Josh Kibbey (President)

Josh Kibbey has performed and/or stage managed for GreenStage in 2018’s The Three Musketeers and 2023’s Romeo and Juliet, has served as Volunteer Coordinator and House Manager Lead and is honored to represent GreenStage as its Board President since 2025.

Josh has been acting since he was about 9 years old. He was introduced to Shakespeare for the first time in the 5th grade in an extracurricular program. And that was the foundational experience, folks. Since then, he’s also become a journeyman voice over, commercial and film actor and producer, stage manager and even a rapper, and a sound and effects dude. But he is still very much that boy memorizing, rehearsing and acting Shakespeare in front of people. It was a heckuva lot of fun.

By his twenties Josh realized how important theater was to him. In his early forties he woke up and saw that live theater is vital to all of humanity. Through the years of acting, Josh also become an administrator of people and systems, and managing how those two interact with each other in the tax and election industries. Now Josh is having a full circle moment, using the skills he learned in the theatre to create new skills in business, that could be taken and given back to theater. Materially contributing to the bones of a thing. Josh still likes and needs to act, but he also gets such joy and a great sense of accomplishment from being a part of “making it happen”.

When Josh Kibbey met GreenStage, he met a company that was also doing it for their souls and all of humanity’s as well. Josh has often said “I work with GreenStage because they are the best at what they do.” Please come join us if you have time, resources, passion, skills or connections to help us do the real work and fun of arts administration.

Sam Hagen (Vice President)

Moving to Seattle in 2005, Sam Hagen was lucky enough to get involved with Greenstage his first Summer in the Pacific Northwest. Acting in the history of Henry VI, he met many people who would become friends and coworkers in the arts over the next 20 years, and he serves on the board of this company with them now. That first opportunity with Greenstage has made his life richer and more satisfying in so many ways. He joined the board in an effort to keep opportunities like these alive and available to the public. Participating in productions, enjoying many more from the audience in a lawn chair with a drink and a sandwich, Sam knows in his heart what Greenstage provides; how deeply it cares for the communities of Seattle, traveling all over this city to perform in local parks like yours, never charging for a show, and striving every year to reach more people in different ways. Greenstage, like Sam Hagen, just wants everyone to have access to some of the most enduring and human works of expression ever conceived.
Sam is an employee of the University of Washington in the Housing and Food Services Department as part of their maintenance team. The son of an English teacher, Sam learned early on about the works of Shakespeare and the power of the theater in general. He has appreciated every opportunity to participate in the process of exploring what they mean to him, both with Greenstage and beyond. To that end, theater has been an enduring passion as well as a professional hobby.

Ken Holmes (Treasurer)

Ken has been working with GreenStage since 1993 when he played Demetrius in A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Since then he has acted in 24 plays, directed 12, and has worked behind the scenes in many different capacities.  Ken was instrumental in the founding of the Seattle Outdoor Theater Festival, as well as launching other programs like the Hard Bard series, our American Classic series of plays, and our current Backyard Bard program.

Peter Burford

Matthew Fisher

Matthew Fisher is a locally raised actor who loves Shakespeare and performing. He joined GreenStage in 2022 as an actor, and has appeared in three seasons of GreenStage. While only ever being on the stage, Matthew is dedicated to the goal of making theater accessible and approachable for everyone, and to show audiences the joy and community that a theater production can foster. In a world and a time when it is very simple to lose connection to your friends and neighbors, the act of putting on a play, or even seeing one, can be a bridge to your fellow human, and help build a strong, thriving, beneficial community.

Before he was with GreenStage, Matthew has volunteered for other theaters working on their social media presence, marketing, and community engagement. Currently working as an insurance broker, Matthew is always looking for new ways to stretch his creative muscles and connect with people around him.

Gail Javarah Wamba Flynn Kibbey

Gail Javarah is a lifelong creative technical person, designing, performing, and interested in creating art, flow, and communication. It’s only natural theater and online communications would combine; In 1998 Gail and 2 friends started The Seattle Stage audition clearinghouse website. Gail has been performing since 1972, and loves a great collaboration, joining GreenStage in 2016 to do blood props for Hard Bard, and since then has performed, designed props, choreographed, and continues to coordinate the monthly Shakespeare Reading Group, and manage this website. Gail Javarah joined the GreenStage Board in 2025. Working with several non profit art groups, Gail continues to perform, design, program, and dance into the weeds. On the GreenStage Board, Gail Javarah is able to help make GreenStage programs stronger throughout the year. Gail lives with husband, Josh, one cat, Ember, and lots of ferns. As GreenStage board members, we get to be “in the room where it happens” helping GreenStage continue its mission beyond a specific show. Thank You for supporting live theater. 

Luke Sayler

Being brought up in the world of historical reenactments, Luke Sayler became an artist at the intersection of theatre and history. Luke was introduced to GreenStage Shakespeare In The Park as a teenager by his acting mentor. That 2003 production of The Merchant of Venice was a pivotal moment for Luke and he borrowed some ideas to include in his audition to Cornish College of the Arts in Seattle.

Luke has worked with many theatre companies in the Pacific Northwest but he is proud to call GreenStage his artistic home. Starting in 2012, Luke has participated in nine GreenStage seasons as an actor and one season as director. Luke is passionate about preserving this 2,600 year old art form which requires no screens, no computers, only human engagement and open hearts. Outside of the theatre, Luke’s other career is in the classroom where he has taught English and Special Education (K-12) for over ten years.

Nicole Vernon

Nicole joined GreenStage as an actor in 2006. She has performed in mainstage, Backyard Bard, Hard Bard, and even the last American Classic, though in recent years she has often filled support positions, such as running crew or even a pinch-hit costume designer. She is committed to the simplicity of gathering a bunch of friends in the park to put on a play, and she knows that task is rarely so straightforward. There are many challenges to producing free theatre in an ever increasingly expensive city and her goal as a member of the Board is to tackle those issues before they interfere with the artists and audience that return every year. 

Outside of GreenStage, Nicole spent a decade as a small business manager in Pike Place Market before transitioning to oncology nursing at one of Seattle’s home-grown hospitals. She is also a committed member of the Eclectic Cloggers, a folk dance group in Seattle. Like all folk arts, producing community focused Shakespeare provides the opportunity to examine ourselves, our community, our traditions, to see what to let go of and what to hold dear.