Board of Directors
David Sandberg, President
David Sandberg (Board President, Finance Committee) owns Porter Square Books with his wife Dina Mardell. He is an attorney who was formerly in private practice and then served as General Counsel of ITA Software (which in 2011 became part of Google) in Cambridge from 1997-2013. He is a graduate of Princeton University (’80) and the Columbia University School of Law (’84). He serves on the Board, and as Dramatic Director, of the North Cambridge Family Opera Company, in many of whose productions he has appeared over the last fifteen years. He is the cantor of Temple Beth Shalom (the Tremont Street Shul) in Cambridge and was a founding Board member of Kesher, the Cambridge community after-school Hebrew program. He is also a member of the board of the newly formed Friends of the Cambridge Public Library. He is an occasional Gilbert and Sullivan tenor.
James Burke
James R. Burke is a partner at Hinckley, Allen & Snyder LLP, where he has practiced corporate and securities law since 2010. Prior to joining Hinckley Allen, Jim was a partner at WilmerHale (previously Hale and Dorr LLP), where he practiced law for nearly 19 years. He is a member of the Board of Directors of the Federation of State Humanities Councils and past Board Chair of the Massachusetts Foundation for the Humanities. Jim is a member of the Board of Governors of the Concord Museum in Concord, Massachusetts and Co-Chair of the President’s Council of the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation. Jim is also a member of the National Trust for Historic Preservation, the American Battlefield Trust, and the Massachusetts Historical Society and past Board President of the Boston Classical Orchestra. Jim received his AB from Princeton University (’88) and his JD from Harvard Law School (’91).
Jean Cummings
Jean Cummings is a writer with a background in public policy, education, and the arts. She was a researcher and analyst at the John F. Kennedy School of Government for several years after getting her Masters in Public Policy. She subsequently co-founded an urban policy research and consulting firm, where she stayed for 14 years. A political junkie, she has been involved in local, state and national politics for decades, including a term as a housing and community development assistant to Boston Mayor Ray Flynn. Lately, she has been writing for a Cambridge community news source on public education, leading an arts committee for Cambridge’s public high school, and tutoring math for public school children. Her daughter has performed in ASP’s youth productions since 2016. Her career high points include her election to the role of Eliminator of Confusion for her college chorus; appearances as Jabba the Hutt with the North Cambridge Family Opera; performer in the operatic interludes of the Ig Nobel awards; and several years as a singer and board member of the Back Bay Chorale, where she met her husband.
Bruce Herrmann
Bruce Herrmann is a Director and Architect at the Boston based Architectural Firm, Wilson Butler Architects, where his experience ranges from design and understanding of original and historic construction techniques to 21st century building technology and theater operation. His architectural experience includes performing arts centers in Massachusetts, Connecticut, Virginia and Ohio. Mr. Herrmann is a member of the American Institute of Architects and the National Trust for Historic Preservation. Bruce received his Masters of Architecture from UCLA and brings the technical knowledge from his Bachelor of Science in Engineering from the University of Cincinnati. Bruce and family reside in an old Victorian that looks like it fell out of a fairy tale, an on-going “project” for him that may never end.
Denise Jillson
Denise Jillson (External Relations Committee) is a Somerville native and has lived and worked in Cambridge since 1975. She and her husband, George Pereira, have two children. Her career has spanned the spectrum from manufacturing/engineering, sales and institutional development. Denise is currently the Executive Director of the Harvard Square Business Association. She serves on the Executive Board of the Boston Minuteman Council, Boy Scouts of America, is the most recent past President of the Board of the Community Charter School of Cambridge, serves on the board and is Past President of the Rotary Club of Cambridge. She joined the board of Actors’ Shakespeare Project in 2006.
Sarah Leaf-Herrmann
Sarah Leaf-Herrmann has more than 20 years of experience in marketing communications and development in New England, New York City, and London. While at the Boston Symphony and Boston Pops Orchestras, she ran the international press conference to announce the appointment of Keith Lockhart as Boston Pops Conductor. She began The Idea Co. in 1998 to provide public relations and fundraising counsel for non-profit cultural organizations. She is Past President of Boston Women Communicators and is currently Chair of the External Relations Committee for Young Audiences of Massachusetts. Ms. Leaf-Herrmann is a member of Women in Development of Greater Boston, Public Relations Society of America – Counselors Academy, and the Association of Fundraising Professionals.
Doug Lockwood, RAC Representative
Doug Lockwood (RAC Representative) is a founding company member of ASP and serves as the Resident Acting Company representative to the Board of Directors. Acting Credits for ASP: Richard II, Twelfth Night, Antony and Cleopatra, Othello, Much Ado About Nothing, Merchant of Venice, Henry V, King Lear, Titus Andronicus, The Winter’s Tale and Measure for Measure. Directing Credits for ASP: Middletown and Cymbeline. Other directing credits: Chesapeake (New Rep, Elliot Norton Award for Best Solo Performance); Escape from Happiness (Brandeis University); Cyrano (two different productions for New Rep on Tour); For Dillon by Carol Lockwood (The Piano Factory); and Coolsville, Twelfth Night, Machinal, Cloud 9, Bent, Two Gentleman of Verona: The Musical, The Beckett Bash, and Landscape of the Body (The Boston Conservatory). Lead Actor in short film The Chain based on short story by Tobias Woolf; Faculty member at The Boston Conservatory. MFA in Acting from University of Washington under the direction of Steve Pearson.
Richard Mandel
Richard Mandel is a former faculty member of Babson College since 1985. He has taught in the undergraduate, graduate and executive education programs delivering a variety of courses. In addition to Honors Foundation of Business Law, Professor Mandel has taught Commercial Law, Federal Taxation, American Constitutional Law, and Strategic Business and Tax Planning. He has also taught Meteorology in Babson’s Math/Science division and co-taught Investment Banking in the finance division. He has served as Associate Dean of Babson’s Undergraduate School, Acting Dean of the Undergraduate School and as chair of Babson’s finance division. In addition to his teaching responsibilities, Professor Mandel served as partner and of counsel to the law firm of Bowditch and Dewey, specializing in the corporate, tax and securities issues facing small, growing companies. His research and writing parallels his law practice, concentrating in entrepreneurial law, but he has also published an article in a meteorology journal. He has written numerous articles and book chapters and is a contributing author to the Portable MBA series published by John Wiley and Sons, Inc.
Luke Salisbury
Luke Salisbury is the author of the cult classic The Answer Is Baseball, and three works of fiction, The Cleveland Indian, nominated for a Casey Award, Blue Eden, and Hollywood & Sunset, which was selected as Book of the Year (Fiction 2006) by Online Review of Books & Current Affairs, and won Best Historical Fiction 2006 from USABookNews. He teaches Shakespeare at Bunker Hill Community College and takes the class to an ASP production each semester.