About IndieSpace

IndieSpace celebrates and centers independent theater-making in New York City. We provide radically transparent, responsive and equity-focused funding, real estate programs, professional development, and advocacy to individual artists, theater companies, and indie venues.

IndieSpace will strengthen the indie theater community by disrupting ongoing displacement, democratizing power, demanding social and financial equity, and raising an unwavering voice that is truly indie.

IndieSpace creates an indie theater community (as illustrated in the pictured event) around its values, vision, and mission. — VALUES

All Cards on the Table

We value radical transparency. We lead with trust and hold ourselves accountable to all partner organizations and indie artists.

Open Gates

We value accessibility and breaking down of inequitable barriers. We open doors to resources, people and institutions that have been previously closed to our community.

Artists at the Wheel

We value self-determination, spirit over productivity, and the well-being and work of independent theater makers. Every IndieSpace decision is shaped by the artists we serve.

Water the "Grass Roots"

We value nimble, flexible and responsive action and are guided by a creative and indie ethos.

Community Bridge

We value the coming together of independent theater artists to advocate, process, discover and act.

Level Up and Act Out

We value creative disruption, social equity, and challenging the status quo. We aim to transform our field by confronting oppressive structures.

Recipients from IndieSpace's 2019 Big Give Grant give-away gather together, smiling, and celebrating their funding.

People gather and connect, sitting and standing, in an indie theater space, just one example of how IndieSpace supports and brings people together from this community.

IndieSpace supports theaters like this one where three chairs sit on an empty and small stage - the show about to begin.

Four artists and individuals turn to smile at the camera while attending an event to support IndieSpace.

A speaker at a lectern pauses following telling a joke, with the other presenter and sign language interpreter laughing in the background.

Andrew Block , Randi Berry, and Siobhan O’Neil smile at the camera at The Big Give in 2017.

Joseph Auld and Brian Berk smile to the camera, enjoying an event that they are attending to support IndieSpace.

Randi, Brea, and Lindsey show take a minute for a fun selfie while working with the amazing artists, venues, and supporters of indie theater.

Four individuals dress up to celebrate IndieSpace at an event, and smile for a group photo.

Empty chairs in a spotlight empty stage and theater are ready to be filled with a production supported by IndieSpace.

What Is Indie Theater?

Independent theater is typically regarded as performances within venues of 99 seats or less or in non-traditional spaces. However, indie theater is much more than theater size. It is an ethos and a spirit. It is genre bending, innovative, communal theater created outside of the mainstream and commercial context.

“Imagine that you’ve never heard of Steve Buscemi, John Leguizamo, or even Al Pacino. Forget that the Broadway production of “Urinetown” won three Tony Awards a decade ago. And assume that if early works by European playwrights Bertolt Brecht and Jean Cocteau never made it to the U.S. stage, it would be their loss and not ours. Congratulations. You’ve successfully created a world without independent and Off-Off-Broadway theater.

– Daniel Lehman, Backstage, February 2012

IndieSpace’s Timeline and Achievements

If you’d like to learn more about IndieSpace’s history and achievements, please view our Timeline page!

Timeline and Achievements

Beginning in 2013 with just a single grant recipient, IndieSpace's impact has grown to support hundreds of artists, productions, and venues each year.

The Big Give in 2013

Keeping up with the current needs of its community, IndieSpace's achievements shows have the organization works to break down barriers and remove obstacles impacting the indie theater space in NYC.

The Big Give in 2021

Our Staff

Photo of Executive Director and board member, Randi Berry — Randi is an indie theater maker and organizer with an arts advocacy and commercial real estate background. She has over 20 years of service to the performing arts community and is dedicated to coalition building, partnerships, and removing barriers to access. Randi has worked on over $11B in commercial real estate transactions and has created programs resulting in thousands of artists receiving funding, free real estate consulting services, rehearsal space, and opportunities for professional growth. Randi co-chairs the real estate working group on the Mayor’s Council for Live Theater and Performing Arts, is on the Artist Council of Sociable Weavers and the Creatives Rebuild New York’s Guaranteed Income for Artists Working Group.
She was a David Prize Finalist in 2025. She received the Tow Foundation Visionary Leadership Award, the Ellen Stewart Award, was inducted into the Indie Theater Hall of Fame, and received a Citation from the NYC City Council for Service.
*THEATER LOVES: Cabin Pressure, Roberto Zucco, and Rainpan 43's Machines, Machines, Machines, Machines, Machines, Machines, Machines*

Randi Berry
EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR
BOARD MEMBER
randi@indiespace.org

