Our Director and Advisory Board
The core of artists and organizers that makes up The Archive Theater began to gather during the Midsummer Night’s Dream that Jennifer Rose Davis directed at the Curtain Theater in 2010. Jennifer, Jim Barnes and Garrison Martt had been friends for nearly twenty years at that point. Joe Stephenson and Carrie Casey both attended Midsummer and loved it, and they began to form intertwining relationships of friendship and deep professional respect. In the fall of 2017, Garrison came to Jennifer and Jim with the idea of forming a theater company to produce Jennifer’s translation of Cyrano de Bergerac and so here we are. Post pandemic we have expanded our board to include Archive Alumni Lynn Schaffer, Adriana Fontánez, and Bradley Wright each of whom bring their unique skills and viewpoint to our organization.
Producing Artistic Director - Jennifer Rose Davis
Jennifer Davis is a writer, director, actress, singer, musician, costumer, mask maker, artist, graphic designer, and all-around Renaissance woman. She designed costumes for Henry VIII and Wolf Hall (Austin Shakespeare), Pride and Prejudice (St. Edward’s University), and The Little Mermaid (Zilker Theatre Productions). She also translated and directed Cyrano de Bergerac (The Archive Theater). She is the primary writer/adapter involved in most of The Archive Theater productions as well as frequently doing graphic design, production, set design, props design, costume design, and much more for The Archive Theater shows.
Advisory Board Member/Partner - Carrie Casey
Carrie Casey is a lifelong business owner and manager. She started with Girl Scout cookies and garage sales and has progressed to multi-million-dollar companies. Over the years she has done a wide variety of jobs: bookkeeper, salesperson, marketing specialist, community outreach coordinator, CEO, chairman of the board, and trainer. This wide-ranging experience has given her a deep and thorough understanding of how businesses function.
In her free time, Carrie invests in non-profit organizations as a volunteer and board member working directly with the consumers of the non-profit's services. She has been a Girl Scout leader, a front-of-house volunteer, a production manager, a producer, and a stage manager for several local theatre troupes. She organizes events, trains volunteers, and pilots programs.
Advisory Board Member - James William Barnes
James William Barnes is a technical writer, marketing communications manager, and trade-show exhibit producer. He started his professional career with a BS in Geology from the University of Wisconsin at Eau Claire. He then added instruction-manual writing, desktop publishing skills, digital image manipulation, art direction, exhibit production, and marketing communications management while working for a scientific instrument company.
Working freelance for several years, gave Jim experience with planetarium presentations, film and digital astrophotography, and support for theatrical productions. The last decade has been spent learning to sell portable trade-show displays and preparing digital art files for large-format printing, along with marketing and business operations for an exhibit design and fabrication company.
Advisory Board Member - Lynn Schaffer Beaver
Lynn S. Beaver (Director/Prop Designer/Set Designer) has been working in Austin area theatre for the past 27 years. She has directed too many shows to count, her favorites include, Sweet Delilah Swim Club, Hamlet, Lend Me A Tenor, Much Ado About Nothing, Merry Wives Of Windsor and Taming Of The Shrew. Most recently Lynn has gone back to her roots as Stage Manager for dozens of shows including Archive Theatre’s productions of Macbeth and Cyrano de Bergerac, TILT’s When She Had Wings, STP’s Sweat, Different Stages Gliders, and Lost In Yonkers (BWW’s Best Play 2021) at the Palace Playhouse. Lynn has served on Boards for several local theatre companies and brings a lifetime of professional knowledge to her work with the Archive Board of Directors.
Advisory Board Member - Katy Thomspon
Katy Thompson has been a stagehand, stitcher, actor, properties manager, musician, front-of-house manager, producer, director, costume designer, puppet resuscitator, board member, B. Iden Payne Awards Nominating committee member, and generalized force of good in the Austin historic theatre community for over a decade. Professionally Katy is an attorney, nationally published and award-winning photographer, published author, accomplished artisan, and community leader. When she is not working she enjoys traveling, giving her Vizslas the lives they deserve, historic cookery, and making the most of her Drafthouse pass. Outside of historic theatre, Katy's passions include access to justice, reproductive rights, and servant leadership.
Advisory Board Member - Adriana Fontánez
Adriana Fontánez is an Austin actor, director, and writer. She graduated cum laude from St. Edward's University and studied at Pontificia Universidad Católica Madre y Maestra in the Dominican Republic. Adriana believes that gaining perspectives from differing worldviews is essential to create powerful and relevant theater. She taught English classes at Corpoadases, a youth reform program in Colombia and currently works with special needs adults from immigrant families. Her love of classic literature fuels her to highlight their relevance in our ever-changing world. She has worked with The Archive Theater in several capacities since 2019 and brings that real-world experience into the boardroom.
Advisory Board Member - Joe Stephenson
Joe Stephenson is a Professor of English at Abilene Christian University, where he teaches courses in Shakespeare and British literature. He earned his BA from Yale and his Ph. D. from University of Connecticut, where he was privileged to work with Andrew Gurr on a dissertation examining Dutch characters on the English stage from Shakespeare to Dryden. He continues to publish on the intersections of Anglo-Dutch geopolitical relations and early modern drama, as well as regularly reviewing productions (mostly in London and Stratford-upon-Avon) for scholarly journals.
Joe has worked as dramaturg for several companies in Texas. His current major project is a scholarly edition of The Dutch Lady, a formerly lost Restoration comedy existing in a single manuscript from the seventeenth century. He is looking forward to the Archive Theater’s production of the play in 2025.
Founder/Artistic Director/Advisory Board Member - Garrison Martt
Garrison Martt (Director) has been active in Austin theatre for fifty years. He has directed or performed in plays such as The Sandbox, Twelfth Night, The Bald Soprano, The Tempest, Henry V, and The Man of Destiny among many others. In 1992, he received an ACOT nomination for his lead performance in the Vortex production of King Lear. Garrison served as the Artistic Director of the Archive Theater from its inception in 2018 through 2022. After directing his long-held dream of a post-Civil War Macbeth in 2023 to great acclaim, Garrison retired as Artistic Directorand served on the Advisory Board until 2023
Former Board Members
We extend our love and gratitude to the people who have helped to shape our journey. our depest thanks go our to Garrison Martt and Bradley Wright for their service to our organizations.
Advisory Board Member - Bradley Wright
Bradley Wright is an alum of UT's Shakespeare at Winedale and for the last decade has had the great fortune to work with a number of companies with a targeted drive to keep the Bard's work alive and well in Austin, TX. He served on the Advisory Board of The Archive Theater from 2023-2024