Leadership

Co-Director Joel Jones is from Charlottesville, Virginia where he got involved in plays during the formative years of Live Arts and Offstage Theater. Joel has written more than two dozen short plays (including Answer Man, Perfect Guy, Power Lunch, Tragic Hero, Big Fish Little Fish, Regatta Club Freud, and Haven’t We Met Someplace Before) that have have seen more than sixty productions in Charlottesville, New York, Boston, and beyond. (including appearances as part of the United Kingdom’s Bite-Size Plays productions in the Brighton Fringe and Edinburgh Fringe plus their most recent best-of 10th Anniversary show.) Full-length plays include Shrug Like You Mean It, Fortune In Antarctica, Floating Girl, and The Election. Joel was the former Playwright-In-Residence of New York City’s Third Man Productions which produced his short sketches and plays every month in the West Village for two years, and staged his full-length verse play, Shrug Like You Mean It, at the off-Broadway Kraine Theater.

In addition to his writing Joel served as Artistic Director for Charlottesville’s Offstage Theater, McGuffey Liaison, member of the Board of Directors, and producer of multiple shows. Joel has acted in numerous shows at Live Arts and served as staff dramaturg. At Live Arts he was one of the original creators of the Summer Theater Festival, and for the Live Arts ‘L.A.B’ oversaw an innovative, creative program of solo shows, puppet shows, comedy pieces, new works, full-length plays, and music, including a live album featuring local musicians. (King of My Living Room)

From 2005 till 2011 Joel lived in New York City where he performed regularly as an actor, storyteller and improviser at such venues as the Bowery Poetry Club, Upright Citizens Brigade Theater, People’s Improv Theater, and especially the Magnet Theater where he performed regularly in comedy groups from 2008 till 2011. He was a founding member of the storytelling group Campfire Stories, co-producer of Black Valentines (inspired by an annual holiday party in Staunton, Virginia), member of improv groups Easy Going Folks, Mono-piece Theatre, Hell Buffalo, King Canute, LL Cool JJ, and the Kicks.

In 2011 his critically-acclaimed solo show Life Insurance ran in the New York Fringe and Washington DC’s Capital Fringe Festival in production with Nelson County’s wonderful Hamner Theater.

In 2012 Joel returned to Charlottesville with his lovely wife Jennifer, and their daughter Ellie, in 2012 in order to found Big Blue Door where he teaches longform improv, sketch writing, and telling true stories.

In 2018 Joel was interviewed as part of WHTJ’s Charlottesville Inside Out program on Big Blue Door.

Instructor Alanna Mahon. Alanna is our new Middle School Improv instructor. Alanna is a multi-medium artist and performer from Crozet, Virginia. She trained professionally at Joffrey Ballet School, The Hip Hop Conservatory, The Institute for American Musical Theater, and VCU’s Kinetic Imaging Program. She has taught yoga, dance, and theater to kids in the local area while performing with Ash Lawn Opera, Live Arts, concorDance company, the TomTom Festival, Wildrock, Albemarle Ballet Theater, Sugar Leaf, Phoenix Theater Works, and Big Blue Door.

Instructor and Coach Marjory Ruderman. Marjory Ruderman is a writer who has performed with many Big Blue Door improv groups. She’s also taught classes and run Big Blue Door workshops and is currently one of our Middle School Improv instructors. Marjory was interviewed as part of WHTJ’s Charlottesville Inside Out program on Big Blue Door.

Producer and Coach Brian Weisbrod. Brian has performed and coached for Big Blue Door for many years. He is tall, emotionally intelligent and recently married (sorry, ladies!). He has some kind of job somewhere and likes to chase groundhogs in his free time. He’s studying German in preparation for the end days.

Producer and Coach Deborah Arenstein. Deb has performed with Big Blue Door for 9 years, and credits improv with keeping her children alive. Her offstage life also includes her nonprofit consulting group, Board Whisperers, Irishdoodle Libby, kickboxing and managing her Diet Coke addiction.

Coach Rachel Showalter. Rachel has a sharp sense of humor, which means many “regular” people are frightened of her. She’s considered quitting her day job to perform improv fulltime, but the spaceship offered her tenure. Her devotion to her offspring is apparent in the way she tenderly holds their secrets, unless she’s onstage. She has performed and coached many Big Blue Door groups.

Co-Director Jennifer Hoffman Jones has produced, directed, and performed in dozens of theatrical and radio shows for two decades in New York and Virginia. Most recently she has worked as producer and fundraiser for the Fire Dept Theatre in NYC, and as producer for the Hamner Theater’s critically acclaimed Capital and NY Fringe show, Life Insurance.

Jen is best known for her regular appearances on Central Virginia’s only syndicated children’s radio storytelling program, Tell Us A Tale, hosted by Peter Jones and broadcast locally on 91.1, WTJU and heard internationally (tellusatale.com).  She has also appeared as a monologist with Campfire Stories, Tell All at the Bowery Poetry Club, and at the Magnet Theater.

In Charlottesville, Jen was a board member of Offstage Theater where she was producer of Barhoppers. She was also an actor in Live Arts shows and a producer and performer in several Live Arts Summer Theater Festival productions.

For over a decade Jen worked for the University of Virginia. For five of those years she worked for the College and Graduate School of Arts and Sciences as a major gifts officer. She was especially proud to raise the first large donations for the College Arts Scholars program and for the Virginia Film Festival.

More recently, Jen was interviewed as part of WHTJ’s Charlottesville Inside Out program on Big Blue Door.