Dan McCleary

Founder and Artistic Director

Native Memphian Dan McCleary has crafted a successful career as an actor, playwright, producer, and director with the internationally-acclaimed theatre Shakespeare & Company, as well as other major theatre companies throughout the United States.

Dan has played over 100 stage, film, and television roles, including critically-acclaimed or award-winning work as Macbeth, Marc Antony, Coriolanus, Richard III, Brutus, Petruchio, Bottom, Hotspur, Caliban, Don Armado, Dromio, and Herman Melville (you can also see him as Sylvester Stallone's computerized dad in that lost treasure, Judge Dredd). In addition to his 14-year association with Shakespeare & Company, Dan has worked Off-Broadway and in regional theatres throughout the country: Actors Theatre of Louisville, Alabama Shakespeare, Arden Theatre, Georgia Shakespeare Festival, Merrimack Rep, Orlando Shakespeare, StageWest, Gloucester Stage, Huntington Theatre, and North Shore Music Theatre.

In the last six years, Dan has focused on directing, adapting, and writing for the stage, with critically-acclaimed work in Vita & Virginia, The Stone Face (American Premiere), As You Like It, All's Well That Ends Well, My Own Stranger, The Servant of Two Masters, and Henry and June (his first play, adapted from the works of Anaïs Nin and Henry Miller). Dan also teaches master level acting classes at Shakespeare companies, colleges, high schools, and conferences throughout the country, specializing in Shakespeare's Text, First Folio, Scene Study, and Clowning.

At Shakespeare & Company, located near Tanglewood in western Massachusetts in the Berkshires, Dan was the Associate Artistic Director from 1999-2005.  During his tenure, he helped the theatre earn over $1 million for the first time in its fiscal year history. Prior to 1999, as Development & Marketing Director, Dan recruited a new Communications staff that, within two years, increased revenue by 22%, underwriting by 400%, national media coverage by 250%, and administered a $5 million capital campaign for a new 63-acre property acquisition. As the Communications Director, he launched a five-year strategic branding campaign which implemented award-winning marketing campaigns.  Dan worked with over 550 members of the national and international media, including The New York Times, Variety, Boston Globe, Wall Street Journal, CBS-TV, NBC-TV, N.P.R., L.A. Times, A.P., London Times, USA Today, and The Smithsonian.

Dan studied Broadcast Journalism and Theatre at the University of Memphis and graduated Magna Cum Laude from Philadelphia’s Temple University with a BA from its School of Communications in 1989. His most recent poetry was published in Black Book and Arch and Quiver.

E. Frank Bluestein

Executive Director

E. Frank Bluestein is the 1996-1997 Disney National Performing Arts Teacher of the Year and the 1994 Tennessee Teacher of the Year. In October of 1998, USA Today named Mr. Bluestein one of the top 40 teachers in the United States.

Frank is a past winner of the American Theatre Association's John C. Barner Award, a national award given to one secondary school teacher whose theatre program is judged most exemplary for the year.  He has served as an arts advisory panelist for the National Endowment for the Arts, the College Board Arts Advisory Committee, the Council of Chief State School Officers, and the Tennessee Arts Commission.  He is a former president both of the Tennessee Alliance for Arts Education and the Germantown Arts Alliance. Each summer he supervises the theatre division of the Tennessee Arts Academy, a statewide teacher training institute located in Nashville, TN.  Frank has twice been named to Memphis Magazine's Who's Who in Memphis poll, and was presented with a community service award for his accomplishments in education by the National Conference of Christians and Jews.

At Germantown High School in Germantown, TN, Frank serves as the chairman of the school's Fine Arts Department. He is the founder and director of the school's theatre, the Poplar Pike Playhouse, and also serves as Executive Producer for Germantown Community Television (GHS-TV), the school's three million dollar educational television facility.  In 1984 he helped the Germantown High School Fine Arts Department to become one of eight secondary schools in the nation to be chosen to receive the prestigious Rockefeller Brothers Fund Arts in Education Award.

Under Frank's leadership, Germantown Community Television has received over 80 first place Hometown Video USA awards for its programming and has been named seven times by the Alliance for Community Media as the Best Community Access Station in the USA.  The station has been recognized with regional Emmy and Cable Ace Award nominations.  Frank has also participated in the educational programs of the National Television Academy of Arts and Sciences and has led his team of teachers and scores of students to win a national student Emmy (2004 National Student Television Award of Excellence) for sports coverage as well as 13 regional first-place student Emmy awards.

