Executive Team

 

Amy Simon
Founder & President

Amy Simon

Amy Simon, mother, actress, playwright, improviser, published writer, producer, and self-proclaimed Cultural Herstorian; is the founder, visionary and president of She’s History! The seed for She’s History! was planted when her ten-year-old daughter came home from school one  March and stated she wanted to do her Women’s History Report on Cher. She’s History! The Most Dangerous Women In America, Then and Now… debuted in May 2010 at The American Jewish University at The Skirball Cultural Center.

Amy has been acting, improvising and producing theater for most of her adult life.  Her play Cheerios In My Underwear (And Other True Tales Of Motherhood) www.cheeriosinmyunderwear.com holds the record as the longest running solo show in Los Angeles, debuting in 2003 and has been performed all over the Los Angeles area, from The Santa Monica Playhouse to The California Center For The Arts Escondido.

A New Yorker, and hopeless theater junkie, Amy “caught the bug” in kindergarten snagging the starring role in “Susie The Duck”. After college, Amy moved to New York City and, like Madonna, had thirty-five dollars in her pocket and stars in her eyes. Amy helped start The Intrepid Theatre Company (Go Boldly Forth!), where she got her producing chops working on productions such as Beowulf where she did publicity, took the tickets and played Grendel’s (the monster’s) mother.  After ten years in the New York theaters and comedy clubs including the famed Palace Theater, Duplex, Folk City and Manhattan Punch Line, doing plays, sketch and improv comedy, Amy moved west.  Always interested in hearing and presenting what women have to say, she directed, co-produced and performed with GAL-O-RAMA and OVARYACTION at The Improv, The Laugh Factory and The Upfront Comedy Theatre in Santa Monica.  She was the creative force and co-producer behind Heroine Addicts, the hit all-girl variety show (co-starring Jane Lynch among others) at Hollywood’s bang Studio.  She created and produced Motherhood Unplugged and Moms Who Write, a mom written and performed story and music salon and stage show (to benefit Beyond Shelter) with LA Parent Magazine and Mamapalooza (Moms In The Arts).  It inaugurated and is featured on KPFK Radio’s Pacifica Performance Showcase. She was a guest commentator for American Woman In Fact And Fiction, a three part series that aired on Pacifica Radio Archives FromTheVault.org series. Working as a consultant on the launch of the Broad Stage Theater in Santa Monica, Amy performed a variety of duties, including stage-managing the thirteen member cast of American Voices: Spirit of the Revolution, Stephanie Glass Solomon’s original play based on The Federalist Papers, directed by and starring Dustin Hoffman, a truly wonderful man, whom she assisted.  As the cast understudy she actually got to play Abigail Adams going in for Annette Bening in dress rehearsal. A frequent guest on local and national radio, she is also a regular guest on the Nicole Sandler Show at www.radioornot.com.

Amy has also worked in the classroom, as an educational specialist teaching improvisation and theater games, and has created a curriculum related interactive presentation of SHE’S HISTORY! for middle school.  (See School Programs) As an “Herstorical” humorist, Amy writes, blogs, performs and entertains on the radio, online, and onstage and is working on a book to further her mission to turn the world on to all the fabulous females no one knows anything about.  Amy spends a lot of time dodging hormones as a single mother of two glorious and “challenging” teenage daughters who can tell you all about the first woman to run for President.


Richard Kuhlman
Director

Richard has been a Los Angeles actor and director for the last 27 years. He has directed productions in Los Angeles, Greensboro, N.C., Salinas, California, Seattle, Cincinnati and San Francisco, ranging from Tartuffe, The Importance of Being Earnest , Catch 22 and Of Mice and Men. His production of Inspecting Carol opened at Theatre150 in Ojai, December 2008 and returned in ’09. He also earned raves for his productions at Theatre 150 for Fuddy Meers and Fractured Fables.

Among the many one person shows Richard has directed is the Ovation Award nominated, Non Vital Organs and the long running Cheerios in My Underwear and Pounding Nails in the Floor with My Forehead. His production of Regretrosexual won last year’s LA Weekly Award for Best Two Person Play.  Richard has extensive experience working with both new playwrights and with classical texts.  This year he has directed twice at Oak Grove School. He currently teaches Improvisation at the Second City Training Center in L.A. and Columbia College Hollywood in addition to classes at Theater 150 and at the Trollwood PAC in Fargo, N.D.

As an actor in Chicago, Richard performed at Second City while working steadily in commercials. Since moving to Los Angeles he has appeared in many films, such as John Cassavettes last film, Big Trouble, and Ron Howard’s Parenthood, and the Michael Keaton film, The Last Time. TV shows include Seinfeld, ER, Caroline in the City, Family Guy and Chicago Hope. He was a series regular as Tony the superintendent in Bonnie Hunt’s, The Building for CBS, as the Cheshire Cat on the Disney Channel’s Adventures in Wonderland, and the Father of the Fiance in FOX‘s My Big Fat Obnoxious Fiance.  Last March he had a recurring role on the TNT series, Trust Me, and currently has two Hyundai national spots running.

As a playwright, his play The Seven Colored Flower, based on Far Eastern folk tales, won the Pacific Rim Prize for the Kumu Kahua Theatre in Honolulu, Hawaii and has been produced in Salinas, California, and under it’s new title, Fractured Fables in Los Angeles and Ojai to rave reviews. Richard has adapted two of Steinbeck’s novels to the stage, Cannery Row and Tortilla Flat. Working with his writing partner Deb Hiett on several projects, he co-wrote and directed a short mocumentary film on the life of President James Buchcanan, Our Bachelor President, Setting the Record Straight. Their short film, A Bit Of Counseling, won the Audience Award at the LA Comedy Shorts Film Festival last March 7th, his birthday. That short also won the Audience Award at the Palm Beach International Film Festival and was the only U.S. film at the Perth International Festival in Australia. His current writing projects include  one based on the Willa Cather novel, O Pioneers! ,  and one using the poetical works of James Whitcomb Riley.