Photo of board member, Brea Clemons — Brea is an arts administrator with a background in stage management and a decade of experience across theater, hospitality, and nonprofit operations. She holds a BFA in Stage Management and Nonprofit Administration from the University of Oklahoma and began her arts career stage managing productions for companies including Music Theatre Kansas City, The Oklahoma City Philharmonic, and the Beijing Normal Experimental Dance Company.
Most recently, Brea served as Internal Events & Community Manager at Spiegelworld, a Las Vegas circus company, where she supported the creation and opening of *The Hook*, *DISCOSHOW*, and *THE PARTY*. She also developed and launched IDEA, Spiegelworld's first internal DEI education program.
Brea is also a certified Mental Health First Aid instructor and is currently pursuing certification as a mental health coordinator, a subset of intimacy coordination. Her advocacy work centers on building community through intentional, whole-person experiences that blend joy, connection, and real self-care. Brea is beyond thrilled to rejoin IndieSpace in this new role, continuing her board service and support of New York City's indie theater community.
Outside of work, Brea is a wife, a dog mom, a devoted Mahjong player, amateur baker, and reliably the person to ask for NYC's hardest-to-get restaurant reservations!
*THEATER LOVES: Opening nights, Campy cult musicals, and of course the CIRCUS (especially Sexy Diablo)*

Brea Clemons
SENIOR DEVELOPMENT MANAGER
BOARD MEMBER
brea@indiespace.org

Abby Davis is a theatre administrator, director, and producer invested in new work development, arts advocacy, and community organizing. A Kentucky native, she has collaborated with mission-driven organizations that forge space and opportunities for underrepresented artists of all disciplines, including The Tank, Fresh Fruit Festival, SoHo Playhouse, Neurodivergent New Play Series, The Makers’ Ensemble, and also completed a community-organizing residency with First Kiss Theatre in 2025. Having previously served on staff for the National Women’s Theatre Festival through virtual programming in 2020 and supported global marketing and grassroots outreach for the Metropolitan Opera’s Live in HD series for four seasons, she has strived to bring geographically and financially accessible artistic experiences to audiences around the world. Beyond their professional life, Abby is an avid animal lover and proud plant parent and spends their spare time playing D&D, roller-skating, and antiquing!

THEATER LOVES: Cats: The Jellicle Ball, The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay (the opera), Liberation, Bathhouse.pptx, Bechdel Project, New York Theatre Workshop, Materials for the Arts

Abby Davis
ADMINISTRATIVE PARTNER
abby@indiespace.org

Joel Eduardo Guzmán is a performer and culture and arts manager from Puerto Rico. Over two decades, his work has carried him across South America, Europe, and the Caribbean, building cultural institutions, co-founding the National Circus of Puerto Rico, and creating Arte y Maña, an organization rooted in the belief that the arts can heal, unite, and empower communities across Puerto Rico. He holds a Master of Arts in Arts & Cultural Management and an MBA in Marketing, with certificates in Circus Teaching and Physical Theater, and has spent his career channeling that training into nonprofit work grounded in equity, access, and care. His path has taken him to some unexpected adventures, among them the World Summit of Nobel Peace Laureates, but the work has always pointed in the same direction: toward the artists, and toward the communities that need them most.
*THEATER LOVES: Slava's Snowshow, Tricicle Hits, Así que pasen 5 años.*

Joel Eduardo Guzmán
MANAGING DIRECTOR
joel@indiespace.org

Yasmine is a program administrator, facilitator, and organizer with seven years of experience in the cultural sector. As a lifelong New Yorker, they are deeply invested in the power of the arts to create more connected, resilient, and mobilized communities. From organizing pop-ups to facilitating panels, Yasmine centers community care and streamlining processes into their work. They hold a BA from Clark University in urban geography and ethnic studies.
Yasmine has worked with organizations including Brooklyn Arts Council, Brooklyn Public Library, Soho Repertory Theatre, LaMama Experimental Theatre Club and Queer|Art. At Brooklyn Arts Council, they supported data analytics and visualization, and expanded programming through the annual Thrive Fest, which bolstered professional development and financial acumen for artists across Brooklyn. Their work in Justice Initiatives at the Brooklyn Public Library expanded access for incarcerated people in New York state to communicate with their loved ones through the TeleStory initiative. In their work as a cultural organizer, they raise mutual aid funds for local community members and initiatives through performance series’ and pop-up galleries. Throughout all their work, they hope to cultivate spaces for honest dialogue and material change.

