Current Board of Directors and Their Affiliations

Jim Anthony served in the USN as a radio operator and as a commissioned officer in the USAR during the Korean war. A career Special Agent with Prudential Financial, he was the first Prudential Agent in Virginia to receive the Chartered Life Underwriter designation and the first agent on the Virginia Peninsula to become a C.L.U. He taught life insurance at the College of William and Mary and Christopher Newport University and is currently a consultant with Becker Financial. A charter member of the Peninsula Estate Planning Council, Mr. Anthony also operates a performing arts agency, Old Dominion Talent Agency, and a public relations consultancy, Perceptions.

Mr. Anthony has served as a member or in various officer positions for Bruton Parish Church, the Williamsburg Kiwanis Club, the American Red Cross, This Century Gallery, The Order of the White Jacket of the College of William and Mary, Williamsburg’s Tercentenary Commission, the Williamsburg Scottish Festival, Williamsburg Area Arts Commission, Williamsburg Area Performing Arts Center and the Williamsburg Players. He is the creator and former President and Artistic Director of Williamsburg’s “An Occasion for the Arts” and was a producer of the 1981 Battle of Yorktown Bicentennial Celebration. As a performer, has sung in a number of vocal groups and was the drillmaster and drum major of the Alumni Band of The College of William and Mary for many years.

Mr. Anthony is a graduate of the College of William and Mary, the Armed Forces Information School, the United States Army Artillery School and the American College of Life Underwriters. In 2006, he was honored by the Order of the White Jacket with their “Man of the Year” Award and was selected to be Grand Marshall of W&M’s Homecoming in 2004.

Susie Butler (President) A native of Newport News, Virginia, Ms. Butler has been a mortgage specialist for over fifteen years. She is currently a Loan Consultant at Atlantic Bay Mortgage Group in Newport News. Once a professional actress, she was employed in television, film and theatre in New York City and Boston as well as the local Virginia area. Credits include: Hunter, All My Children (reoccurring), Ghost Busters 2, and numerous TV commercials and theatrical appearances. Ms. Butler currently serves on the Board of Eastern Virginia School of the Performing Arts, as Chairperson for the American Heart Association Spring Gala 2007, as a volunteer for the Williamsburg Players and in 2006, was Auction Chairperson for the AHA Spring Gala. A graduate of Denbigh High and Radford University, she currently resides in Williamsburg with her husband Chris Herring and their four cats.

Bogdan Dziurzynski D.P.A., R.A.C. Dr. Dziurzynski is a regulatory management consultant to the biotechnology industry and a member of the Board of Directors of Dendreon Corporation, a biotechnology company in Seattle, WA that targets cancer. He is currently the President-Elect of the Regulatory Affairs Professional Society, which creates and upholds standards of ethics, credentialing and education for the regulatory affairs profession within the health product sector and representing 10,000 individuals worldwide from governments, corporations, academia, research and nonprofit organizations. He also serves on the Board of Directors of the Biologics Consulting Group, Inc. in Alexandria, VA. and the Virginia Premiere Theatre, a non-profit company performing in Williamsburg, Virginia. He possesses over thirty years experience in strategic planning and regulatory management including clinical research design and execution, biopharmaceutical product development and manufacture, production facility design and validation, product advertising and promotion, post-market drug safety surveillance, quality assurance and quality control. He served as a senior vice-president with MedImmune, Inc., vice-president with Immunex Corporation and has held management positions with Genetic Systems, Inc., C.R. Bard, Inc., and Johnson and Johnson’s Ortho Diagnostics Division. He holds a doctorate in Public Administration from the University of Southern California, an MBA in Marketing and Business Management Seattle University, and undergraduate degrees in Psychology and Laboratory Technology.

Leigh Houghland, a native of Williamsburg, is Senior Vice President with Virginia Company Bank. Virginia Company Bank is a community bank that opened its doors in October, 2005. Leigh is a graduate of Lafayette High School, and Wake Forest University. At Wake Forest, Leigh received a Bachelor of Arts in English. Married to Laurie Houghland, a school nurse for York County, the couple has two children, Callie (13) and Will (8). In addition to his involvement with Virginia Premiere Theatre, Leigh also serves as Board Chair for Big Brothers and Big Sisters of Greater Williamsburg and sits on the Board of Directors for the Peninsula Metropolitan YMCA.

Dorothy Jordan Dottie G. Jordan is President & CEO of the Virginia Peninsula Chamber of Commerce. She assumed that position in March 2006 after having served the chamber for twelve years as Vice President of Marketing and Member Services. A native of Culpeper, Virginia, and a graduate of the College of William and Mary, she served in the education field for 18 years both in Virginia and New York before beginning her chamber career. She is also a graduate of the U.S. Chamber’s Institute for Organizational Management at the University of Georgia. Before joining the Virginia Peninsula Chamber in 1993, Jordan served both as Vice President of Member Services for the Adirondack Regional Chamber of Commerce in Glens Falls, New York, and Executive Director of the Warwick Valley Chamber of Commerce located in Orange County, New York.

