PAL Master Fellows

Kaisi Balmer is a recent graduate of Hostos Community College, having graduated this Spring 2021 with an Associate’s Degree in Science with a Major in Community Health. She is a member of Phi Theta Kappa, Hostos Honors Program, and was the Honor’s Club Secretary. She recently was awarded the Dean’ List; Scholastic Achievement; Honors Program Achievement; Phi Theta Kappa Achievement; and the Gold Award through the Community Health Department at Hostos Community College. Kaisi is proficient in Microsoft Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and Office. She also has experience with Audacity, VLC Media Player, and Wondershare Video conversion. Kaisi Balmer’s acting experience includes theatre performances in her youth, as well as acting classes at Bates Technical College and Hostos Community College. This is her third experience working with the Performing Arts Legacy project. Her goal is to bring the artist’s vision, of how they want their legacy documented, to life.

Santos Collado is a Playwright and Stage Manager based on the Lower East Side. His dedication, work, and actions are always in the interest of supporting performers produce long lasting, high impactful work. Further cultivating the world of theater and carrying on the impact of all those before him will always be his number one priority.

Ann Dang is a New York based bilingual theatre artist and graduate from NYU Tisch School the Arts, originally from Shenzhen, China. She has performed and worked at Williamstown Theatre Festival, Hangar Theatre, Performa, and NY Fringe Festival. As a 2017 Performing Arts Legacy Fellow, she is thrilled to be back working with The Actors Fund again.

Jon is an award winning actor, screenwriter and playwright. His films include Luc Besson’s The Family with Robert De Niro, Run with Eric Roberts, and recently Big Time Adolescence with Jon Cryer. He received best actor award in Sisyphus’ Supper at the Take Two Film Festival in New York City, which premiered at Cannes Film Festival. His TV credits include The Blacklist, and Law & Order SVU. Jon is also the co-producer/actor in 50 To Death, and award winning web series about three boomers jousting with the 21st Century. His New York theater credits include George Tabori’s Mein Kampf, and Imagine Dat! a solo show about Jimmy Durante, and regionally in Over The River and Through The Woods, and Breaking Legs. Among his writing credits, his screenplay, Who Wants To Marry My Husband, was produced and distributed as a feature film by Echelon Entertainment Group. He also co-wrote with Letty Serra, the eleven times awarded screenplay, Say Nothing, about the untold story of Italian incarceration in an American concentration camp in Maryland during World War Two, and won three screenplay awards for his thriller feature script, Sparks. His sci-fi comedy musical Alien Adventure The Adventure won four awards at the Midtown International Theatre Festival In New York City. Weekly, Jon teaches the Improvisation Workshop at the SAG-AFTRA Conservatory in New York City. Prior to acting, Jon served as a naval officer, taught undergraduate and graduate students in psychology, was a research psychologist for the government, and had a private practice in clinical psychology. He has a PhD in experimental and organizational psychology, and a postdoc PhD. in clinical psychology. Jon also consults as an executive presentation coach with Harrison Monarth, a New York Times best-selling author and owner of Gurumaker.

Zigi Lowenberg is a performance poet and co-leader of the jazzpoetry ensemble UpSurge! which has produced two CDs, All Hands on Deck, and Chromatology. Her acting and performance credits include The Lysistrata Project, Stein-Toklas Project, John Brown’s Truth, Italian Women’s Stories: From the Resistance, VEIL: Two Sisters, and Matryoshka…a short play in 10 nesting dolls. A member of the National Writers Union (NWU), her poetry is published in “After the Clouds, the Sun” anthology, rabbit and rose, Writers Resist, Snapdragon, Dissident Voice, and Occupy Wall Street Poetry Anthology. She has written for the Narrative Paths Journal, the NWU newsletter, and her essay “Support the Edge!” appears in the book Creative Lives. Recently she is working on two projects: short videos—visual jazz poems—collaborating with her bassist friend Ken Filiano; and a hybrid zoom & video series documenting her husband Raymond Nat Turner’s journey as a poet. (youtube.com/zigilow)

Marissa Ontiveros is a Brooklyn-based theater artist. She proudly serves as a Teaching Artist at various arts organizations across New York City including Brooklyn Acting Lab, St. Nicks Alliance, CO/LAB Theater Group, Brooklyn Art Exchange, and Learning Extended Arts Programs (LEAP). Marissa holds a BFA from New York University Tisch School of the Arts, receiving her training from Stella Adler Studio of Acting and the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts. As a Performing Arts Legacy Fellow in Spring and Fall of 2017, Marissa is so excited to be returning to the intergenerational PAL team!

Diane has worked as a professional actor, dancer, singer, model, director, and choreographer in NY, regionally and abroad. Some favorite roles include Grete in Sight Unseen and Diana in Lend Me A Tenor and Adara in The Keepers of the Flame. She has also appeared on Sex and the City as Phyllis and Law and Order as Mr. Abbot’s Assistant. Currently she and her husband, Bill Fuller, are co-Producing, Unseen Theatre, an audio-only play podcast featuring female-driven narratives performed by SAG-AFTRA actors, which they plan to launch soon. Diane was thrilled to have been one of the original Performing Arts Legacy (PAL) fellows, given the opportunity to interview and record the oral histories of two of the program’s inaugural actors, Susan Lehman and Michael David Arian. Diane also had the pleasure of producing, filming and editing Michael’s Curated Life Review, which is also found the on the PAL website.

Primary Stages Fellow for the Performing Arts Legacy Project at the Actors Fund. Scouts plays abroad in six languages to bring to American audiences at the Public Theatre’s Under The Radar Festival. Script reader for The Play Co., New York’s sole theatre to specialize in contemporary theatre from abroad. Assessed new play submissions, labs and readings for the Vineyard Theatre’s Literary Department. Co-author and researcher of study guides to the Atlantic Theater’s contemporary plays Blue Ridge and Florian Zeller’s French play, The Mother, starring Isabel Huppert. Dramaturg and producing associate for Elisabeth Frankel’s 2076. Assistant director for Meg Taintor’s Henry IV, Parts 1 & 2 at the Stonington Opera House. Opera House Arts Board Member serving on governance, finance, and development committees., Yale BA, University of Sussex PhD, Columbia University Professional Studies in Theatre Directing and Dramaturgy.

Ivy Vega is an occupational therapist at NewYork-Presbyterian/Columbia University Irving Medical Center. Ivy received her B.A. in psychology and dance from Barnard College of Columbia University, where she had the privilege of training under world-renowned dancers, choreographers, and other performing artists. Ivy went on to receive her master’s degree in occupational therapy from Columbia University. During her graduate studies, Ivy became involved with the Performing Arts Legacy Project as a Fellow. Ivy is a fervent lover and supporter of the arts, and aims to blend her passion for both the sciences and arts into her continued work with PAL.