ADVISORY BOARD
blythe danner
earned a Tony Award for her Broadway debut in Butterflies Are Free and has received nominations for her roles in Harold Pinter's Betrayal, A Streetcar Named Desire and Stephen Sondheim's Follies. Her other Broadway credits include Blithe Spirit and Nice Work if You Can Get It and she has also appeared in Shakespeare in the Park’s Much Ado About Nothing, 4 plays with the Roundabout Theatre Company, and 20 years with The Williamstown Theatre Festival in plays by Chekov, Williams, Shaw and many more including last summer's The Blue Deep by Lucy Boyle.
On television, she won two Emmy Awards for her role on Showtime’s Huff and was nominated twice for “Will and Grace” and for Joyce Carol Oates’ We Were the Mulvaneys. She received a Golden Globe nomination for Anne Tyler's Back When We Were Grownups. She also appeared in St. Elsewhere and Tattingers, both created by her late husband Bruce Paltrow. Her film roles include Woody Allen's Alice, The Great Santini, Meet The Parents Series, Mr. and Mrs. Bridge, Sylvia, The Lucky One, Hello I Must be Going, 1776, and many more.
Blythe serves on several environmental boards as well as the National Board of Advocates of Planned Parenthood and through her late husband's fund at the Oral Cancer Foundation serves to bring awareness to the epidemic and ever-increasing of numbers of oral cancer cases.
Eugene Pack
is the creator of the long running hit comedy sensation “Celebrity Autobiography” which ran on Broadway this past year. This is the critically acclaimed comedy show where celebrities act out other celebrity memoirs on stage. Packwon the Drama Desk Award for “Unique Theatrical Event." The show tours the United States and abroad, including London’s West End, Australia’s Sydney Opera House, and the Edinburgh Festival.
His podcast www.thepackpodcast.org compiles Eugene's original short comedies with all star casts including Matthew Broderick, Sarah Jessica Parker, Annette Bening, Blair Underwood, Marisa Tomei, Lewis Black and many more.
Pack is also an Emmy Award-nominated writer and producer. He was nominated for Outstanding Writing for Variety, Comedy or Music for the special “America: A Tribute to Heroes,” which won the Emmy for Outstanding Special. Pack is the creator and executive producer of CMT's longest running series, “Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders: Making the Team." He has written and performed the critically acclaimed one man comedy shows “Something Flexible With Meaning,” and “Undisputed: My Night with the Queen of Soul.”
ANNA SKRENTA
received a BA in Theatre Arts from Marymount Manhattan College and hoofed it around the NYC off-off Broadway scene for a few years. After living in London for 8 years, she is currently raising three spectacularly complex and wonderfully kind hearted human beings on the East End of Long Island. She is an active member of the East Hampton Democratic Committee. Anna is beyond delighted to be able to contribute to the life affirming work of the vibrant, heart centered and fearless Neo-Political Cowgirls.
Charlie Soriano
Charlie Soriano is a long-time advocate for the arts and humanities particularly their role in helping young people learn more deeply about themselves. Currently serving as Principal of East Hampton Middle School, Charlie earned his doctorate at The University of Pennsylvania in organizational leadership, which followed a Master’s degree earned at Middlebury College in English literature and a Bachelor’s degree in English from The College of the Holy Cross. He holds a second Master’s degree from Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey in education.
Charlie received a Fulbright Award for study abroad in Japan’s Nagano Prefecture where he was a guest of the Government of Japan, and he was the recipient of a National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) grant in 1991 for the study of Mozart’s The Marriage of Figaro. In 1997 he was named Distinguished Teacher of the Year in the Westfield Public Schools, Westfield, NJ where he taught English for 8 years; in that role, he participated in the annual AP Reading for several years at the College Board’s invitation.
In addition to being a certified teacher of English and a certified elementary school teacher, he holds various administrative endorsements. Over the course of his 30-year career, he has held numerous administrative posts including principal, assistant superintendent, director of curriculum & instruction K-12, director of arts & humanities K-12, dean of studies, assistant principal and English department chair. Charlie’s academic interests include teacher professional development, board governance, organizational learning, language and literacy education K-12 and international education.
He has served and serves on the board of several not-for-profit community organizations including a founding member of the Somerset Hills Education Foundation, Amagansett Food Institute, the East Hampton Education Foundation and, most especially, the East Hampton Library where he also served as treasurer and now first vice president. He’s a long-time patron of the Metropolitan Opera whose performances he’s been regularly enjoying for over 35 years.
On his own time, Charlie enjoys reading widely, live theater, extreme hiking, music of all kinds, learning new things, birds and flying (on planes). He’s travelled to 5 continents and almost 80 countries while slowly working toward his goal of 100 countries and all 7 continents. On a hiking trip to South America he spent a long, sleepless night in a steel shipping container at 14,000 feet during an Andes mountain crossing from northern Chile’s Atacama region to Cachi, Argentina.
His podcast www.thepackpodcast.org compiles Eugene's original short comedies with all star casts including Matthew Broderick, Sarah Jessica Parker, Annette Bening, Blair Underwood, Marisa Tomei, Lewis Black and many more.
Pack is also an Emmy Award-nominated writer and producer. He was nominated for Outstanding Writing for Variety, Comedy or Music for the special “America: A Tribute to Heroes,” which won the Emmy for Outstanding Special. Pack is the creator and executive producer of CMT's longest running series, “Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders: Making the Team." He has written and performed the critically acclaimed one man comedy shows “Something Flexible With Meaning,” and “Undisputed: My Night with the Queen of Soul.”
