Image of Tess the Board President for Placer Rep

Teresa Stirling Forsyth

Teresa Stirling Forsyth, MFA (Dramatic Arts), MS (Mgmt & Leadership), member DG & SDC, is Board President and Producing Artistic Director for Placer Repertory Theater.  For Placer Rep, she performs administrative duties as well as the duties of a producer, resident playwright and director. She has also been known to design costumes, props, furnishings, sets, lights and sound, to relish scenic painting opportunities and reluctantly perform.

Having moved to Placer County in 2017, in 2019 she directed with Sacramento Theater Company while the nascent Placer Rep performed a three-part feasibility study of Placer County and determined there was sufficient interest, community and economic support available for a home-grown professional theater company.

In 2019, Placer Rep began testing the waters, offering classes and one-on-one training and mentorship, while developing the founding board members.  On April 10, 2020, Placer Rep officially was recognized as a 501(c)3 nonprofit organization by the State and Federal government. As President, Tess leads the board and the company through use of servant and transformational leadership principles.

Tess’ Entre to the Performing Arts

Her earliest career background centers around performance. She studied voice from an early age. Her primary professional training in opera and legitimate voice was with Nancy Ness Bowman (Nancy Nessman), who trained with the same instructors as and competed for roles with Maria Callas, until Nancy married a dashing U.S. Diplomat, retired from opera and moved to the U.S.

Teresa’s early love of theater and music lead to two touring shows as a performer:  seven European countries with a singing, dancing Jazz & Blues ensemble performing at venues such as the Montreux Jazz Festival, and as an actor/singer/dancer throughout Japan with The Western Stage’s production of You’re A Good Man, Charlie Brown. She moved to Los Angeles, where she performed onstage, in front of the camera, and as a voice-over artist while she began to exercise her skills in producing, directing and screen/playwrighting. After a few years in L.A., she returned to the UC system to complete her academic studies and professional training.

Post-Graduate

While completing her MFA and moving out into the world of professional theater, Teresa was mentored by Jael Weisman, director/performer with the San Francisco Mime Troupe & Dell’Arte International, and veteran BBC/Granada/Royal Shakespeare directors William Gaskill, Guy Slater, Jenny Killian, Julian Amyes, Richard Cottrell and other world-renowned directors. In the 1990’s, she founded, was board president and operated TheatreMaker in the San Francisco Bay Area for five years, where she also held the position of Artistic Director for the statewide touring company, King’s Court Play’rs, for two years.

It is during this time she worked as a writer and director with renowned professionals, such as Dell’Arte Theater Company (the AEA professional touring company) and international solo performance artists, including Brenda Wong Aoki, and exercised her skills as an educator and director for several universities.

She had worked her way through her BA and MFA programs performing a variety of contractor positions, from prototype design and piecework to teaching pre-school, including conceiving, designing and overseeing the development and quality assurance of software. This eventually led to a financial-safety career in the Silicon Valley while pursuing her true passions in the performing and visual arts.

Inspiring High Tech to Use Producing/Directing Principles

Among her many career experiences, including Securities Rep & Financial Advisor and Economic & Business Development, Teresa performed a number of executive roles in the high-tech sector. As a Silicon Valley vice president whose responsibilities often included oversight of groups or departments related to product development & product management, the products she oversaw had millions of users.  She specialized in product concept, user-interface and user experience design, as well as product & lifecycle management and Quality Assurance (QA). She began work as a contractor in the high-tech industry while still in college (1987+), and designed software through the use of storyboards. Her goal then, is the same as it is today – she seeks to engage, support and inspire.

Creativity was in abundance, as the software products could include videos, cut scenes, splash screens and graphic design – all skills she attributes to her MFA, including her training and experience in film and TV direction. “A computer screen is a proscenium,” she has often said. She applied her theater and film experience and knowledge about how to grab an audience’s attention, how to focus their view on the right element at the right moment, to design attractive and easy to use software products. While working in the corporate sector, she also wrote and directed touring solo artists and stand-up comedians, as time permitted.

Nonprofit Leadership

Forsyth’s background also includes being the founder and/or a board officer for several arts & culture and economic development nonprofit organizations, such as Board President of the Solano County Arts Council, Board Secretary of the Jaycees (Junior Chamber of Commerce), Founder & President of A Place To Start, Inc. (APToS), an economic development nonprofit. Tess was appointed by the interim officers of the Placer Repertory Theater board in 2020 as its President. In December 2020, at the annual election committee meeting, the board unanimously voted her as president of the board for a two-year term. She has since been re-elected as the board’s president through December 2024.

Engaging Audiences through Bringing the Written Word to Life

Having written and directed both musicals/operas and straight works, large scale and small cast plays for stage and screen under a prior nom de plume, recent works are penned as T.S. Forsyth, and she particularly enjoys collaboration on new works, especially with solo artists. A few of the plays she has written, co-authored or collaborated on include:

  • Sherlock Holmes: The Speckled Band (adapter, director)
  • Alice’s Adventures Underground (playwright, adapter)
  • Frankenstein or The Man & The Monster (adapter, director)
  • Peter & Wendy & Micah & Spot (playwright, adapter)
  • Uncle Vanya (director)
  • Once Upon a Pangea (playwright/dramaturg)
  • Fireside Stories from Ghosts of Placer County (adapter, director)
  • Ghosts of Placer County (playwright, director)
  • Sherlock Holmes: The Sign of the Four (playwright, director)
  • Sherlock Holmes: Domestic Mysteries series (episodes 1, 2, 4, 5) (screenwriter, director)
  • UNDONE (director and dramaturg for poet/performer Natalie Farrell)
  • Schrodinger’s Cat and the Jackpot (playwright, director)
  • (Premiere version) My Jekyll & Hyde (playwright, director)
  • (Preview version) My Jekyll & Hyde (director and co-playwright with Ryan Gerberding)
  • New Beginnings: the Placer County Roundhouses (dramaturg, director)
  • Persuasion: a holiday romantic comedy (playwright, director)
  • Immy & Oddy (screenwriter)
  • Cal (screenwriter) (20th Century screenwriting awards semi-finalist)
  • Romantic Notions (playwright, director, opera musical director)
  • Wisdom While On My Back (director, co-playwright with Kathryn Carner),
  • Random Acts of Kindness (collaborator with Brenda Wong Aoki, direction w/ Jael Weisman)
  • The Queen’s Garden (dramaturg for Brenda Wong Aoki, direction w/ Jael Weisman),
  • Fear of Falling (Dell’Arte Int’l. writing & directing teams),
  • Love, Romance & Passion, Comedy of Errors (playwright, director),
  • Starving Actors Perform: A showcase of Music, Dance, Sorrow & Laughter (dramaturg, director)
  • Legend of the Fifth World (playwright, director)
  • Tellin’ Tall Tales (playwright, director)
  • James & the Giant Peach (director, dramaturg)
  • What a Wonderful World (director, dramaturg)
  • Tracks to Malibu (dramaturg, director)
  • Yes, But is it Zen? (dramaturg, director),
  • Values (dramaturg, director),
  • The Frogs (collaborator with Audrey Stanley, assistant director, music & lyrics composition).

Venues

Forsyth’s theatrical work has been produced by or performed at many prestigious venues

  • Kennedy Center
  • Lincoln Center
  • Smithsonian
  • Dallas Theatre Center
  • Sacramento Theatre Company
  • San Diego Repertory Theatre
  • The Carlo Theatre
  • Julia Morgan Theater
  • Cowell Theatre
  • Magic Theatre
  • Bayfront Theatre
  • Dell’Arte Theatre
  • Loriane Palace Theater
  • Ellen Eccles Theatre
  • Corn Island KY Storytelling Festival
  • NAPPS National Storytelling Festival
  • Laney Theatre
  • Gill Theatre
  • Barn Theater
  • Lake Merritt Scottish Rite Center
  • Redondo Beach Performing Arts Center

and other U.S. locales, as well as venues in Europe, Asia and South America.

Sample Publications (not inclusive)

  • Contemporary Plays by Women of Color: The Queen’s Garden, Routledge Press, London / New York, ISBN 0-415-11377-6 (HB), ISBN 0-415-11378-4 (PB). Dramaturg
  • Expressions: Arts & Culture Magazine, Solano County Arts Council, Editor-in-Chief, Contributor: 1992-1997
  • Immy & Oddy, screenplay, copyright: Library of Congress – PAu002329467 1998
  • Cal, screenplay, copyright: Library of Congress – PAu002318911 1998

Recognition & Awards

Productions and works in which Forsyth contributed have received the following recognition

  • Dramalogue Awards
  • Critics Circle Awards
  • Indie Award: Best Spoken Word Album: The Queen’s Garden, Rounder Records
  • Grants from the NEA, NEH, CAC, ACPC, corporations and foundations
  • Gloria Burt Sacramento Region Arts Fellowship in Literature
  • 21st Century Screenwriting Competition – Semi-Finalist
  • 7 Nominations & 4 Awards from Broadway World for 2021, 20 nominations in 2022, multiple nominations in 2023
  • Stage Directors & Choreographers Foundation (SDC) 2022 Denham Fellowship Finalist
  • Placer Herald “Best of the Best: Best Live Theatrical Group” 2021
  • Placer Herald “Best of the Best: Best Live Theatrical Group” 2022
  • Placer Herald “Best of the Best: Best New Business” 2022
  • Placer Herald “Best of the Best: Finalist – Local Hero” 2022
  • Placer Herald “Best of the Best” multiple nominations, second place in multiple categories 2023
  • Roseville Press Tribune “Best of the Best” multiple nominations, second place in multiple categories in 2023
  • Placer Herald & Roseville Press Tribune “Best of the Best” 12 nominations 2024
  • Strategic Management Excellence Award, WGU
  • Over 50 community service awards / recognitions
  • Who’s Who in the West – 25th Silver Edition, 26th Edition
  • 2,000 Notable American Women, 8th Edition, 9th Edition
  • Who’s Who of American Women – 20th Edition, 21st Edition
  • Who’s Who in Entertainment – 3rd Edition
  • National Poetry Award – 4th Place
  • Graduated with honors (summa – BAs, magna – Master’s)

Sharing through Education & Professional Association

Teresa has taught or created curriculum for higher education, including, U C Davis, University of San Francisco, U C Berkeley, Shawnee State University, University of Minnesota at Morris and other educational institutions. She is currently a member of the Dramatists Guild of America (DG), Stage Directors & Choreographers Society (SDC), NNPN: New Play Exchange, and the Association for Theatre in Higher Education (ATHE) and is a Lifetime Member of UC Santa Cruz Alumni Association and UC Davis Alumni Association. Due to the publications, plays and directing of internationally touring works, she is a Notable Alumni for UCSC & UCD.

Currently

What is Tess working on now?  Shh. It’s always a secret until it’s imminent. But here’s the public information regarding upcoming productions and events.

President page - image of front cover of Jane Austen Soiree event program  President page - an image of Judy Merrick & Anne Merino in costume for Jane Austen Soiree

 

 

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President of the board for Placer Repertory Theater.

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