ACT Executive Board
Fred Hunt, President
Fred is a semi-retired IT Project Manager. He is a busy theater performer/director/producer/fan by night. He began serving as an ACT Cincinnati responder in 2014 and has served on the Long Range Responding Committee and as the ACT 2nd Vice President. He is currently the ACT President. Fred has been involved with several community theaters in the Cincinnati area since 2003. Fred currently serves as treasurer and board member for CenterStage Players. His love of theater began in middle school 40+ years ago and was rekindled as his children developed their desires to perform.
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Amanda Emmons Shumate, 1st VP
(She|Her) With over 20 years of experience in theatre, Amanda is excited to continue serving her ACT Cincinnati family. A longtime member of Footlighters and Cincinnati Music Theatre, she has also worked with Showbiz Players, The Drama Workshop, and several regional theatres, contributing as a director, producer, set designer, stage manager, choreographer, and performer. She co-founded Union Community Theatre in 2009, serving on its board for a decade, and remains actively involved in local theatre, currently serving as 1st VP of ACT Cincinnati and secretary for Cincinnati Music Theatre. Beyond the stage, Amanda spent 17 years as an educator, mentoring as a teacher leader after earning her master’s in Instructional Leadership in 2012. She also contracts marketing and graphic design services and currently serves as the Vice President of Marketing & Development for Big Brothers Big Sisters of Greater Cincinnati. She lives in Northern Kentucky with her amazing partner, Kyle, their two sons, Jojo and Nico, and their lovable black lab, Dexter. Amanda believes the arts strengthen communities and build lifelong connections, and she’s grateful to be part of Cincinnati’s thriving theatre scene!
Mark Culp, 2nd VP
Mark returned to theatre in 2015 after a long hiatus. Since then, he’s been active both onstage and behind the scenes. He is currently the President of CenterStage Players and also serves as a regional responder for OCTA. During the day, he works as a Senior Occupancy Planner for Jones Lang LaSalle on the Procter & Gamble account in Cincinnati. Mark is also a frequent judge and consultant for the marching arts and has judged state championship events for marching bands throughout the country. He also sings baritone with the internationally competitive Southern Gateway Chorus of Cincinnati. His wife Jane is also involved with community theatre and his son Parker is an alumnus of the theatre program at Xavier University.
Betsy Obermeyer, Secretary, Long Range Responding Committee Chair
Betsy is pleased to lend her talents to the ACT Board and has been active in local theater since 2006. Whether serving as a board member, committee chair, fundraising chair, ACT responder, or designing sets and decor, she is grateful for the chance to use her MFA training in a variety of roles.
As the 2024 recipient of the ACT President’s Award she was humbled to be recognized among such talented and dedicated people.
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By day she is an LTL Operations Specialist at Integrity Express Logistics and enjoys exploring outdoors with her husband and daughter.
Jon Scheiding, Treasurer
Jon has been active in Cincinnati area community theatre for nearly 15 years, serving in numerous roles - including sound designer, music director, orchestra member, and performer - for numerous groups - including Mason Community Players, Center Stage Players, Beechmont Players, Village Players of Ft. Thomas, Footlighters, and Cincinnati Music Theatre. Highlights include performing as Mendel in Falsettos at CMT and Jamie in The Last Five Years at Village Players of Ft. Thomas, and music directing Next To Normal at Footlighters. He has served for four years as the chair of Mason Community Players' Finance Committee, and previously served on the Board for Beechmont Players.
In his "other life," Jon is a software engineer and engineering manager for Instructure, the provider of Canvas LMS and other cloud education technology software. Additional interests include flying as a private pilot, and performing with his bands. Jon lives in Sharonville with his extremely talented wife, Kaleigh-Brooke Scheiding, their ornery cat Katniss, and their temperamental retired stage dog Bruiser.
Amy Waldfogle, Awards
Amy has been involved in Cincinnati-area theatre productions since 1992 performing, organizing, directing, designing or "whatever needs doing" for at least a half-dozen different community theatre groups. She earned a theatre arts teaching license through graduate studies at the University of Akron in 2004, and directed two local high school theatre programs for a total of 8 years, working with both the Cappies and the Educational Theatre Association ("Thespians"), including serving on the Ohio EdTA state board. She started serving ACT as a Responder in 2017 and has been a group representative and LRJC Committee member for the past several years before joining the Executive Board. Always a tireless advocate for education and promoting growth opportunities, she created the ACT Mentor Match program, a program that facilitates connections among our community members who are wanting to expand and/or impart their theater knowledge. She is currently serving as President at Village Players of Fort Thomas and is a proud recipient of the 2023 ACT President’s Award, given annually to an individual who has demonstrated outstanding commitment and dedication to the goals of the ACT. To support her theatre habit, she works as an Information Security Program Manager for a cybersecurity company.
