Founder: Arthur Lazere, San Francisco, CA.

Mr. Lazere founded culturevulture.net in 1998 and worked tirelessly to promote its potential as a means for communicating a distinctly personal yet wide-ranging selection of arts reviews. Under his leadership,  the site grew in esteem as well as in “circulation", and is well-regarded nationally and internationally as a source for up-to-date, well-written criticism. Arthur passed away on September 30,  2006

Publisher and editor: Michael Wade Simpson, Oakland, CA.
Mr. Simpson has a BA in Journalism from the University of Southern California and worked as an advertising writer in Los Angeles before moving to New York to pursue a different passion: dance. He danced professionally in New York and Boston before founding a community-based modern dance company, Small City Dance Project, in Newburyport, MA. His fiction has appeared in literary journals and anthologies. He was a teaching fellow at Smith College, where he received his MFA in choreography. He currently writes about dance for the San Francisco Chronicle and other periodicals. In 2005, he was a NEA Fellow at the Dance Critics Institute, American Dance Festival. For culturevulture.net, he reviews dance, theatre and film. Contact: michael@culturevulture.net

Contributing Writers

Karren LaLonde Alenier, Washington, DC  
Ms. Alenier is a swing-dancing poet whose opera, Gertrude Stein Invents A Jump Early On, with composer William Banfield and New York City’s Encompass New Opera Theatre artistic director Nancy Rhodes premiered in New York City in June 2005. She writes a monthly column for scene4.com entitled "The Steiny Road to Operadom." Read about her forthcoming book on opera—The Steiny Road to Operadom: The Making of American Operas at alenier.blogspot.com.

Theodore Bale, Boston, MA.
Theodore Bale is dance critic and columnist at the Boston Herald. His writing has appeared in Dance Magazine, Dance International, Dancer, Bay Windows, Edge Publications, the Cambridge Chronicle, Contact Quarterly, and many Massachusetts weekly newspapers.

Beverly Berning, Berkeley, CA.
Ms. Berning attended film school at San Francisco State University in the 1980s, and has been writing about film for the San Francisco International Film Festival since 1992. She also writes about travel and the arts for various trade publications.

Sara Clugage, Oakland, CA.
Sara Clugage has a BA from the University of California at Santa Cruz in Philosophy; she also has a BFA from California College of the Arts in Textiles.  She lives and works as an artist in Oakland, and she believes that deep philosophical answers can be gleaned from close observation of Britney Spears.

Nina daVinci, New York, NY
Dr. daVinci is a retired Professor of English at Rutgers University, where she taught Shakespearean and other drama. She has published extensively, including five books of literary and dramatic criticism. Her books include Ariadne's Lives and Pirandello and Film.

Frances Dinkelspiel, Berkeley, CA
Ms. Dinkelspiel has been a bookworm ever since she learned to read. She read and reread The Little House books by Laura Ingalls Wilder at least ten times growing up and secretly considers herself a prairie girl. Frances is a freelance writer in Berkeley, California whose work has appeared in the New York Times, People, the San Francisco Chronicle and The San Jose Mercury News. Her book about her great great grandfather, Towers of Gold: Isaias Hellman and the Creation of California, is forthcoming from St. Martin's Press

Jane Durrell, Cincinnati, OH
Ms. Durrell writes because it's the only thing she knows how to do. She began in journalism, turncoated into public relations, and returned eventually to honest work as a free-lance journalist, writing about art, travel, or whatever an editor has in mind.

Sean Elwood, New York, New York
Mr. Elwood is the Director of Grants and Services for the Creative Capital Foundation. Sean’s professional experience includes serving as Curator & Collections Manager for the Seattle Arts Commission; Director for Special Projects at Ronald Feldman Gallery in New York; and managing the Visual Arts Residency Program for the Centrum Foundation in Washington State. He founded SEEDITIONS Art Publishing Company and was co-owner of the Fuller/Elwood Gallery in Seattle. He received a Max Beckmann Scholarship for Painting at the Brooklyn Museum Art School and holds a M.A. in Visual Arts from Hunter College. He is an occasional curator, publisher, writer - and a Sunday painter.