Frank has served as a director of shows at Opryland, USA, and most recently wrote and directed the national touring production of Beale Street Saturday Night starring blues legend Joyce Cobb. He is a frequent speaker and writer on arts-related issues.

Caroline Harrison

Company Manager and Development Associate

Caroline holds a B.A. in Theatre and Performance Studies from Kennesaw State University in Georgia, and has studied at the Gaeity School of Acting in Dublin, Ireland. Caroline worked with the College of the Arts at KSU as Assistant Box Office Manager; as the Marketing Director for the Connecticut Theatre Festival; and helped set fundraising records as the Special Events Coordinator for Georgia Shakespeare before coming to Tennessee.

Artistically, she has appeared onstage in Grapes of Wrath, Translations, a series of Beckett Shorts, On the Verge, Graceland, The Odyssey, The Raven, and As You Like It.  Storytelling credits include the Winter Storytelling Festival (Southern Order of Storytellers), Roswell Storytelling Festival, multiple appearances at Sketchy's Art Pad, touring Dr. John Gentile's adaptation of The Hero's Journey to dozens of public schools and featuring it at the international Mythic Journey's Conference in 2003.  After graduation, Caroline worked with the KSU Tellers to write, create, and debut their four-star (British Theater Review) adaptation of Beowulf at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival.

Stephanie Shine

Education Director

Stephanie is in her 12th season as Artistic Director of Seattle Shakespeare Company where she has directed Richard III, Henry IV, All's Well that Ends Well, The Comedy of Errors, Swansong by Patrick Page, Cyrano de Bergerac, the lauded all-male Taming of the Shrew, Measure For Measure, Richard II, Wild Oats, Hamlet, Henry V, Romeo and Juliet, A Midsummer Night's Dream, and Henry IV, pt 1. Her other directorial credits include, The Comedy of Errors for Colorado Shakespeare Festival, I Am of Ireland (which she also conceived and adapted), and A Christmas Memory for Book-It Repertory Theatre, Love’s Labors Lost for Cornish College of the Arts, A Christmas Carol (also adapted) for Bainbridge Performing Arts, Romeo and Juliet for Seattle University, and When the Messenger is Hot for Theater Schmeater.  After extensive touring, the award-winning one-woman Marilyn Monroe Biopic, Marilyn: Forever Blonde, opened in October in London's West End under Stephanie's direction.

A well-known actress in the Northwest, she has performed for the Seattle Repertory Theatre, ACT, The Empty Space, Seattle Children’s Theatre, Book-It Repertory Theatre, and Tacoma Actors Guild, as well as several theatres across the nation including both the Oregon and New Jersey Shakespeare Festivals. Her Shakespearean roles include Juliet, Rosalind, Lady Macbeth, Beatrice, Regan, Feste, Kate, Bianca, Dionyza, The Princess of France, Hero, and Perdita. Stephanie is a graduate of the University of Washington's Professional Actor Training Program and the very proud mother of Conor and Cahilan Shine.

She is currently direnting Twelfth Night for Seattle Shakespeare Company.  Stephanie serves on the advisory board of the University of Washington's School of Drama, is adjunct faculty for the Seattle Film Institute where she teaches Directing the Actor.  Stephanie will next direct The Taming of the Shrew for Colorado Shakespeare Festival in the spring.

Brittany Morgan

Artist Manager, Associate Educator

Marsha Klimetz

Bookkeeper

Marsha has 30 years of accounting experience, with 21 years as Vice President of Finance for Orion, a packaging machinery company.  She provides accounting services to entrepreneurial organizations in the Memphis area.

She also serves as president of a local non-profit organization, Delta Dressage Association, a United States Dressage Federation organization that promotes the discipline of dressage.  She is a USDF Bronze and Silver Medalist and competes her horse in shows around the Mid-South.

Marsha is a member of The Church at Schilling Farms in Collierville, where she is actively involved in the Women's Ministry.  Marsha is a native Memphian and resides in Collierville with her husband, David.  They have four children and one grandchild.