Youth Arts NY Board Of Directors

Youth Arts New York is the parent organization of Hibakusha Stories

Linda S. Chapman, BFA

President, is the founding board president of Youth Arts NY.  Associate Artistic Director at New York Theatre Workshop 1995-2020; Co-adapted Ann Bannon’s Lesbian classic, The Beebo Brinker Chronicles (GLAAD Media Award winner, nominated for a LAMBDA Literary Award) for the stage with playwright Kate Moira Ryan.  Co-writer/performer of OBIE Award winning Gertrude and Alice: A Likeness to Loving with Lola Pashalinski; Associate member of The Wooster Group 1983-94 as Managing Director and performer; Founding Artistic Director of Sang-Froid, Ltd.; Co-founding producer of Dyke TV and DTV Productions.  Administrator at Theater For The New City; Member of Sonia Moore’s American Stanislavski Theatre. Professional memberships include: The League of Professional Theater Women (Chair -Lortel Com. & Co-Chair Int. Com), Stage Directors & Choreographers Society, The National Theatre Conference, The Dramatists Guild.

Mitchie Takeuchi

Vice President, is president of NYC based Arc Media, Inc. and has been working with Japanese-American companies as a bilateral business development consultant over the past 30 years. Her mother Takako Takeuchi and grandfather Ken Takeuchi, who was the Founding Director of the Red Cross Hospital in Hiroshima, both survived the atomic bombing on August 6, 1945. As a teenager in Hiroshima, Mitchie volunteered to assist Leona Row, the American Director of the World Friendship Center, a peace community center founded by Barbara Reynolds, the Quaker activist and an Honorary Hiroshima Citizen. During that time, Mitchie was instrumental in working with Row to translate and publish the anti-nuclear classic Unforgettable Fire: Drawings by Atomic Bomb Survivors. She produced the documentary film, The Vow From Hiroshima, about the life of world renowned Hiroshima survivor Setsuko Thurlow, intergenerational friendship and the movement for a treaty banning nuclear weapons. Mayor Matsui of Hiroshima has officially recommended that the film be viewed by youth everywhere.

Robert Croonquist, MA

Founder and Treasurer, taught multicultural, interdisciplinary global literature and culture for 20 years with the City University of New York’s Gateway Institute for Pre-College Education. A graduate of Stanford University, he spent six years at Hearthshire School, Mendocino County, California, and presently serves as the President of its Board of Directors. He also sits on the board of San Francisco-based Life Frames, Inc. Robert studied in India on a Fulbright scholarship, taught in Istanbul, Turkey and was Jamaica High School, Queens, NY, Teacher of the Year in 1998. He is a facilitator of the work of Harry Hay, Joanna Macy, and of Anna Halprin’s Planetary Dance. He is a founding member of NYCAN (the New York Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons) and active in Rise and Resist. He is proud to represent those killed by gun violence as a volunteer for Gays Against Guns.

Daniel Osman, BFA

Secretary, is the owner and proprietor of the Dreamaway Lodge, a Berkshire legend for more than 90 years. He is an educator, theater professional and central figure in a flourishing Berkshire music and art community. He has worked in a variety of capacities with, among others, New York Theatre Workshop, Shakespeare & Company and Mixed Company. He participated as an actor and director of Shakespeare in the Schools from 1990 – 1995. He has performed in Berkshire productions of Jean Genet’s The Maids and Fully Committed by Becky Mode.

Kathleen Sullivan, PHD

Hibakusha Stories Director has been engaged in nuclear weapons and nuclear power abolition for more than 30 years. She received her doctorate at Lancaster University, UK, writing a feminist critique of nuclear technology, using Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein as a containing metaphor with plutonium as the Monster. Kathleen has worked internationally over decades with her long-time mentor Joanna Macy to forward conversation and action for Nuclear Guardianship. She has been a consultant to the United Nations Office for Disarmament Affairs; was the principal author of disarmament related curricula for the UN’s Cyberschoolbus website, and co-wrote Action for Disarmament: 10 Things You Can Do! Kathleen produces nuclear themed films and projects that focus on art for disarmament — utilizing visual arts, music and dance. She has supported the facilitation of hibakusha voices in conferences and UN fora on humanitarian consequences of nuclear weapons, and is a Nagasaki Peace Correspondent and Hiroshima Peace Ambassador.

In Memorium:
Sandra W. Parker, MFA

Vice President Emeritus, was a Tulsa-based educator, sculptor, and painter. She received her BFA in Ceramics and MFA in Art History from the University of Tulsa. Her teaching career spanned 35 years and included Undercroft Montessori School, Philbrook Museum of Art, and Immaculate Conception, all in Tulsa. She has served on many boards including the Board of Friends in Deed in New York City. She has been active with Youth Arts New York since its formation.

Robert Croonquist writes: It is great sorrow that we announce the loss of our Vice President Sandy Parker who passed away on November 14, 2021. She was the light of our lives and left us all too soon. Youth Arts New York. Sandy and her husband Jody’s generous support was key to our ability to do the work we have done. We miss her terribly. 2005 Sandy wrote, “Upon my death . . . I want no list of degrees or educ. or accomplishments (that has always embarrassed me – too large, too small, always a hollow way to describe a soul.) I would like to be cremated and tossed to the wind.” May Sandy’s delicious love of life and of us live on and on and on beyond space and time. Her obituary was published in the Tulsa World.