Yasmine Lalkaka
GRANTS MANAGER
yasmine@indiespace.org

Julianna is an artist and arts administrator from Rio de Janeiro, now based in Brooklyn. She is a co-founder of The Barn at Lee, a nonprofit that supports emerging performing artists through residencies and performances out of a restored barn in Massachusetts. She is also the Associate Producer at Checkmark Productions and has previously worked at WP Theater, Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, and The Diller-Quaile School of Music. She is passionate about working with friends and creating meaningful opportunities for artists to develop and share their work.
THEATER LOVES: Matria Etnocentra, The Seagull: Thinking of You, This Is My Favorite Song, and any samba, anywhere, anytime

Julianna Azevedo Mitchell
COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT MANAGER
julianna@indiespace.org

Al Parker (they/them) is a creative producer, dramaturg, operations manager, and all round multi-hat-wearer based in Brooklyn. Their work grows from a place of service and is invested in expanding the boundaries of intersectional storytelling, blurring the lines between what is and what can be in the pursuit of liberation for everyone.
Al has had the pleasure of working with indie and Off-Broadway theaters across artistic, administrative, production, and operations roles, bringing the same rigor and care to a spreadsheet as they do to a script. They are the Associate Artistic Director of The Parsnip Ship, a new play development company specializing in audio plays for over 10 years.
Originally from South Dakota, Al completed their studies in Dramatic Literature and Creative Writing at NYU. When they’re not buzzing around a theater, Al enjoys napping in the sunshine like a cat (without a cat to cuddle because they are tragically allergic), watching Taskmaster and Game Changer, and reading everything from gothic fiction to Black feminist theory to fanfiction.
*THEATER LOVES: Cats: the Jellicle Ball; The Play That Goes Wrong; Snatch Adams & Tainty McCracken Present It’s That Time of the Month; Pass Over (original ending)*

Al Parker
SPACE OPERATIONS COORDINATOR
al@indiespace.org

India Shanelle is a St. Louis-born creative self-starter whose work has spanned multiple disciplines. She's an award-winning musical theater artist, recording artist, and director, and has been a lead singer in a live indie band. That body of work has taken her across stages nationwide, to America's Got Talent (Season 16), and to an off-Broadway stage. She found her first NYC landing in Harlem, and now nesting in Flatbush.
Driven by a need to change who gets to be seen, she founded BlackLight Community, a nonprofit that elevates marginalized storytelling in theater, and now serves as the Strategic Projects and Executive Support Manager at IndieSpace. Both are pillars of the same mission: sustainable, structural change for creatives who are underrepresented or marginalized in the arts. This feeds her passion for arts advocacy.
Off the clock, she stays active, reading plays, catching indie shows, and yes, a proud SpongeBob lover. Once you know her, it makes total sense.
*THEATER LOVES: The Colored Museum, BlackLight Community, Company, Vocal expression (It is medicine to my soul, chile!)*

India Shanelle
STRATEGIC PROJECTS MANAGER
BOARD MEMBER
india@indiespace.org

Our Consultants

Justin has worked behind-the-scenes with IndieSpace since September 2021. His work has focused on IndieSpace’s email newsletter, website content, and social media.

Justin co-founded Social Change Consulting in 2012 and led a small indie consulting firm focused on helping small nonprofit organizations with digital communications, online fundraising, and data management. They worked with an eclectic group of amazing progressive nonprofits.

Before starting SCC, Justin worked as a Community Income Director at the American Cancer Society and was responsible for multi-year income development and communication strategies for five business units generating $2.65 million in annual revenue.

Outside of work, Justin is likely exploring coffee shops in East London with his dog Shadow, running, volunteering to help register voters living overseas, listening to too many podcasts, and watching his favorite NBA team, the perpetually disappointing Los Angeles Clippers.

THEATER LOVES: Urinetown, Noises Off, Comedy/Satire, Fringe, Bush Theatre (London).

Justin Clark
SENIOR COMMUNICATIONS CONSULTANT
justin@indiespace.org

Van is an artist and arts worker whose practice centers on the interactions between culture, people, and spaces, with more than 20 years of experience supporting organizations across programming, operations, HR, finance, fundraising, and strategy. Her work has included championing community efforts for youth arts and music venues, managing complex events and projects supporting global artists and scholars, and creating internationally recognized art installations. She has toured music across the US, secured funds and cultivated new institutional relationships for arts and culture organizations, and presented research on the adaptive reuse of religious spaces for cultural programming.

She currently holds leadership positions with the regional grantmaker Multnomah County Cultural Coalition and women's collective-giving organization, ninety-nine girlfriends. An alumna of National Arts Strategies' Creative Community Fellowship and The Trampery's Creative Pioneers program, she co-directed Xhurches, a documentary and research project profiling the secular, creative reuse of religious buildings. Her Master of Arts in Cultural Policy, Relations, and Diplomacy comes from Goldsmiths, University of London, and her research has been presented at conferences hosted by Trans Europe Halles in Croatia and the Arts and Humanities Research Council in the UK.

