NEW BOARD MEMBERS

In actions that increased its membership from twelve to sixteen, the City Park Players board of directors elected four new members and a slate of new officers at a June meeting.

The theatre’s board elected Diane Falcone, Maxine Berry Gaines, Laine Berry Miller, and Jim Weinzettle, to serve terms ending in 2012. Retiring board members Dr. Ed Reed and Piper Wilson were reelected to fill vacancies existing in terms ending in 2010. Members also elected to extend board terms to four years.

Diane Falcone has been a fixture in the CenLa theatre community for twelve years. Since moving to Alexandria with her husband, Pete, in 1994, she has acted in, directed or served as a member of the crew for productions by City Park Players, Family Playhouse, or Spectral Sisters each year. She directed City Park Players’ 2008 60th Anniversary Season production of Steel Magnolias, was stage manager for the season’s presentation of On Golden Pond, and, most recently, served as Executive Producer for the theatre’s 2008 summer musical, The Boy Friend.

Maxine Berry Gaines is an educator, businessperson, and community servant. A native of Alexandria and graduate of Peabody High School and Grambling State University, her career as a teacher and program specialist spanned 28 years in Saint Paul, Minnesota public schools. She currently serves as Chief Financial Officer for Gaines & Gaines, Inc., and Vice President of Rachel Enterprises, LLC, doing business as Dagwood’s Sandwich Shoppes. She also serves as president of Sisters on a Mission, a breast cancer survivors’ support group, and member of the Rapides Parish Workforce Investment Board, the Alexandria Alumnae Chapter of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc., and the Alexandria Chapter of The Links, Inc.

Laine Berry Miller’s work in theatre is well known in Central Louisiana. Having grown up acting in musicals on the City Park Players’ stage, Laine has directed and choreographed over 30 musicals and plays, and worked with perhaps every theatre company and actor in the Alexandria-Pineville area. The founding director of Family Playhouse in 1996, she was owner of Laine Berry’s Performing Arts Studio, and has directed shows with Le Theatre des Bon Temps in Avoyelles parish, the Cotton Patch Players, Theatre Louisiana College, and the LSUA Empty Space Players. Currently she is a private drama and voice instructor at Alexandria Country Day School, where she has directed a fully staged musical each year since 2004.

Jim Weinzettle, a partner at the architectural firm of Ashe Broussard Weinzettle, is an avid supporter of the arts and committed preservationist. He currently serves as a member of the Alexandria Historic Preservation Commission, board president of Hope House in Alexandria, and member of the boards of the Red River Chorale and Habitat for Humanity.

Newly elected board officers are Rosa Ashby Metoyer (2011), President; Piper Wilson, Vice-President; Jim Leggett (2009), Secretary; and Kerry Lloyd (2010), Treasurer. Officers are elected to one-year terms.

Other board members currently serving are Michael Davis (2009), Sylvia Davis (2011), Frith Harwood (2011), Susan Hathorn (2010), H. Wendell Isadore (2011), Karen Riley Simmons (2009), and Judge F. Rae Swent (2009).

The City Park Players Board of Directors is the management arm of the Central Louisiana Community Theatre and produces four to five shows each season. Founded in 1938, the Little Theatre, as it was first known, closed during World War and reopened in 1948. The theatre is celebrating its diamond anniversary—60 years of consecutive seasons—throughout 2008.
A premiere community theatre, City Park Players is a 501(c)3 nonprofit organization committed to offering quality cultural activities and experiences to the entire Central Louisiana community through live theatre productions, programming, and education.