Company Leadership

OUR EXECUTIVE BOARD

The Gilbert & Sullivan Light Opera Company is governed by a seven-member executive board, elected by the company’s general membership (its performers and offstage personnel) for two-year terms. The board consists of a president, a vice president, a treasurer, a secretary and three members-at-large. The 2022/2023 board consists of the following great officers of state:

---

Kara Vertucci (President) Kara Vertucci is a returning member to the GaSLOCoLI Board but has been a member of the company for many years, performing as Josephine in H.M.S. Pinafore, Phyllis in Iolanthe, The Mikado: A Long Island Fantasy and Very Truly Yours, Gilbert and Sullivan and many more performing credits and leading roles to her name. Most recently she performed the titular role of Princess Ida in our Summer 2023 production. She is also a versatile musical theater and cantor singer.

Farah Candu (Vice President) is a first time member to the GaSLOCoLI Board. She has performed as The Narrator in A Gilbert & Sullivan Christmas Carol, Fleta in Iolanthe, and in a chorus capacity for H.M.S. Pinafore. She is also the director of the all-women’s Willow Interfaith Choir.

---

Jordan Breslow (Treasurer) — has been with GaSLOCoLI since 2011 and was featured in both principal roles in The Mikado(Pish-Tush), Patience (Major Murgatroyd), The Gondoliers (Antonio), and A Gilbert & Sullivan Christmas Carol (Bob Cratchit) as well as various ensemble appearances in The Sorcerer, Ruddigore, Thespis, HMS Pinafore, and The Pirates of Penzance. He had previously performed with the Suburban Players of Wantagh in Anything Goes, Annie Get Your Gun, and Girl Crazy and as the title character in a Camp Kinder Ring production of The Wiz. Jordan was a member of the Binghamton Crosbys, the only all-male a cappella singing ensemble at Binghamton University and continues as their alumni coordinator. He has served multiple terms on the GaSLOCoLI Executive Board as business manager, publicity chairperson, and is their current treasurer.

Roseann Rodriguez (Secretary) joins the GaSLOCoLI Board for the first time. She has performed with the company as Little Buttercup (Understudy), in A Gilbert & Sullivan Christmas Carol as Mrs. Emily Cratchett, The Fairy Queen (Understudy), and as a chorus member! She also performs with The Long Island Cabaret Theatre, The Long Island Choral Society, and recently in the stage reading of The Cask of Amontillado.

---

---

Karina Vartanian (Board Member/Social Media) is thrilled to be continuing in her role with the GASLOCOLI board! She is currently a vocal studies student at the Manhattan School of Music. Her past credits with the company include “Cheapside Jackie” in A Gilbert and Sullivan Christmas Carol and ensemble in The Gondoliers, Patience, and The Pirates of Penzance and as the understudy for “Peep Bo” in The Mikado. She was a solo finalist at Carnegie Hall for the Armenian Youth Talent Competition in 2019 and also was a first place solo finalist in the Elite Music Competition whose Carnegie Hall concert was meant to be in April of 2020. She is excited for what the 2020-2021 season has in store and is ecstatic to work alongside a talented and dedicated board.

Drew Davidson (Board Member) is a new member to Board. He has performed onstage with The GaSLOCoLI for many years, and recently returned to the company as a sailor in our most recent performance of H.M.S. Pinafore.
He is a retired educator and devoted husband!

Chris Diamond (Board Member/Fundraising) is continues his tenure as a member to the Board this year. He is currently starring in The GaSLOCoLI’s production of A Gilbert & Sullivan Christmas Carol as Scrooge and will be undertaking the role of Sir. Joseph Porter, K.C.B in our upcoming 2025 performance of H.M.S. Pinafore. His first performance with the company was in 2024 as a chorus member and understudying Lord Tolloller in Iolanthe. A Texas native, he now resides on Long Island with his boundlessly patient and supportive wife and daughter, whom he enjoys embarrassing by calling her out in company bios.

