.

Her favorite roles include "Stella" in Tenneesse Williams’ A Streetcar Named Desire and "Alexandra del Lago" in Sweet Bird of Youth as well as "Amanda" in Noel Coward’s Private Lives. She directed the award winning production of Harold Pinter’s The Hothouse, Narnia, The Musical and Co-Directed The Jungle Book with Steve Josephson.

In Los Angeles she studied at the Beverly Hills Playhouse with Milton Katselas where she was a member of the production staff for Camelot Productions and acted in their Shakespeare Series and New Play Festivals. She received a BA in Theatre from The University of Texas (where she won numerous Acting and Directing Awards as well as the prestigious Myrtle Ball Award) and studied with John Houseman’s The Acting Company and The British American Theatre Institute. She studied Russian Classical Ballet for fourteen years with Yuri Smaltzoff in Los Angeles where she received training from the Bolshoi’s Alexander Godunov.

Steve Sean Greene (Artistic Director, Gallimaufry & Greene)
At 19, Sean Greene began dancing at Pierce Junior College. Three years later, he joined the Bella Lewitzky Dance Company, where, as Principal Dance and "Master Teacher" he danced and taught all over the world for 19 years. In 1978, he appeared on the cover of Dance magazine and in 1980, received the Pasadena Performing Artist of the Year award. In 1988 Sean left the Bella Lewitzky Dance Company to direct Transitions Dance Company and the Advanced Performance Course at the Laban Centre in London for the next six years. In 1994, he served as Rehearsal Director for the Phoenix Dance Company in Leeds, before returning to the United States. In 2003, Sean was nominated for a Lester Horton Lifetime Teaching Award. In 2004, his duet from “La Famiglia del Inferno” was reconstructed and nominated for a Lester Horton Award. He now teaches at Chapman University.

Christin Cornell (Director, Lagunatunes)

Pat Kollenda (Director, Lagunatunes)