Margaret Ladd
(Creator and Co-Founder)
Ms. Ladd was first moved to create the Imagination Workshop when she and internationally acclaimed playwright Eugene Ionesco happened to attend a play performed by patients in a mental hospital. They witnessed, first-hand, the patients’ remarkable onstage transformation from withdrawn and disengaged to vibrant and charming. Ionesco called it, “creating from the place where dreams come from.” Ladd instantly realized what an inspirational gift such performances could be to the professional theater community, as well as what an effective tool the world of theater could offer to those with mental health challenges.
Lyle Kessler
(Creator and Co-Founder)
Lyle Kessler is an American playwright, screenwriter, actor, and director, best known for his internationally acclaimed play Orphans. Born in Philadelphia on April 11, 1936, he began his career as an actor before turning to playwriting. He studied under legendary acting teacher Lee Strasberg at the Actors Studio.
Orphans, premiered in Los Angeles in 1983 and later gained international acclaim through productions at Steppenwolf Theatre Company and on Broadway. The 2013 Broadway revival starring Alec Baldwin, Ben Foster, and Tom Sturridge received two Tony Award nominations. His notable works include The Watering Place, which premiered on Broadway in 1969, as well as Collision, The Great Divide, Robbers, Possession, and Unlisted. Kessler adapted Orphans for film and wrote screenplays for the movies Gladiator, The Saint of Fort Washington, and Touched. He served as Artistic Director of the Sundance Screenwriters Lab and led playwright/director programs at the Actors Studio.
Jim McGrath
(Executive Director)
Jim McGrath is an OVATION AWARD winning playwright whose plays have appeared at the Goodman Theater in Chicago, the Passage Theater in Trenton, New Jersey, The Directors’ Company in New York City, and both the Met Theater and Actors Studio in Los Angeles. He also has had a long career as a television writer (SIMON & SIMON, MATLOCK, THE FATHER DOWLING MYSTERIES, QUANTUM LEAP, MIKE HAMMER PRIVATE EYE and many others) and screenwriter and producer (SILVER BELLS, JIU JITSU, KICKBOXER RETALIATION, GUNNER).
Christina Linhardt
(Senior Artist)
Christina Linhardt is an award-winning concert singer, actress, and filmmaker, with a versatile career spanning Southern California and Germany. A USC Vocal Arts graduate with theater studies at Oxford, she is renowned for her "Classics to Cabaret" act, her work with the Los Angeles Opera, and her solo cds "Circus Sancttuary" , "Voodoo Princess", "Come Again" and "Fairytale Fetish'.
Christina directed the award-winning documentary Guantanamo Circus which was selected by the Library of Congress for its permanent collection, and TROY! The Original Lady Boy , which opened the Heartland Film Festival's Pride Stride.
She performs regularly at the Hollywood Magic Castle, for the German Consulate, and for Los Angeles Women's Theater Festival.
Marnie Olsen
(Senior Artist)
MARNIE OLSON, an actor, playwright and novelist, began her theatrical career in San Antonio, Texas in 1990 at the Melodrama Playhouse & Saloon. In 1992, she relocated toAustin and co- founded the performance art troupe RoadKill Tamales. In 1993, she moved to Los Angeles and has been working in theatre and film nonstop since then. She is the co-founder of two children’s entertainment companies, Li’l People’s Theatre, which produced nearly twenty shows for families from 1994 until 1999. In 2000, she started Open Window Entertainment and over the next fifteen years, presented over two thousand performances for Southern California schools. She was the Artistic Director of Psychic Visions Theatre, producing over fifty original plays. Three of Marnie’s plays were produced in Los Angeles in 2017, and another is scheduled to open March 2018. She has served as an Artist Leader with Imagination Workshop for over ten years, working specifically with homeless veterans at New Directions for seven years and has acted in and stage managed two original plays, written and acted by themhomeless veterans at New Directions.