Stephanie Holmes
Executive/Artistic Director
Joining YPT in 2003 as Theatre in Education teacher and Development Director, Stephanie began working with kids from low-income neighborhoods who attended preschools supported by the Mimi and Peter Hass Fund.
In storytelling and improv games she’d have the children play, she discovered the power of drama as a therapeutic tool. Some of her students had suffered serious trauma and would cast themselves in the role of the superhero coming to the rescue, deflecting bullets, or want to hide from the police. Stephanie learned to adapt her techniques to the needs of each class, guiding students in ways that provided a sense of security while encouraging teamwork, listening and creative thinking.
Mentored by YPT Founder Matilda Kunin, Stephanie took on teaching assignments at YPT and revamped its summer camp programs. Using a workshop model, she likes to have children develop characters of their own making and perform original scripts. They brainstorm and provide the ideas, working collaboratively with Stephanie on narrative structure, stagecraft and dialogue. Many parents have been amazed at what the campers are able to pull off in a week’s time.Stephanie, whose parents worked as professional actors in London, began directing YPT Repertory main stage productions in 2007, assuming the role of Artistic Director, while also recruiting and training instructors for the Theatre in Education program. For YPT’s main stage, she writes, adapts and directs the plays, while also sewing costumes and overseeing set design and construction.
In recent years, she has presented adaptations of Shakespeare plays featuring YPT’s repertory players. An advocate for learning about his characters and stories without requiring mastery of his language, she believes that children from all walks of life, once they reach a certain age, can benefit from exposure to Shakespeare.
Stephanie was honored to step in as Executive Director upon Matilda’s retirement in 2016 and was instrumental in forming a new board of directors tasked with ensuring YPT’s long-term sustainability. Committed to elevating YPT’s outreach mission, she looks forward to expanding Theatre in Education by establishing new programs and partnerships in communities and schools where children lack access to theatre arts-based curricula and face challenges because of dyslexia, autism or gender identity.
Her writing credits include Two Detectives are Better Than One, which premiered at Freight & Salvage in November 2021. She has written multiple short plays for virtual production: The Art of Suffrage (Best of PlayGround), Coward's Flame and Give Me the Sky (MondayNightPlayGround, Simulation (Pear Theatre), Roses in the Desert (Dragon Theatre) and The Disappearance of Betty La Rose (Neighborhood Stories). Her full-length plays Seeds and Every Day Alice, and adaptation of The Seagull, premiered with Utopia Theatre Project. Her comedic short The Scourge of Verona won the 2021 Audience Favorite Award in Silicon Valley Shakespeare’s 48-hour Play Festival: ShakesBinge. She is a co-writer of Braided, a play exploring the intersection of the Native American and Japanese-American immigrant experience. Developed at NEA-funded Theatre of Yugen, it received a workshop showcase with TheatreWorks’ Writer Retreat in January 2021. Anne was Writer/Collaborator for the A.C.T MFA production of Neo-Symposium, which premiered in March 2022.
In January 2022, Anne made her debut with City Lights Theater Company as Henrietta Angkatell in Agatha Christie’s The Hollow. She appeared as Masha in Utopia's immersive production of The Three Sisters. Additional performance credits include Nina in The Seagull, Alice in Every Day Alice (Utopia), the title role in Hamlet, Desdemona in Othello (Silicon Valley Shakespeare), Celia in As You Like It - The Musical (SF Shakespeare Festival), Peggy Maruyama in Allegiance (Contra Costa Civic Theatre) and numerous ShotzSF comedy shorts.
Anne is Founding Artistic Producer of Utopia Theatre Project, which supports emerging artists and seeks to inspire social change. She graduated summa cum laude from Santa Clara University with a BA in Theatre Arts.
www.anneyumikobori.com
Anne Yumi Kobori
Anne is a Japanese-American actor, playwright, director, producer and teaching artist with a wide range of affiliations and experience encompassing re-imagined classics and new works. She has taught with American Conservatory Theater (A.C.T.), Word for Word, SF Shakespeare Festival, Woman’s Will and Shakespearience. At Bay Area elementary and middle schools, she has directed productions of A Midsummer Night's Dream, The Comedy of Errors and Macbeth. Her teaching repertoire ranges from acting technique, ensemble exercises and voice and movement to production and costume design, improv games and choreographing unarmed stage combat.
Anne’s passion for writing and immersive storytelling align with YPT‘s longtime emphasis on empowering students in workshop-model classes and camps to create their own characters and narratives and work collaboratively on bringing them to life onstage. She began teaching at YPT in 2022.