Bill Falik, Berkeley, California
Mr. Falik is a land use and real estate lawyer, as well as a developer of master-planned communities throughout Northern California. He currently serves as a Visiting Professor at Boalt Hall teaching business and law students. In addition, Mr. Falik is on the Board of the Berkeley Repertory Theatre and is active in other philanthropic activities. He has a passion for travel and photography.

Paula Farmer—New York, New York
Paula is a New York- based freelance film/theater reviewer as well as being actively involved in video production projects as a producer and director, including her own pet documentary project. She began her film and journalism education and career in Michigan where she attended the University of Michigan and worked for media outlets such as CBS Radio and the Metro Times. She furthered her ambitions upon moving to NYC in 2000 where, among other jobs, she worked at the famed Evergreen Video. When Paula isn't pursuing her passions in writing and film, she's exploring the world of wine as a project coordinator and consultant at a boutique wine store on the City's Upper Westside

Patricia Humeau, San Diego, CA
Patricia is a native of France and started acting in a local theatre group when she was 14. She later came to study theatre in California (Foothill Theatre Conservatory, Los Altos), where she met her husband Jay. She worked for Bus Barn Stage Company as a Production Manager and Assistant Managing Director and, after moving to San Diego, joined La Jolla Playhouse as Assistant Company Manager. Patricia now keeps busy raising her wonderful son, Luc.

Neil Ludwick, London, England
Mr. Ludwick is a part time writer and full time teacher. He has had several plays for young people published and he annually tours Hungary with his students in productions of Shakespeare, American drama and his own adaptations of children's classics.

Gary Mairs, Los Angeles, CA
Mr. Mairs tries to keep his job as a film teacher from interfering with his record collecting.

Michael McDonagh, San Francisco, CA
Michael McDonagh is a San Francisco-based poet and writer on the arts, whose poetry has appeared in Stanford's Mantis 3, Poetry and Performance. His writings on the arts have appeared in  The SF Chronicle, The LA Times, The Threepenny Review, In Tune, Antiques and Fine Art, California Printmaker, and The San Francisco Review Of Books. He writes on the arts for The Bay Area Reporter -- www.eBAR.com  -- is the sole writer for www.alexnorthmusic.com; writes for www.classical-music-review.org; as well as www.21st-centurymusic.com; www.sequenza21.com and New Music Connoisseur ( both NY ).

Emily S. Mendel, Oakland, California
Ms. Mendel is a writer and photographer, whose work has appeared in numerous publications.  She regularly contributes to culturevulture.net, where, in addition to writing about travel, film and television, she is the creator of its electronic arts column.  Ms. Mendel, recently retired from her law practice, is relishing the opportunity to pursue her love of travel, photography, film, theater, ballet, bicycling, and computer games…and to write about them.

Harvey O'Brien, Dublin, Ireland
Dr. O'Brien has a PhD in Film Studies, but he will review theater for culturevulture.net. His film reviews can be seen at his own site. He is the author of The Real Ireland: The Evolution of Ireland in Documentary Film and co-editor of Keeping it Real: Irish Film and Television.

Jesse Paddock, Chapel Hill, NC
Mr. Paddock is a longtime student of cultural studies and film. He studied film grammar in graduate school and can still speak the language when his job demands it. He also writes film reviews for the Charleston City Paper.

Chris Pepus, St. Louis, MO
Mr. Pepus has written for such publications as American Theatre, The Progressive Populist and St. Louis Magazine. He confesses to an unhealthy interest in horror, Kung Fu and B-grade action flicks. 

Renata Polt, Berkeley, CA
Ms. Polt, a freelance writer and critic, is the translator and editor of A Thousand Kisses: A Grandmother's Holocaust Letters.

Dan Schneider, Austin, TX
Between surviving organized criminals (think Goodfellas) and dirty cops (think Serpico) in his youth, Mr. Schneider found autodidacticism and founded Cosmoetica, perhaps the most popular non-commercial literary site online. Rap sheet: poet, critic, fictionist, memoirist, dramatist.

David Sobelsohn, Washington, DC
A recovering lawyer and law professor, Mr. Sobelsohn founded the Washington, DC theater-discussion group Footlights. For seven years he has sandwiched theater, music, and dance criticism among his myriad other activities. He now tries to model his life after his favorite play's eponymous godlike non-character, who does nothing and never arrives.

