Press Release: New Trustees for 2026-27 Season

SOUTH COAST REPERTORY ANNOUNCES BOARD OFFICERS AND NEW TRUSTEES FOR 2026/27 SEASON

COSTA MESA, Calif. (July 27, 2026)—Led by incoming Board President Giulia Newton, South Coast Repertory (Artistic Director David Ivers and Managing Director Suzanne Appel) announced its Board of Trustees Officers for the 2026/27 season, along with five new Trustees.

Joining Newton as the Board’s officers are Nickie Williams (Vice President-Advancement), Lea Kong (Vice President-Development), Tim Kay (Vice President-Finance) and Susan Shieldkret (Vice President-Community Relations). Together, they serve as the Executive Committee for one of Orange County’s largest nonprofit cultural organizations.

As Board President, Newton succeeds Talya Nevo-Hacohen, who served in that capacity for the past three years.

The theatre also announced that Mike Gray, Paula Orologas, Bill Schenker, Jen Sternshein and Michelle Williams have joined the Board for the upcoming season.

“It is a tremendous honor to serve as Board President of South Coast Repertory,” Newton said. “I look forward to working with our exceptional artists, staff and fellow Trustees to build on SCR’s extraordinary legacy while advancing its next era of artistic excellence and community impact. I am also delighted to welcome our five new Trustees, whose talent, experience and commitment will help ensure SCR continues to thrive for generations to come.”

Appel said, “Giulia Newton’s recent role as Co-Chair of the Long-Range Planning Committee, her many years of corporate strategic leadership experience, and her deep passion for live theatre make her an extraordinary next President of the SCR Board of Trustees. I’m also thrilled to announce our new class of Trustees. They are each extraordinary leaders, committed to serving Orange County, and have a shared passion for the theatre’s unique power to illuminate the human condition.”

Newton is an accomplished healthcare executive, nonprofit leader, and philanthropist with more than 30 years of leadership experience in multinational healthcare organizations. Throughout her career, she has led global commercial, strategic planning, and organizational initiatives, to achieve growth and operational success. Building on this executive experience, she has brought her strategic perspective to board service, joining the South Coast Repertory Board in 2022 and also serving on the board of the Melanoma Research Foundation. Originally from the UK, she holds an MBA from Edinburgh Business School.

Here are brief bios of SCR’s new Trustees:

Gray is a retired real estate developer, MIT graduate and longtime arts patron who served as President of the Board of Ensemble Theatre Company of Santa Barbara from 2019-2021. A fan of new plays, Gray and his wife, Elaine, embraced the Pacific Playwrights Festival from the time they began supporting SCR in 2023. They served as Honorary Producers for last season’s production of God of Carnage and are Opening Night subscribers.

Orologas is Vice President, Head of Global Client Group Learning and Development at Capital Group, where her career spans technology, finance and start-ups, along with leading and supporting sales, product development, talent development and tech teams. A longtime theatregoer, Orologas has degrees from Seton Hall University, George Washington University and the University of San Diego.

A retired actor and Olympic skier—where he represented Puerto Rico in the Men’s Slalom at the 1998 Nagano Games—Schenker and his spouse Nevo-Hacohen, have been SCR subscribers since 2009 and active supporters since 2011. Beginning in 2016 with Future Thinking, they served as Honorary Producers for District Merchants, Poor Yella Rednecks, avaaz, Joan and this past season’s Fremont Ave. They also served as Honorary Producers for the 2024 Pacific Playwrights Festival and co-chaired SCR’s Gala in 2017 and 2018.

Sternshein is Managing Partner of the Sternshein Legal Group, a boutique law firm based in Orange that represents owners of skilled nursing, senior housing, home health and hospice companies with transactional, regulatory and finance matters. A graduate of Whittier College School of Law, where she was Editor in Chief of the Whittier Law Review, Sternshein and her husband, Sandy, have attended SCR since 2011 and are active supporters of the Orange County School of the Arts.

Williams is a retired attorney and active philanthropist who currently serves as Board President for the Boys and Girls Club of Capistrano Valley and the Chair of the Dean’s Leadership Society for the UC Irvine School of Social Sciences, her alma mater. She is also the part-time in-house counsel for St. Margaret’s Episcopal School in San Juan Capistrano. Williams and her husband, John, a partner at Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher, have donated to SCR since 2005 and have actively supported SCR’s Neighborhood Conservatory program.

Location: South Coast Repertory is located at 655 Town Center Drive in Costa Mesa, at the Bristol Street/Avenue of the Arts exit off the San Diego (405) Freeway in the David Emmes/Martin Benson Theatre Center, part of the Segerstrom Center for the Arts.

2026-27 Productions: Into the Woods, Sept. 12-Oct. 10, 2026; Laura Benanti: Nobody Cares, Oct. 8-11, 2026; Blind Runner, Oct. 18-Nov. 8, 2026; A Christmas Carol, Nov. 28-Dec. 27, 2026; Mother Russia, Jan. 22-March 20, 2027; The Importance of Being Earnest, Jan. 23-March 20, 2027; How I Became a Pirate, Feb. 19-March 7, 2027; Three-headed Monster, April 4-May 2, 2027; The Ingenue, April 18-May 9, 2027; Hamlet, May 8-June 5, 2027; Hershey Felder’s Great American Songbook Sing-Along!, July 3, 2027; Hershey Felder, BEETHOVEN, July 6-18, 2027; Hershey Felder, Love Notes, July 21-Aug. 1, 2027.

SCR’s annual showcase of new works, the Pacific Playwrights Festival, runs April 30-May 2, 2027.