Our Team
Staff
Emily Rankin, Artistic Director: click for bio.
Katie Olivant, Managing Director
Nicholas Ballas, Artistic Advisor.
Robert Benedetti, Artistic Advisor
Anne Gallagher, House Manager
Jennifer Graves, Box Office Manager
Skip Rapoport, Lighting Designer
Lynn Roylance, Company Photographer
Hania Stocker, Technical Director
Board of Directors
William Michener, Chair, is a retired Professor with expertise in information science and project management.
Nicholas “Nico” Ballas, Vice Chair, has appeared in dozens of film and TV projects, most notably three seasons of ROSWELL, NM. He has worked with most of the local and regional theater companies in Santa Fe and for the past decade he has devoted his creative energies to the Actors Lab, as an actor, director and most recently as Artistic Director.
Anne Gallagher, Treasurer, has held senior executive positions multinational organizations in the US and Europe. Anne is a Broadway producer, most notably, of the award-winning, profitable and Tony-nominated Say Goodnight, Gracie.
Katie Olivant, Secretary and Managing Director, is a former administrator and professor at California State University, Stanislaus.
Marti Burt worked for 35 years at the Urban Institute. Since moving to Santa Fe, she has focused mostly on forwarding the social issues she cares about.
Joey Chavez is an actor, director, and playwright. He founded the New Mexico School for the Arts and was nominated for a Tony award for excellence in Theater Education.
Chris Conard is an ABQ based Designer, Technical Director, and Fabricator from Austin Texas. He earned an MFA from UT Austin and a BFA from SFUAD.
J.R. Damron was a practicing physician for over 50 years, and is the founder and President of Normad Group, Inc., a commercial development company.
Danielle Reddick is an actor, theater-maker, and somatic movement practitioner.
Tallis Rose is a local actor who lives in Albuquerque. She graduated from SFUAD in 2014 and has been a part of NMAL ever since.
Hania Stocker grew up in the theatre and has acted with many local Santa Fe companies. He serves as Technical Director for the Actors Lab.
Wendi Strong is a retired corporate communications executive who loves theatre.
Advisory Board
Joel Aalberts, Executive Director, Lensic Performing Arts Center
Stuart Ashman, Executive Director, Center for Contemporary Arts Santa Fe
Bob Balzer, Founder, Information Sciences Institute, University of Southern California
Barbara Burnett, Emmy Award-winning television and stage actress and founding member of The Santa Fe Theater Lovers Club.
John Flax, Founding Artistic Director, Theater Grottesco
Joshua Freilich, President, Western Optical Supply, Inc.
Bruce Larsen, Regent, Museum of New Mexico; Trustee, Museum of New Mexico Foundation
Patsy Phillips, Cherokee Nation, Director, IAIA Museum of Contemporary Native Arts
Jonathan Richards, Critic, author, actor, director, cartoonist
Robyn Rikoon, former Artistic Director, Santa Fe Playhouse
Robin Williams, Director, iReadShakespeare.org; co-founder of International Shakespeare Center Santa Fe
Jill Cooper Udall, Attorney, arts activist and aspiring author
Advisory Council
Ted Danson, Michael Gross, Ed Harris, Hugh Jackman, Ali MacGraw
Emily is a director, actor, and artist who has been an active theatre maker for over twenty years. After receiving her BFA in Theatre Directing and Psychology, she worked extensively in Austin, TX, both in film production and in theatre. There, she helped bring to life shows like Whirligig Theatre's Deus Ex Machina, a choose-your-own-adventure based on the Oresteia, and Penfold Theatre's Murder on the Rails, a murder mystery series performed aboard the Austin Steam Train. She worked with companies like Bottle Alley, Generic Ensemble Company, and The Hidden Room to create site-specific, devised, and original practice works, in addition to more traditional theatre. In 2018 she relocated to Santa Fe, where she worked with Meow Wolf, serving as a project manager and production coordinator for their Interactive and Entertainment divisions, specializing in Virtual Reality and Augmented Reality experiences for Convergence Station in Denver. Since then, she’s worked regularly with Meow Wolf’s House of Eternal Return in Santa Fe, creating immersive, interactive performance. She’s also been a regular fixture in Santa Fe’s theatre scene, working with companies like the Santa Fe Playhouse, where she twice served as interim production manager, Santa Fe Classic Theater, Incite Shakespeare Company, Ironweed, Almost Adults, Blue Raven, and The New Mexico Actors Lab, where she most recently directed a reading of Rosemary Zibart’s Dizzy and Love and appeared in Oleanna and Heroes of the Fourth Turning. She couldn’t be more thrilled to become NMAL’s Artistic Director and is so grateful for the opportunity to serve the community through this wonderful Santa Fe institution.