Roy Sorrels, New York, New York
Mr. Sorrels is an award-winning and internationally produced playwright, a widely published freelance writer, and a writing coach with clients all over the world. He lives in New York City but also has a home in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico where he spends part of each year. His coaching web site is RoySorrels.com

Ryan Tracy, Brooklyn, New York
Ryan Tracy is a composer, performer, and writer living in Brooklyn, NY.  He is a contributor to culturebot.org (PS 122's arts blog) and has been the literary documenter for Chez Bushwick, an artist run studio at the forefront of Brooklyn's burgeoning performance scene.  Prior to coming to NY, Ryan wrote music criticism for The Orange County Register in Southern California.  Ryan holds degrees in music composition and conducting.

Pamela Troy, San Francisco, CA
Ms. Troy is a freelance writer of both fiction and nonfiction. She has contributed to such diverse publications as The Nob Hill Gazette, Twilight Showcase, Space and Time and Night Terrors.

Nella Vera, New York, NY
Ms. Vera works in the professional theater in New York City. An avid sports fan, she is also a fitness instructor and freelance photographer.

Gregory M. Vogel, Los Angeles, CA
   Mr. Vogel is a freelance writer with a personal passion for fine crafts.  He studies glassblowing with artist Josh Gelfand and practices glass beadmaking, mosaic and jewelry design at his studio in Los Angeles. 

Scott Von Doviak, Austin, TX
 Mr. Von Doviak is a film critic for the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. His book, Hick Flicks: The Rise and Fall of Redneck Cinema is the first comprehensive study of the hixploitation genre.

Bob Wake, Cambridge, WI
Mr. Wake is editor of the Cambridge Book Review and the author of Caffeine and Other Stories, a collection of short fiction.

Karen Weinstein, Los Angeles, CA
  Dr. Weinstein is a clinical psychologist who teaches in the medical school at UCLA. She also holds a master's degree in Urban Studies and has a strong interest in history and architecture, as well as the theater. She worries that such diverse interests are symptomatic of an advanced case of attention deficit disorder.

Suzanne Weiss, San Francisco, CA
Ms. Weiss wanted to be a ballerina with all her heart, but the rest of her body was not equipped to go along with the program so she became a critic instead. Covering dance, theater and music for various papers in Chicago and the Bay Area has kept her on her toes for the past 25 years.

Lewis Whittington, Philadelphia PA
Mr. Whittington writes about the performing and film arts for many publications.  He is a renegade dance, theater and opera queen, a jazz-head and a civil activist.

Sura Wood, San Francisco, CA
Ms. Wood is an arts journalist and film critic whose work has appeared in San Francisco Arts Monthly, Hollywood Reporter and other publications.

Joe Wozny, Houston, TX
Joe Wozny is a college student who enjoys "arts", but not "crafts". He likes to perform various activities on his own accord. He also has an online blog about Houston based time traveling folk musicians (http://web.mac.com/woejozney).

Nancy Wozny
is a Houston-based arts writer. She's a regular contributor to Dance Magazine, Dance Spirit, Goldrush, Artshouston, and is the dance editor for Dance Source Houston. She was a 2005 NEA Fellow at the Institute for Dance Criticism and a 2004 recipient of the Gary Parks Memorial Award for Emerging Dance Critics. She edits Dancehunter, Houston's only dance blog. www.dancehunter.blogspot.com

Les Wright, San Francisco, CA
Dr. Wright is a (high, mass, and low) cultural studies scholar and intellectual historian, an essayist, photographer, poet, and incorrigible traveler who admits to a shameless fascination with eros and thanatos--in the cinema and elsewhere.

George Wu, New York, NY
Mr. Wu holds a masters degree in cinema studies from NYU. He eats, drinks, and sleeps movies. Fortunately, he lives in New York City, the best place in the country for disorders of this type. He also works on the occasional screenplay when inspiration strikes, but his muses don't slap him around enough.

Matthew Yeager, Brooklyn, New York
Matthew Yeager is a Brooklyn-based filmmaker and film critic, who studied film at NYU film school. In short, he likes film. He also works at the Brooklyn Academy of Music (BAM), and keeps his own blog, http://www.cinemastubble.wordpress.com/, for further ramblings about film.

Susan Yung, based in New York City, contributes regularly to Dance Magazine, The Brooklyn Rail, Ballet-Tanz International, and other publications.

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