THEATER LOVES: Mohamed El Khatib, Morgan Bassichis, Andrew Schneider, The Picture of Dorian Gray, Titanique, and the thrill and tenderness of expansive collective experiences

Van Pham
VENUELY PROJECT CONSULTANT

Michi Zaya is a genderqueer Mongolian storyteller of all trades, based in Brooklyn. Michi’s work can be seen on stage as a designer, performer, and director. They have primarily worked with Asian American & immigrant stories on stage in New York and Boston, currently a resident artist with Project YZ (Yangtze Repertory Theatre). Grief, language, Queerness, and community are key themes in Michi’s work.

Michi was awarded the Judith Malina Award for Multidisciplinary Artistic Innovation upon their BFA graduation and the MA AME Capstone Award for their graduate school capstone project, THE BOY WHO BURNT THEIR VILLAGE DOWN, an interview-based media piece about gentrification and displacement in Manhattan Chinatown.

Michi is adventurous and a nerd. Their black cat is her son and the center of their universe.

THEATER LOVES: Developmental Readings/Workshops, Xhloe & Natasha, Chuang Stage.

Michi Zaya
DIGITAL COMMUNICATIONS CONSULTANT
michi@indiespace.org

Our Board

Photo of Board Co-Chair, Raquel Almazan — Raquel Almazan is an interdisciplinary performer, writer, director and educator. Her eclectic career as artist-activist spans original multi-media solo performances, playwriting, devising-dramaturgy and filmmaking. Her work has been featured in New York City, throughout the US and internationally in Greece, Italy, Slovenia, Chile, Colombia, Guatemala, Canada and Sweden; including several of her plays within her lifelong project on writing bi-lingual plays in dedication to Latin American countries (Latin is America play cycle).
She is the artistic director of La Lucha Arts that collaborates with vulnerable communities that include the incarcerated, formerly incarcerated and forum plays with Latinx immigrants, within the performing/writing disciplines has led her to sharing artistic and political spaces with thousands of participants. Member of SAG-AFTRA, The Playwrights Center and National Association of Latino Arts and Culture.
*THEATER LOVES: Productions: Heart Chaos Butoh Dance, La Gringa, Blue Door, work of: Patricia Ariza, Maria Irene Fornes, Ping Chong and Co.*

Raquel Almazan
BOARD CO-CHAIR

Photo of Board Treasurer, Brian Berk — Brian is a co-founder of SpotCo Advertising, an agency specializing in the branding and marketing of Broadway shows and live-entertainment. At SpotCo he held the position of Chief Financial Officer for over 20 years and helped grow the company into a dynamic, full-service advertising agency with a staff of 120 and over $70 million in revenues. Prior to founding SpotCo, Brian was involved in various non-profit arts organizations such as The Roundabout Theatre Company, Ensemble Studio Theatre, Arts at St. Ann’s, and The Center for Traditional Music and Dance. Brian is a New York City native.
*THEATER LOVES: Angels in America, A Little Night Music, Ethyl Eichelberger as The Lincolns at Lincoln Center Serious Fun.*

Brian Berk
TREASURER

Photo of board member, Andrew Clarke — Andrew Clarke is the Jamaican-born Founder and Executive Director of Braata Productions. Since the company’s founding, Andrew has produced over two dozen productions, including staged readings, fully mounted shows and regional tours of new and established works, including The Black That I Am and Welcome to America: A Caribbean Musical, as well as three consecutive seasons of the Braata Folk Singers biennial concert series. Over the past eleven years, Braata has performed throughout the New York Tri-state area and regionally, from Toronto, Canada, to Atlanta, Georgia. Andrew Co-Produced the Off-Broadway musical Flambeaux, which swept the 2015 AUDELCO Awards, winning in six categories, including Best Musical of The Year.
*THEATER LOVES: The Amen Corner, Karl O'Brian Williams, and The Public Theater (their work is largely always moving and that's how I got my Equity card )*

Andrew Clarke
BOARD MEMBER

Photo of board member, Dechelle Damien — Dechelle has a background as a project manager and is currently the Director of Human Resources at Serengeti Asset Management, a value-driven investment firm. She is also a founding member and co-Artistic Director of Wreckio Ensemble, a collective theater company that has produced original and innovative works on social issues in New York City since 2000. Dechelle has performed with dancers from the Frankfurt Ballet and in the New York Fringe Festival, Wonderland Festival, American Living Room Festival, and Florida Dance Festival.
*THEATER LOVES*: *Rainpan 43's Machines, Machines, Machines, Machines, Machines, Machines, Machines, Must Don’t Whip ‘Um, La Veillée des Abysses, RSC’s Faust*