At the Virginia Peninsula Chamber, Jordan has been responsible for membership development and retention and has done so to award-winning levels. She has revamped veteran programs and publications as well as developed new ones that have positively impacted the Chamber’s financial situation. She also served on the chamber’s New Vision Task Force formed in 1995 for the purpose of strategically planning the Chamber’s future regarding programs, events, and personnel. Jordan resides in James City County with her husband Tom.

Mark Lerman  is a freelance director, arts consultant and retreat facilitator. He served as the Artistic Director at The Perishable Theatre in Providence, RI from 1990 to 2005. During this time, Perishable Theatre was at the forefront of introducing new voices to the American Theatre, and became nationally recognized as an incubator for the development of new plays. At Perishable, Mark produced and/or presented over 140 productions. This body of work ranged from new plays to classics and included performance art, puppetry and dance. During his tenure, he also oversaw seven on-going performance series that included: The International Women’s Playwriting Festival; The Providence Puppetry Festival; and The Multimedia and Performance Art Festival. In addition to his directorial work at Perishable, Mark brought Perishable Theatre’s world premiere production of Only In America, by Providence playwright Aishah Rahman, to both the Ensemble Studio Theatre in NYC and the National Black Theater Festival in North Carolina, and directed the 1999 production of A Christmas Carol at the Trinity Repertory Company.

The Mayor of Providence proclaimed June 20, 2005 “Mark J. Lerman” day and presented Mark the Key to the City in “gratitude for his integrity-laden loyalty to high art, committed art, and to serving our community”. He has also served on grant panels for Theater Communications Group, The New England Foundation for the Arts, Massachusetts Cultural Council, and The Rhode Island State Council on the Arts. He was a board member of both the National New Play Network and Rhode Island Citizens for the Arts, as well as a member of the Steering Committee for the Arts and Business Council of RI. Mark has taught at The Rhode Island School of Design and has served as guest dramaturge for the Brown University Graduate Playwriting program. Mark moved to Williamsburg, VA in the summer of 2005, where his wife is on the faculty of the College of William and Mary.

Matt Ridjaneck (Treasurer) is a Financial Services Professional for Stephens Financial Partners, LC, a financial services firm that provides financial solutions to individuals and businesses. During the past two years Matt’s practice has focused on Retirement Planning, Investment Products, Business Continuation Planning and Estate Analysis.

Matt grew up in Center, a Western Pennsylvania town 25 minutes northwest of Pittsburgh. He earned a full athletic football scholarship to The College of William and Mary where he excelled on the field and off, earning his Bachelor of Arts in Economics. He is very involved in his community serving as Vice President for his BNI Group in Virginia Beach. He is also Treasurer of his Networking Group in Williamsburg. He is a member of the Hampton Roads Chamber of Commerce, Williamsburg Chamber of Commerce, The Young Emerging Professionals where he sits on the finance committee, William and Mary Alumni Association, and the William and Mary Tribe Club. Matt resides in Virginia Beach, Virginia. He is a sports enthusiast who enjoys playing recreational softball, adult kickball, weight lifting, running, and golf.

Robert Ruffin (Producing Artistic Director), Robert, a native of Mathews County, Virginia and a theatre professional for over twenty years, is a Founding Member and former Artistic Director of The Metropolitan Playhouse of New York. Also in New York City, he co-created and produced Theater Without Borders (a joint American/Lithuanian performing arts project) and produced The Gathering (Off-Broadway starring Theodore Bikel; National Tour and Broadway starring Hal Linden). In 2001, Robert co-founded Virginia Premiere Theatre where he currently serves as its Producing Artistic Director.

