David's Web page

9:40 a.m.   Wray Theater
     
Reyna Grande

Reyna Grande is the author of the critically acclaimed novel Across A Hundred Mountains (Atria 2006) , for which she has received an American Book Award and El Premio Aztlan Literary Award . She has a Bachelor of Arts degree in Creative Writing and Film and Video from the University of California, Santa Cruz, and an M.F.A. in Creative Writing from Antioch University. She was born in Mexico and was raised by her grandparents after her parents left her behind while they worked in the U.S. She came to the U.S. at the age of ten as an undocumented immigrant and went on to become the first person in her family to obtain a higher education. She lives in Los Angeles with her husband and two children. She is a sought-after speaker at middle/high schools, colleges and universities across the nation. Her second novel, Dancing with Butterflies, will be published in October 2009. She is currently at work on a memoir.

Reyna's Web page
 

11:15 a.m.   Wray Theater

Beth Kennedy

Beth Kennedy received the Los Angeles Drama Critics' Circle (LADCC) Natalie Shaffer Award for Emerging Comic Actress.  Recent film appearances include Garry Marshall's Georgia Rule and this year’s new Disney release, Race to Witch Mountain as well as featured roles in a handful of independent films.  Beth also performed in Garry Marshall's opera directing debut, The Grand Duchess, at the Los Angeles Opera as well as in numerous main stage productions at Mr. Marshall’s Falcon Theatre in Burbank, California.  Television appearances include a recurring role on The Gilmore Girls and guest-starring and co-starring roles on Brothers & Sisters, Judging Amy, The Practice, Boston Public, Sabrina the Teenage Witch, Party of Five and Picket Fences.  Her numerous theater credits include frequent appearances with Troubadour Theater Company (www.troubie.com) of which she is a producing associate.  This spring she will co-produce and perform in the company's production of Oedipus the King, Mama! (the classic story of Oedipus to the music of Elvis Presley) commissioned by and performed at the Getty Villa in Malibu, California.  Previously, she played the lead role of Alice in Alice in One-Hit-Wonderland 2: Through the Looking Glass as well as the role of the melancholy Jaques in As U2 Like It for which she was won a LADCC Featured Performance Award.  She is also the recipient of a Backstage West Garland Award for her performance in Troubadour Theater Co’s Much Adoobie Brothers About Nothing as well as an Orange County Weekly Award for Best Supporting Female Performance in The Comedy of Aerosmith.  Beth can be seen on numerous national television commercials and webisodes, most recently Kentucky Fried Chicken, Grape Nuts and Alltel.  She received her MFA in Theatre from California Institute of the Arts.