Directory

Jessa Brie Berkner, MFA  has been building arts education and creating theatre in the Bay Area since 1997. She is Founding Director of the Oakland Theatre Arts Initiative with Oakland Unified School District, where she is current Theatre and Arts Integration Specialist. In 2005, she founded the nationally-award winning student company OakTechRep at Oakland Technical High School. Moreno is on faculty at San Jose State U. and the California Institute of Integral Studies, is a Professional Expert for Alameda County Office of Ed. and has been Movement Director with Laney College's Fusion Theatre. Her directorial work has appeared in collaborations with CalShakes, Stanford, UC Davis and in Edinburgh, Scotland. Recently she has directed for the San Jose Stage Co. (The Rainmaker), Marin Theatre Co. (school tour), the reading series at SF Playhouse (The Last Night of Ballyhoo, Better), Playground at Berkeley Rep, and as Asst. Director for Macbeth at CalShakes. In 2011 she developed, directed and produced the critically acclaimed The Last Night of the Barbary Coast at Somarts in SF. As an actor she has worked with A.C.T., Marin Theatre Company, Aurora, TheatreWorks, San Jose Stage Co., SFShakes, and CenterRep, among others. Professional Awards include an Emmy (Motion Capture Specialist), Bay Area Theatre Critics Circle, Dean Goodman, and Shellie Best Actress Awards. She is a graduate of Scuola Internazionale dell'Attore Comico in Italy and holds an MFA in Interdisciplinary Arts and Creative Inquiry from CIIS.