Stagebridge Teacher Bios

Joel ben Izzy has spent four decades traveling the globe, gathering and telling stories. Beyond his own telling, his passion is helping others to discover, craft, and share the stories from their own lives. This past summer he traveled to Morocco to work with young storytellers from throughout Africa, and share stories of their time spent volunteering with CorpsAfrica in remote villages in Rwanda, Kenya, Ghana, Uganda, Malawi, Senegal, The Gambia, and Morocco.

Joel as also written two books and produced six CDs of his stories, all of which have won awards. Based in Berkeley, Joel is delighted to return to work with the folks at Stagebridge, who are so rich in stories. You can learn more about Joel at Storypage.com.

Joanne Grimm has been a Stagebridge cast member for over 20 years and the director of Never Too Late for over 10 years. She performed with Generation Theatre, a Bay Area based repertory company. She started out as a storyteller and keeps her hand in telling tales at assisted living facilities. She has appeared in numerous Grandparent’s Tales plays produced by Stagebridge. Grimm’s background includes training in radio, public speaking, oral interpretation, improv, acting, and children’s theater. She’s been acting in one venue or another since elementary school.

Scrumbly Koldewyn is an accomplished composer who has performed with the Cockettes, the Distractions and the Jesters Vocal Trio, touring throughout Europe. He has been musical director at many Bay Area theatres including Berkeley Rep and 42nd Street Moon. His awards include the Bay Area Critics Circle and Bay Area Cabaret Gold Awards. Revivals of his shows with the Cockettes have been playing at Thrillpeddlers in SF for 4 years. For Stagebridge, he has been musical director for Comedy Tonight and currently co-directs the touring show Never Too Late. He also created the music for Stagebridge’s world premiere musical Sylvia’s Advice on How to Age Gracefully on the Planet Denial, based on the works of Nicole Hollander.

Willy Claflin has been a frequent performer at both the Bay Area and National Storytelling Festivals for the past 20 years. A full-time teller for the past 40 years, he has appeared at hundreds of schools, festivals and libraries nationwide. A recipient of the Oracle Award, Willy has produced a dozen CDs and 4 award-winning children’s books. Willy’s voice has brought to life many puppet storytellers, most notably Maynard Moose, a school and festival favorite. Willy conjures a wide variety of characters in his tales, from Downeast Maine Lobstermen to alien intergalactic life forms. He loves teaching, and singing (in his own voice and others’), and making vocal sound effects. He loves to experiment. He plays well with others. So does his Moose!

Ely Sonny Orquiza is a freelance San Francisco-based theater maker. Orquiza is the Director of New Works at Gritty City Repertory and a faculty member at the American Conservatory Theater’s Young Conservatory and Education & Community Programs. He is a Founder and Co-Artistic Director of The Chikahan Company, a new Filipinx American theater company based in San Francisco. Locally and regionally his directing credits have been critically acclaimed, working in theaters such as the American Conservatory Theater, Academy of Art University, Bindlestiff Studio, Playground, UC Berkeley, Theater Rhinoceros and more. As an actor he has appeared in select productions at Cal Performances, Cal Shakes, New Conservatory Theater, Playwrights Foundation, San Francisco Opera and Studio 52nd in Amsterdam. He most recently appeared in Jimmy Kimmel Live! and Bank of the West national commercials. Elysonnyorquiza.org

Terrance Kelly has garnered extensive musical credentials in both gospel and jazz music. His operatic range and joyous emotional feel for the music make him a popular soloist as well as an accomplished director, composer, and arranger. His credits include choral arrangements on albums by Linda Ronstadt and Kronos Quartet and gospel arrangements of popular music for TV and video soundtracks. In addition, he wrote or arranged most of the music for each of the choir’s albums. Mr. Kelly received an Emmy Award for his choral arrangements of OIGC’s KGO-TV public service announcement.

In 2005, he received the Local Heroes Award from KQED Television for his directorship of the Oakland InterFaith Youth Choir and was also honored at the Gospel Music Awards. In 2013, he was awarded the Dr. Edwin Hawkins Excellence Award.

Mr. Kelly currently serves as Minister of Magnification at Oakland’s Imani Community Church. He has traveled as far as Australia and Israel to teach gospel music, and since 1982, has served as Gospel Choir Director for Jazz Camp West, hosted by Living Jazz. In addition to his other endeavors, he is a semi-regular member of the San Francisco Opera Chorus.

His father, the late Ed Kelly, was an esteemed jazz and gospel pianist. His mother, the late Faye Kelly, was a gospel choir director and pianist.

