The Team - Town Stages

Executive Team

Robin Sokoloff

Founder & Executive Director

Robin is a lifelong dancer, theater professional, and activist: Passionate about building platforms for women and minority voices. As Executive Director of Loft227, Robin created a home for New York City’s best and brightest artists and innovators from March 2012 to March 2017; seeing nearly 70,000 in her doors in under 5 years, while supporting close to 900 innovative works and small business owners. Robin holds a Bachelor of Arts in Sociology from New York University’s College of Arts and Sciences, she is a graduate of NEW (Non-Traditional Employment For Women), and a former member of The United Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners of America with Local #157; proud to have built this city she loves.

Robin Sokoloff is a scholarship recipient of The Jacob’s Pillow School of Dance, New York State Summer School of The Arts, Stagedoor Manor Performing Arts Training Center, The Hip-Hop Dance Conservatory of New York, Skidmore Studio Art Program, Mason Gross School of The Arts, and Coupé Theatre Studio. She is a certified New York State rape crisis counselor for The Crime Victims Treatment Center; volunteering overnights at St. Luke’s/ Roosevelt and Lenox Hill Hospitals supporting victims of domestic violence and sexual assault.

Most recently, Robin choreographed Pasek and Paul's award-winning musical "DOGFIGHT" for 5th Floor Theater Company at The Hudson Guild Theater, and is currently performing in Heather Christian's critically acclaimed "Animal Wisdom" at The Bushwick Starr.

Robin Sokoloff serves as Vice President of the Board for the Musical Theater Factory, and Chairman of the Board of Sokoloff Arts (501c3).

Chie Morita

Deputy Director

Chie seeks creative solutions to everyday debacles. She is the co-founder of FORGE, a boutique consultancy dedicated to helping artists and companies take the next step in their own work. Prior to joining the Town Team, Chie served as the Managing Director of the three-time- Drama-Desk Award-nominated New York Neo-Futurists. She is also a proud board member of The Musical Theater Factory. In New York, she has worked with Broadway Producer Joey Parnes (A Gentleman's Guide to Love and Murder, Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike, End of the Rainbow), the Off-Broadway institutions The Public Theater and Ars Nova, and such independent artists and ensembles as Heather Christian and the Arbornauts, Esperance Theater Company, Extant Arts Company, UglyRhino, Panicked Productions, Fresh Ground Pepper, and art.party.theater.company. She has cast films for Sal Bardo, Emilie McDonald, Sarah Jenkins and Ashley Alexander.

Staci Jacobs

VP Development

Staci began working with Sokoloff Arts last year as event manager at Loft227. With more than 15 years experience in destination management and customer relations, Staci is a hospitality-focused professional specializing in all things New York. She's developed incredible experiences for some of NYC's Legacy 5-Star Hotels: The Westin, The Waldorf, The Hilton, and the Grand Central Hyatt. Beginning as a NYC Licensed Tour Guide, Staci found her niche connecting a global audience to the city's most coveted Film and TV Sites, while developing her own film production work. Her award winning comedic web-series, Saving Unicorns, is featured on the indie streaming platform Seed & Spark. From laptops to live audiences across the country, Staci has appeared in numerous musicals, including the national tour of Titanic, and many regional productions.

Staff

Connor Sampson

Content Manager & Board of Directors Liason

Connor is a writer and performer based in Brooklyn, NY. As a story-teller and content creator, his work has been featured and shared across the world on platforms like The Advocate, SinglePlatform, Buzzfeed, The Satirist, and many more. An ensemble member of The New York Neo-Futurists since 2014, he can regularly be seen writing for and performing in their award-winning weekly show, The Infinite Wrench. He is a Goldberg Play Prize Finalist, a Nut Island Creative Colony Artist-in-Residence and the inaugural recipient of the Jeffrey Melnick New Playwright Award from Primary Stages. His plays have been performed across the country, including Parading the Noose (Primary Stages, Cherry Lane), The Great American Drama (A.R.T./NY, NYNF), Boy Meets Girl (Suffolk University), Capture My Heart (Cherry Lane) and The Art of Cannibalism (NYU). He is a two-time national champion of performance poetry and holds a B.F.A in Dramatic Writing from Tisch School of the Arts.

