The Comings & Goings column is about sharing the professional successes of our community. We want to recognize those landing new jobs, new clients for their business, joining boards of organizations and other achievements. Please share your successes with us at: comingsandgoings@washblade.com.
Congratulations to a good friend David Lloyd Olson on his new position as Managing Director at Quintessence Theatre Group in Northwest Philadelphia. Quintessence is a classic theater company. Janice Bogen, Interim Chair of the Board of Directors of Quintessence Theatre Group (QTG) said, “QTG and its board of directors are excited to welcome David Lloyd Olson, who will join Founding Artistic Director Alex Burns to lead the next chapter and to celebrate ten years of progressive classical theater in Philadelphia.”
In 2019-2020, Quintessence Theatre Group will celebrate 10 years of bringing award-winning progressive classical theater to Philadelphia audiences. Critically acclaimed, QTG performs works of classic drama and literature.
Olson previously worked for six years at the Shakespeare Theatre Company in Washington, D.C., where he helped run the nation’s pre-eminent Shakespeare Theater serving as Manager of the Executive Office and Board Engagement. I had the pleasure of getting to know Olson through Michael Kahn, the theatre’s retiring Artistic Director and know how crucial Olson’s work was to the success of the theatre. He also founded, and served as chair of the board of his own award-winning (2014 Helen Hayes John Aniello Award for outstanding emerging theater company) experimental theater company, Pointless Theatre Company. Previously he had been an Allen Lee Hughes Management Fellow at Arena Stage in D.C. and was a Fulbright English Teaching Assistant in Valmiera, Latvia.
Olson was a recipient of two D.C. Commission on the Arts and Humanities Fellowship grants. He served on the host committee of the 2016 Theatre Communications Group national conference. He received his bachelor of theatre arts and bachelor of government and politics from the University of Maryland.
Congratulations also to Jeffrey DeShawn Richardson the new Executive Director CBE Leadership Council at Center for Black Equity. Richardson said, “The Center for Black Equity and the Black LGBTQ+ Pride movement generally has been building grassroots leadership capacity across the community for decades, it’s exciting to contribute to an expanding body of work led by Center for Black Equity CEO Earl Fowlkes to amplify voices and build lasting capacity especially for those most marginalized within our community.”
Richardson is also the founder and principal of Enspired Muse Coaching & Management, in D.C. and a senior adviser and director of coaching for Unlocking Potential Foundation in Alexandria.
He served with the U.S. Department of State, U.S. Embassy Mozambique as a Visiting Lecturer and was Chief Program Officer for the National Conference on Citizenship (NCoC). Richardson worked for the D.C. government as Chief Service Officer & Executive Director, Serve DC- the Mayor’s Office on Volunteerism and as director of the District of Columbia Mayor’s Office of LGBT Affairs for Mayor Vincent Gray.
Richardson earned his bachelor’s in Sociology – Focus on Race, Class and Policy from The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and his master’s in Social Work, Macro Practice Concentration Organizational Development, Family and Child Services from the Howard University School of Social Work in D.C. He received a Daily Point of Light Award from the Points of Light Foundation and has served as a board member of the Association of State Service Commissions and a member of the Democratic National Committee.
Published at Sat, 14 Sep 2019 18:34:40 +0000