At their annual meeting on July 5, Theatre Odyssey’s Board of Directors elected the following officers, each with solid backgrounds in business and professional worlds, as well as having strong theater credentials:
Tom Aposporos (President), an Anna Marian, is a longtime member of the real estate profession, and a newspaper columnist; he is a former chamber of commerce chief executive; former Commissioner of Anna Maria, Florida, and Mayor of Poughkeepsie, New York; and was Chairman of the Board of Progressive Bank, Inc., a publicly owned company.
Dan Higgs (Vice President), of Sarasota, holds a Master’s Degree in Audiovisual Communication, taught high school for 14 years, hosted a television news program, and served 19 years as Coordinator of Media Services for the Board of Education of Anne Arundel County, Maryland. He chaired The Anne Arundel County Cable Commission for 8 years, and served as President of the Teacher’s Association of Anne Arundel County.
Tami Vaughan (Secretary), a resident of Parrish, is an office manager, bookkeeper, and the owner of The Word Doctor, a desktop publisher founded in 1989. Among her clients are Golf Coast Magazine and Steve Covey’s Cargo Trailer Store.
Donna DeFant (Treasurer), residing in Sarasota since 1989, has been part of the financial services industry for 30 years, beginning her career in Massachusetts, and is a Certified Financial Planner with an office in Sarasota.
“As President in 2013-2014, Dan Higgs deftly moved the company to a new venue, the Jane B. Cook Theatre at the FSU/Asolo Center for the Performing Arts, and the result was the longest and most successful run of its Ten-Minute Play Festival,” said Aposporos, a co-founder of Theatre Odyssey in 2006. He added, “We pioneered venues in our early years, settling in one for three years, and Dan perfected the next step in our odyssey.”
In addition to the election of officers, the company announced the re-election to the Board of Directors of Bob Trisolini, Longboat Key, with a long history of producing, directing, and choreographing shows for Broadway, Off-Broadway, cruise ships, theme parks, regional and community theaters, as well as corporate America. He was founder and CEO of The West Bank Creative, a business theater agency in metro-New York City working with top celebrities, and many casts of leading Broadway shows.
The Board also elected Don Walker. “Though Don is well known as an actor and director, he also brings his solid other life to us,” said Aposporos. Walker moved to Sarasota 23 years ago with World Precision Instruments, a manufacturer of laboratory research equipment. As advertising manager and director of publications, he served as editor of instruction manuals, as product photographer, and designer of all catalogs, brochures, trade show graphics, instrument front panels, and product packaging.
“Theatre Odyssey is well positioned as it plans its Third Annual Student Ten-Minute Playwriting Festival and its Tenth Annual Ten-Minute Play Festival,” said Aposporos.
The Board of Directors also announced that three playwrights with plays produced at the 2014 Ten-Minute Play Festival—Marvin Albert, Ron Pantello and Bernie Yanelli—all have full length plays competing at Players Theatre’s New Play Festival starting July 21.