Justin Hanks, Marketing/Publicity
Justin has been involved with local theatre for 20+ years. Some of his favorite roles include Seussical (Horton), Beauty and the Beast (Beast), Wizard of Oz (Lion), Children of Eden (Father), Joseph (Pharaoh), The Play That Goes Wrong (Chris), Escanaba in da Moonlight (Remnar), and The Great American Trailer Park Musical (Norbert). When not on stage, Justin contributes as a playwright and director. He recently spent three years performing and writing for Queen City Vaudevillians – a local comedy and variety troupe. Before that, he spent seven years entertaining at the Cincinnati Zoo. Alongside his role with ACT, he currently holds staff positions at Loveland Stage Company, Loveland Shorts Film Festival, and The Story Collective. Outside of local theatre, Justin spends his days as a software director. He holds degrees in Computer Science and Mathematics.
Arlene Balczo, Scholarships
Arlene Balczo, who has a Telecommunications Degree from Indiana University, a Secondary Education Degree in Communications from the University of Cincinnati, and a Master’s Degree in Education from Miami University, taught drama, communications, journalism and English at Mason High School for 33 years. In the Greater Cincinnati area, she’s been a director, choreographer, producer and performer since 1988. Over the last 3 decades she’s developed the theatre curriculum for Mason High School, helped found Acting Up, a children’s theater group in Mason, Ohio and Brieabi Productions, a community theatre organization that was in Anderson, Ohio. Arlene has directed over 60 plays and musicals locally, has won numerous awards for directing, choreographing, producing and performing, won the President’s Award for Association of Community Theatre of Cincinnati twice, and in 2017 received the prestigious Art Rouse Award. Arlene has been ACT Cincinnati’s 1st Vice President, 2nd Vice President, Secretary, and now Scholarship Chair. She responded to theatre for ACT from 1991-2021 and served on the Long Range Responding Committee as Chairperson, overseeing the organization’s responding system. Outside of theatre, Arlene is a talent with Heyman Talent Agency and works for the University Hospital as a standardized patient. She loves long distance running and cheering on the Reds and Bengals.
Linda Roll, Historian, Librarian, & Pre- Registration
Linda Roll has been active in Community Theatre since 1994. She has done most technical jobs there are from directing, producing, stage managing, costuming, lighting and just about any other job you can name. She is also an award-winning actress, costumer, producer and director on both the local and state levels.
John Wesseling, Membership Standing Committee Chair, Bylaws Chair
John has been involved with Community Theater for over 40 years, most of it with the Sunset Players, Inc. and ACT Cincinnati, Inc. He is an award-winning actor, director, technician, and producer. He has served on the board of the Sunset Players for almost 40 years and has served on the ACT board 30 out of the last 36 years. He was the first individual to win both of the ACT Cincinnati Inc. major awards, the Mario Pitocco Award for Excellence in Technical Theater, and the Art Rouse Award for Dedication to Community Theater. John is also a four-time President’s Award honoree. As President of the Sunset Players, John led the charge of assuming control of the Dunham Recreation Complex’s historically significant Arts building and turning it into The Arts Center at Dunham, a complete Arts center for the west side of Cincinnati. He is also the creator of “Cincinnati Community Theater Wesseling Group”, an e-mail list that shares theater information in the Greater Cincinnati area with over 1,200 theater members.
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Laureen Catlin, Long Range Responding Committee Chair
Laureen began her association with ACT Cincinnati in the 1980s. She was an Administrative Assistant for the Responding Program at that time. She has served as a responder since 2003. This is the second time that Laureen has filled the Chair Position of the Long-Range Responding Committee, having done so previously from 2019-2022. She has been a member of the Mason Community Players for 42 years. Her first love is choreography, but she has been called upon to take on the responsibilities of producer, director, technical director, stage manager, or Jill-of-all-trades for many, many productions. She has also served on the group’s Board of Directors and on many committees. Laureen is retired from teaching, from the staff of St. Susanna Parish. and as the curator of the Museum of Spiritual Art. She now spends her days being Grandma.