Anthony Clarvoe has been a dramaturg, mentor, and teacher with Stagebridge, OLLI@UC Berkeley, Playwrights Foundation, Bay Area Playwrights Festival, PlayGround, PlayCafe, and many more. His plays Pick Up Ax, Show and Tell, The Living, Let’s Play Two, The Brothers Karamazov, Ambition Facing West, Walking Off The Roof, CTRL+ALT+DELETE, City of Light, The Art of Sacrifice, Gunpowder Joe, People Where They Are, and The Great Gatsby, and his translations of Henrik Ibsen’s Ghosts and The Wild Duck are published by Broadway Play Publishing, Inc. and in various anthologies. He has received American Theatre Critics, Will Glickman, Bay Area Theatre Critics, LA Drama Critics, Garland, Elliot Norton, and Edgerton New American Play awards; fellowships from the Guggenheim, Irvine, Jerome, and McKnight Foundations, National Endowment for the Arts, TCG/Pew Charitable Trusts, and Kennedy Center; commisions from South Coast Rep, Mark Taper Forum, and Playwrights Horizons; the Berrilla Kerr Award for his contributions to American theater, and many others. A native San Franciscan and long-time resident of New York City and the Midwest, he lives with his family in Berkeley, CA.

Paul Daniels is a Bay Area producer, director, singer, and songwriter. He is currently Director of Music at St. Columba Roman Catholic Church, a member of the National Association of Pastoral Musicians (NPM), and owner/operator of EeeeBop Music (ASCAP) in Hercules. He is also Assistant Director for the Oakland Interfaith Family of Choirs under its Artistic Director, Terrance Kelly, which includes the Gospel Choir (OIGC), the Community Choir (OICC), and the Youth Choir (OIYC). He is the published songwriter for “I Want My Savior” on the OIGC album, We’ve Come a Mighty Long Way. Mr. Daniels served the theatre community as Musical Director for Lorraine Hansberry Theatre’s production of Black and Blue, Black Nativity, and Abbie Rhone’s production of Dark Towne Follies. As a recording artist, he released his first CD, Something Good, under his own recording label in 2006. Internationally, he was featured in a United Nations concert in Kazakhstan, commemorating the Council of World Religions in 2018. With OIGC, he has sung in the Holy Land, Canada, Costa Rica, and Australia. You can find more about Paul Daniels by going to his website, www.eeeebop.com.

Wayne Harris is an award-winning solo performer, writer, educator, curriculum innovator and musician. Wayne’s plays include Mother’s Milk, which was both an homage to Wayne’s mother and a nuanced picture of St. Louis during the early days of the Civil Rights Movement. Mother’s Milk ran for 14 weeks in San Francisco and garnered a Fringe Award at the Vancouver International Fringe Festival. In The May Day Parade, Wayne fused his love for drum and bugle crops with his personal childhood battle with polio. His latest play, “Train Stories”, was critically acclaimed and garnered a Bay Area Broadway.com Nomination in 3 categories including “2023 Best New Play”.

Wayne was invite by the U.S. State Department to travel to the Middle East and perform his play, The Letter; Martin Luther King at the Crossroads. A gifted artist with wide ranging interests, Wayne is passionate about storytelling that combines his lived experience with hopeful declarations for the future.

In addition, he is currently a facilitator for an exciting and important project, The Formerly Incarcerated People’s Performance Project, guiding formerly incarcerated adults in creating, producing and performing their personal stories.

Wayne travels extensively throughout the U.S., providing “Improvisation & Performance” workshops for Youth Pageantry groups (marching bands, dance teams, etc.) and is currently working with The Berkeley Repertory Theater in community outreach programs.

Radhika Rao is so excited to return to Stagebridge in the Fall! She is a bilingual actor and teacher, residing in the Outer Richmond neighborhood of S.F. She loves travel, foreign languages and new experiences! Radhika earned a doctoral degree from the Harvard Graduate School of Education, where she focused on theater and the performance of citizenship. Her educational work includes working with populations spanning from elementary school students to senior citizens; with universities and schools to non-profits and multinational companies—the common thread being creating more empathetic and courageous conversations through the power of storytelling and role-play. Collaborators include Prague Shakespeare Company, University of San Francisco Police Department, UC Hastings School of Law, San Francisco Shakespeare Festival, American Conservatory Theater, Urban High School, Leela Improv, Cutting Ball Theater, Shotgun Players, Larkin St Youth Services, and LifeTheater Service. She’s happy for you to check out her work on Instagram @radhikarao77 or on www.radhikarao.org.

Daphne Wong is a tap dancer and musician who revels in creative projects of all kinds. She has tap danced in scuba flippers for Genevieve Quick’s Planet Celadon: Our Receiver is Operating, performed with La Mezcla in Pachuquismo, and appeared in the Rhythm ISS retrospective in Chicago Human Rhythm Project’s JUBA! Masters of Tap and Percussive Dance, and joined world-renowned Sam Weber in Morton Gould’s Tap Dance Concerto with the Golden Gate Symphony, of which she’s also a a member as a violinist. In the studio, Daphne strives to foster a supportive, encouraging community and wholeheartedly believes that the best learning happens when you’re having fun with friends.