Dechelle Damien
BOARD CO-CHAIR

Candace Jackson has worked for over 25 years as an entrepreneur and arts manager guiding numerous theater, dance, visual arts and cultural organizations. Candace founded CJAM Consulting in 2006 to create advanced business strategies for arts and cultural institutions, particularly in communities of color.
Under Candace’s leadership, CJAM has successfully planned and directed institutional startups and expansions, business model design, managerial and financial capacity building, and capital construction development for scores of the nation’s emerging and historic institutions.
THEATER LOVES:
- The call and response of the live theater experience.
- The evolutions in black dance – from Dunham to Ron K. Brown to Camille Brown, lindy hop to krumping to waacking. The lineage is looong.
- Backstage blue light. IYNYK

Candace Jackson
BOARD MEMBER

Modesto “Flako” Jimenez is a Dominican-born, Bushwick-raised, multi-hyphenate artist. His work exists in and explores the intersections of identity, language, mediums, cultures, and communities found in his personal life and beyond. Jimenez’s work includes Taxilandia, a site-specific performance in a moving taxi that received a Critic’s Pick from Time Out New York and The New York Times and was recently recognized with an Obie Special Citation Award. Jimenez is the founder of ¡Oye! Group, a nonprofit that serves as an incubator for artists, both native and immigrant to New York City. In 2021, Jimenez received a Jerome Foundation Fellowship and a Foundation for Contemporary Arts award in performing arts and theater. Jimenez has been selected as a Princeton Hodder Fellow for 2023-2024 and received a Guggenheim fellowship in 2024. Currently, Jimenez is working on Mercedes, a multi-disciplinary art experience exploring the relationships between matriarchy and ancestors, familial bonds and inherited trauma, and how our own identity can impact our mental health.

THEATER LOVES: The Wooster Group, Kaneza Schaal and Georgiana Pickett

Modesto “Flako” Jimenez
BOARD MEMBER

Photo of board member, Pamela Kupper — Pamela Kupper is a trained theatrical lighting designer with over 20 years of experience designing theatre, opera, corporate events, archi-tainment and fashion projects. She also has a background in project management, which includes working on landmark façade projects. Pamela has designed lighting, dimming and control systems for theater and museum spaces, and regularly designs theatrical lighting for live theater, and events. She is the founder of THESAN, a full service lighting company.
*THEATER LOVES*: *Into the Woods*, Wreckio Theatre Ensemble, *Lesbian Love Octagon*

Pamela Kupper
BOARD MEMBER

Photo of board member, Samuel Morales Jr. — Samuel Morales Jr. is a Senior Security Governance Analyst at Datadog. He has worked in the technology industry for over 20 years (including 15 years at Google, and three at Square), in the areas of IT operations, site reliability engineering, privacy, and security compliance. He has a Master of Science in IT degree from the University of Maryland Global Campus, and an Executive MBA from the Quantic School of Business and Technology.
*THEATER LOVES*: *Rooftops*, The Kraine, and *The Honeycomb Trilogy*

Samuel Morales Jr.
SECRETARY

Siobhan O’Neill is a founding board member of The Indie Theater Fund and has a background as an NYC actor, (with many a waitress and temp job along the way) and then spent almost a decade as a booking agent for theatrical tours. Siobhan is a founding partner and co-owner of the live theatrical production company, For The Record Live. She also has a Professional Certificate in Fundraising at NYU’s Heyman Center for Philanthropy and Fundraising.
THEATER LOVES: Watching the birth of the NY International Fringe Festival with fellow Obie, John Clancy. Ushering for a crazy new show called ‘Blue Man Group’ because she couldn’t afford a ticket, rushing to see a crazy new show called ‘Sleep No More’ before it’s limited run expired….

Siobhan O’Neill
BOARD VICE-CHAIR

Salem Tsegaye is a philanthropy professional with more than a decade of grantmaking experience in the arts and humanities. She currently works at the Mellon Foundation supporting place-based history, heritage, and culture and previously worked at The New York Community Trust supporting fellowships, awards, and services for working artists, capacity building for small nonprofits, social issue documentary filmmaking, cultural heritage preservation, and arts advocacy. Her early career spanned research and administrative roles across nonprofits and higher education. She holds a BA in Cultural Anthropology from Duke University and an MA in Design Studies from The New School.

THEATER LOVES: A Strange Loop, Off- and Off-Off Broadway venues, and a past life administering the Helen Merrill Award for Playwriting.

Salem Tsegaye
BOARD MEMBER