Robert has written five plays produced on the New York stage (and authored two one-man shows that he currently tours in Virginia. A weekly columnist with The Wall Street Transcript for ten years, he recently wrote Ba-baaah and the Windigo, a children’s play that toured the East Coast as part of America’s 400th Anniversary Celebration. Also for America’s 400th, he wrote 1781: An American Symphony (presented as the culminating event for the 225th Anniversary of the Victory at Yorktown in 2006), Visions of Democracy for Jamestown’s Grand 400th Weekend Celebration, Winning Liberty Land (an original musical comedy commissioned by the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation for America’s 400th) and assisted in scripting the CBS Television Special for America’s 400th Anniversary. Most recently, Robert wrote a full-length stage adaptation of O. Henry’s The Gift of the Magi that premiered with VPT in November of 2007 and earned critical praise and historic box office receipts As a dramaturge/consultant and producer, Robert has guided the development of dozens of new plays to New York stages, including The Gathering (Broadway with Hal Linden) and Magic Hands Freddy (Off-Broadway with Ralph Maccio) by Arje Shaw, Joanna’s Husband and David’s Wife by best-selling author Elizabeth Forsythe Hailey and Last Dance at Bedtime (international tour) by Innes Fergus McDade. With Virginia Premiere Theatre, he has overseen development of a number of plays including Pen Pals by Michael Griffo, The Waiting Room by Simon Brooke and Don’t Dance Me Outside by William Borden as well as co-authored the play A Chesapeake Celebration (published by San Francisco Bay Press). Robert is a member of the Dramatists Guild of America.

As an actor, Robert has performed numerous roles in New York and regional theaters, including: Lee, Arthur Miller’s biographical character in the New York revival of his The American Clock; Washington Irving in the New York premiere of Frank Higgin’s Washington Irving’s Sketchbook; The Narrator/Czech Men in the New York revival of Larry Shue’s Wenceslas Square, which later toured Lithuania as part of an international theatrical project; and Weirdo and White King in the New York Premiers of Etched in Amber and Zugzwang. His classical work includes: Tartuffe, Henry IV, I, Hamlet, Othello, Romeo and Juliet, Love’s Labours Lost and with New York’s Riverside Shakespeare Company; Richard II, Richard III, Macbeth, King John, Twelfth Night, Taming of the Shrew,. His film work includes Fidgit, in the film version of William Wycherly’s The Country Wife, Dmitri in William Pace’s independent swashbuckler Rivalry, and Satan in Apocalypse. Television appearances include leads in Family Possessions (movie of the week), Interpol, The New Detectives and FBI Files as well as numerous commercials. Recently in Virginia, he played Dr. Livesay in Treasure Island and Jacob Marley in A Christmas Carol with the Virginia Stage Company. Robert has also performed in a Royal Command Performance for the English Monarchy and is a member of Actors Equity Association.

Robert has directed and taught theatre and theatrical combat throughout the country. In 2004, his fights were featured in Die Walkure at the Virginia Opera. He is formerly a professor of theatre at C.W. Post/Long Island University and has taught and lectured at many universities including NYU; Hofstra; SUNY(s) Purchase, Binghamton and New Paltz; CUNY; John Jay University; Keystone College; and William and Mary. In 1995, Robert received The Kennedy Center’s Meritorious Achievement Award for his work in Theatre Education.

Robert earned a BFA from the professional Theatre Training Program at East Carolina University where he received the “Outstanding Graduate Award”, the “BB&T Leadership Award” and “The Amanda Loessin Award for Acting Excellence.” He received further professional theatrical training in New York and elsewhere from such luminaries as Linda Lavin, Gregory Hines, Jeffery Holder, David Leung, Isobelle Anderson, Arthur Joseph and Carmen Delavelade. Robert served on the Williamsburg Area Arts Map Committee, has served as Treasurer for the Friends of the Lewis B. Puller Center and the West Mathews Community League and currently serves as Chair for the Development Committee of the ARC of the Peninsula.

Billy Scruggs (Secretary) A former City Councilman for Williamsburg, Mr. Scruggs is the owner of the Fife & Drum Inn and Retro’s Good Eats in Williamsburg. Mr. Scruggs served as a Director of the Colonial Soil and Water Conservation District, the Chairman of the District's Urban Committee and a Director of the Williamsburg Land Conservancy. Mr. Scruggs is active in the Kiawanis Club of Williamsburg, the NAACP and the Williamsburg Chamber of Commerce. He is a resident of Williamsburg.

Mary Wadkins (Producing Director) is a professional actress, clown and dancer. She has performed in film, TV and extensively on stage in New York, Los Angeles and San Francisco where she earned two “Outstanding Performance of the Year” nominations. For the past eleven years, she has performed The Belle of Amherst across the country and in Europe. Currently, she is a featured artist in the 2005-2006 Tour Directory for Virginia Commission for the Arts. Mary was also a producer of The Gathering that ran on Broadway and starred Hal Linden. Recently, Mary was seen in world premiere productions as Betsy Garner in A Woman of Independent Means and as Mags in Pen Pals at The Kimball Theatre in Williamsburg. Also, at The Kimball Theatre, she co-produced numerous world premieres for Virginia Premiere Theatre. Mary is the co-founder of VPT and currently serves on the board of the Mathews County Visitor & Information Center.

She holds a BFA from the University of Oregon and is a member of Actors Equity Association, The Screen Actors Guild and the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists.