Staff

Robert Hand

Director of Production

Robert Hand is the director of production at Arena Stage, where he leads the very talented costume, lighting, props, scenery, sound and stage management teams. Before relocating to Washington, D.C., he was the production manager at American Conservatory Theater in San Francisco, where he also served as the project manager for the renovation of the historic Strand Theatre which opened in 2015. Formally trained in lighting design from the North Carolina School of the Arts, he has designed shows for many companies including American Conservatory Theater, where he received the Theater Bay Area Award for Outstanding Lighting Design for his work on Chester Bailey; San Francisco Playhouse; North Carolina Theatre; Atlanta Ballet; Pittsburgh Ballet Theatre; Nevada Ballet Theatre; Orlando Ballet Theater; English National Ballet; Milwaukee Ballet; Scottish Ballet; and, for the movies, Anchorman 2: The Legend Continues and Scary Movie 5. 

Sean-Maurice Lynch

Director of Community Engagement

Sean-Maurice Lynch is a Washington, D.C. based theater producer, arts administrator, community organizer, director and actor who currently serves as Director of Community Engagement at Arena Stage leading education and community outreach programming. Since 2007, Sean-Maurice has been a teaching artist for Arena Stage instructing acting techniques. In 2013, he received the Allen Lee Hughes Senior Fellowship. As the Senior Education and School Programs fellow, where he helped manage the DC Ticket Partnership, developing theater educational materials. In 2014, he traveled to India with the Arena Stage Voices of Now program devising plays with students and adults from Kolkata, Chennai, Mumbai, and Hyderabad. From 2016 - 2020, he served as Training Programs Manager at Arena Stage where he revitalized the Allen Lee Hughes Fellowship Internship Program, and the Actors Arena Professional Development program serving over 400 local DC area actors and co-created the DC Arts Culture Career Development Fair. As Associate Producer of New Play Development at Theater Alliance, he cultivated partnerships with DC community organizations like Ben's Chili Bowl and the D.C. Public Library. At the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, he served as Artistic Producer for Theater of Young Audiences where he produced plays adapted from books by authors Jacquline Woodson and Jason Reynolds. A few of his acting credits include Arena Stage; Toni Stone, Ford's Theatre; Twelve Angry Men, and Washington National Opera; Lost In the Stars.

Ryan E. Merkel

Chief Development Officer

Ryan E. Merkel is currently the Chief Development Officer for Arena Stage, overseeing all aspects of contributed revenue to the theater. Before moving into this position, Ryan was the director of major gifts for Arena Stage. Prior to finding a home at Arena Stage, Ryan held a number of positions at the Newseum in Washington, D.C., culminating in service as the director of individual giving where his work included cultivation, solicitation and stewardship of mid-range and major donors, as well as special event coordination and management of all the Newseum’s annual membership programs. A devoted champion of the arts and culture sphere, Ryan has also held major gift positions at the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts and the National Symphony Orchestra, and was a member of the Steering Committee of Emerging Arts Leaders of D.C. Ryan is also a Trustee of Synetic Theater in Arlington, Virginia, and a member of the Florida Cicerone Alumni Advisory Council at the University of Florida. Ryan earned a master’s degree in communication management from the University of Maryland, while he also worked as a public speaking instructor and an alumni relations coordinator for the Department of Communication. He is a very proud graduate of the University of Florida and enjoys running the streets of D.C. when he isn’t trying, and inevitably failing, to stay current on the New Yorker. 

Teresa Sapien

Associate Artistic Director

Teresa Sapien joined Arena Stage's artistic staff in 2019 overseeing the producing of world premieres like Swept Away and American Prophet along with D.C. hits like POTUS, Angels in America: Millennium Approaches, and Ride the Cyclone. Her passion is nurturing collaborative creative processes that lead to wildly entertaining theatre. Prior to Arena Stage, she worked for seven seasons at La Jolla Playhouse, guiding over fifty productions on the mainstage and out in the San Diego community. She was the curator and producer of the 2019 Without Walls Festival of site-based and immersive theater which hosted over twenty international and American companies. In addition to producing, she was the Playhouse’s local casting director for numerous plays and musicals, including the world premieres of Wild Goose Dreams, Junk, and Come From Away. She is a reader for The Playwrights Realm, Playwrights’ Center Minneapolis, and Native Voices at the Autry. Sapien is a graduate of the University of Evansville’s Theatre Department.

Alicia Sells

General Manager

Alicia Sells started with Arena Stage as a freelance stage manager in 2013 and joined as a full-time staff member in 2016. Over the years, she has worked in various departments across the organization, including production, operations and general management, revitalizing various processes and procedures with an eye on streamlining resources and promoting interdepartmental collaboration. Now, as general manager, she oversees artists contracts, relations and company management. Prior to joining Arena full time, she worked on more than 30 productions as a freelance stage manager for companies such as Adventure Theatre, Arts on the Horizon, Folger Theatre, The Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, Olney Theatre Center, Signature Theatre, Studio Theatre and Woolly Mammoth Theatre. She has extensive experience as both a freelance stage manager and production manager for corporate events, several of which she continues to work on an annual basis. She is also a proud company member of Arts on the Horizon, to whom she provides production management consultation. She is a graduate of Vanderbilt University with a B.A. in English, history, and theater and a minor in economics.  

Reggie D. White

Senior Artistic Producer

Reggie D. White is an award-winning multi-hyphenate artist, educator, and arts advocate whose international career spans almost two decades. As an actor, he made his Broadway debut in Matthew López's Tony Award-winning epic, The Inheritance. He also recently starred as Bayard Rustin in Bayard Rustin: Inside Ashland at People's Light, written and directed by Steve H. Broadnax III. Other regional and Off-Broadway credits include I and You (59E59), Hundred Days (New York Theatre Workshop), The Luckiest (La Jolla Playhouse), Macbeth In Stride (American Repertory Theater at Harvard University), and the world premiere of Flood in the Valley, a bi-lingual musical that toured China in 2018. His directing credits include Atlantic Theater Company, The Public, The Repertory Theatre of St. Louis, Bay Street Theater, The Williams Project, and PlayGroundSF. Reggie co-conceived Lessons in Survival: 1971, based on the iconic conversation between Nikki Giovanni and James Baldwin, at Vineyard Theatre (NYT Critic's Pick). He also co-conceived and appeared in the digital anthology series of the same title (NYT Best Theatre of 2020). His play In Case You Haven’t Heard premiered last spring at Bay Street Theater, and his play Fremont Ave was developed during Berkeley Rep’s Ground Floor Summer Residency. Reggie is a resident artist at Vineyard Theatre, a founding member of the multi-generational theater collective The Commissary, and a founding company member with The Williams Project, a living-wage theatre company. As an educator, Reggie has taught, delivered, and developed arts curricula across the country for artists of all ages. Since 2015, he has been a member of the faculty at Atlantic Acting School (an NYU Partner Studio), where he served as its Artistic Director from 2018-2022. Reggie is a recipient of the Colman Domingo Award, the TCG Fox Fellowship, the TBA Titan Award, and the RHE Artistic Fellowship, and an NAACP Theatre Award nominee. www.reggiedwhite.com