Obinna Okani

Event Venue Associate

Obinna Okani is an entrepreneur and skilled connector of people and organizations that is focused on creating lasting value on the African continent. He is the Co-founder/ Chief Business Development Officer of an online media platform called Naija Made Me. Over the past 4 years, Obinna has sharpened his business acumen in a number of sectors including strategic partnership and the start-ups through connecting seemingly unrelated ideas to drive fresh and innovative solutions to any given problem. Obinna joined the Town Stages team early 2019 as an Event Venue Associate aiming to increase visibility and new business clients for the space.

With a B.S in Biology from Howard University and a M.A. in Management from Wake Forest University, Obinna seeks opportunities that are invaluable in nature thus allowing him to work creatively, analytically, and entrepreneurially in spaces of ambiguity with little direction.

Rainey Rowan

Operations Manager

Born and raised in sunny Los Angeles, Rainey found her way to New York City as a performer, theatrical producer and event coordinator. She has overseen projects with Eating Their Words, Slant Productions, Quiet Theater, Frames Bowling Lounge, Teens For Food Justice, Port Cities NYC, and the Theatrical Culinary Project. She served as an operations manager and event coordinator at Steps On Broadway, assistant directed the world premier of the new musical Up And Away at the Pittsburgh CLO Cabaret Theater, and most recently was the Producer of Partnerships and Event Services at the Tribeca Film Festival. She is a co-producer of NeverTheLess: A Night Of, which gives performers and artists of every genre a safe place to express their work based on ever evolving themes. When she is not organizing all the things, she cultivates her other artistic side by continuing to be an avid yogi, dancer, singer, and actor.

Brandon Tyler Harris

Head of Bar Operations

Brandon is an actor, bar professional, handyman, and voiceover artist. After receiving a BFA in Acting from UNCSA, Brandon moved to New York, talked his way into his first bartending job, and threw himself into the NYC acting scene.

As an actor, Brandon has appeared on Law & Order: SVU, Blue Bloods, The Big C, and The Intern, as well as starring in the LGBT short films Pink Moon, Stay, and Goodbye Blue Sky. He’s also a committed Voiceover Artist and is determined to one day be the voice of a cartoon.

As a bar professional, Brandon has spent over 7 years in the NYC nightlife industry. Having cut his teeth for years at the Manderley Bar in the McKittrick Hotel, Brandon has slung cocktails in all kinds of environments, from fine dining to frenetic nightclub, and prides himself on his ability to thread the needle between high-quality cocktails and high volume events.

Brandon is also a freelance handyman, operating under his company The Handy Actor. In his little spare time, Brandon enjoys traveling, sailing, Burning Man, and nerdy games like Magic and DnD.

Caleb McCotter

Social Media & Content Strategist

Caleb McCotter is a photographer, Social Media curator, and performer who has shot Tony Award-winning actors and producers, TV Personalities, Political Figures, CEOs, and NYC Businesses. With a BFA from Savannah College of Art & Design, his film performances have been featured by Rolling Stone. Most recently, his photography work has been featured by March for Our Lives, Milk Bar Store, and Q Mixers.

Financial

Scott Sokoloff

Chief Financial Officer

Scott Sokoloff transforms mountains of data on consumer’s behavior to actionable data-driven insights. Offering a track record of generating billions of dollars in value for diverse companies by encouraging a transition to an analytics-driven enterprise, Scott provides over a decade of leadership experience in the field of data science, analytics, and business intelligence. Scott Sokoloff holds an MBA in Finance from the University of Florida and a BA in Mathematics from the University of Pennsylvania.

Magan Wiles

Books & Finance

Magan Wiles is the hustle behind Hustle Creative, a boutique business management firm specializing in providing entrepreneurs and start-ups the backbone they need to expand. From bookkeeping to financial reporting to technology consulting, Magan loves working with clients who know where they need help, and empowering them to clearly focus on what they’re most passionate about. Her clients are wide-ranging, from small businesses to non- profits to film productions, but her goals are always the same: find ways to save money, and distill back-end processes until they can be managed from a smartphone. Magan began her journey with Sokoloff Arts over 4 years ago, building Loft227's corporate infrastructure into a lean, mean, art-making machine. No stranger to the stage, Magan is a working AEA theater professional, film producer for Jono Freedrix's side-splitting Super Twisted Shorts, and Co-Owner of world-renowned Argentinian Tango school Oxygen Tango in Los Angeles.