---

---

ADVISORS TO THE BOARD

Tamara Shyngle (Board Advisor/Graphics) has been a member of the company since 2004, serving in various unnamed Board Member capacities as well as President. Her time onstage with The GaSLOCoLI has included several featured roles with the company, as Isabel in The Pirates of Penzance (2010), Fleta in Iolanthe (2016), Pitti-Sing in The Mikado and most recently as Sacarissa in our 2023 production of Princess Ida. She was also a part of the Harlem ensemble in Star Playhouse’s 2010 production of Ragtime. While she always enjoys performing, she has found additional interest in working behind the scenes as well, serving as stage manager for The Mikado (2012).

Ben Salers (Board Advisor) For the past several years, the Light Opera Company has been like family for Ben, a transplant from Mississippi. He originally had the privilege of playing Sillimon in Thespis (in Tom Shepard’s spectacular version of Arthur Sullivan’s score), and has gone on to play various roles in a number of other G&S operas, most recently appearing as the Duke of Plaza Toro in The Gondoliers and in Very Truly Yours, Gilbert and Sullivan: The Movie.

Ron Roth (Financial Advisor) has 30 years of knowledge and earned experience in the private risk management, commercial insurance, and estate planning industries. He has held management positions at the world’s top insurance companies and helped grow a number of nationally recognized producer groups.   As President & CEO of  National Network of Accountants, Ron’s goal is to help grow and enhance NNA’s relationships with mid-market business clients, their accounting firms, and other advisory professionals. Ron is also an accomplished author, having penned two books – Invest In Your Life: Why Wall Street Wants You.  He most recently published his second book Don’t Pick Up the Bill: Strategies to Help Affluent Individuals & Families Navigate a New Economic & Tax Paradigm. 

Ron received a B.A. from George Washington University in 1988 and serves as a board member for a number of non-profit organizations including the prestigious International Advisory Committee for EcoPeace Middle East.  He is also Treasurer of the Parent Council Board of Directors at Friends Academy in Locust Valley NY.   Ron Lives in Upper Brookville NY with his wife Claudia and children Zachary & Hanna.

Tom Z. Shepard is a lifelong Savoyard who got involved with the Light Opera Company in 2014, when the company staged his version of the “lost” Gilbert & Sullivan opera Thespis,
with Gilbert’s libretto set to new music by Shepard, replacing the lost Sullivan score. One thing led to another, and he’s never left, having played the Narrator in A Gilbert & Sullivan Christmas Carol (2014), served on the company board, worked as an accompanist on The Pirates of Penzance, Patience, The Gondoliers and A Gilbert & Sullivan Christmas Carol (2019), and as music director for The World According to Gilbert & Sullivan and Very Truly Yours, Gilbert & Sullivan (the ongoing in-person version). In his non-G&S life, Tom is a native of East Orange, N.J., who studied music at the Juilliard School, the Oberlin Conservatory of Music and the Yale School of Music before embarking on a legendary career as a producer of Broadway and classical-music record albums, in the process earning 12 Grammy Awards. He is also a composer, whose credits include the operas That Pig of a Molette and A Question of Faith (both with libretti by Sheldon Harnick), the children’s cantata In the Night Kitchen (with words by Maurice Sendak) and the score for Otto Preminger’s film Such Good Friends.
He lives with his wife of 60 years, artist Irene Clark, in West Gilgo Beach

Delaney Page (Webmaster) Delaney Page has been a member of the GaSLOCoLI since the 2014/15 production of H.M.S. Pinafore. She has performed in the company’s productions of Iolanthe as Celia, in Pirates of Penzance as Kate, in The Gondoliers as Vittoria, in A G&S Christmas Carol as The Balladeer & The Ghost of Christmas Future, in The Mikado understudying Katisha and performing as Peep-Bo, as Sparkieon/Chorus in Very Truly Yours, Gilbert and Sullivan: The Movie, as the 2nd Bridesmaid in both casts of Trial by Zoom and understudying Lady Blanche and Lady Psyche in Princess Ida. She has been a Board Member then Secretary for the company starting in 2019.

OUR DIRECTORS

David Macaluso (Director, H.M.S Pinafore) is a first time GaSLOCoLI Director and Manhattan School of Music graduate. David has directed and choreographed and produced many productions including The Pirates of Penzance with Opera NJ (Jamibeth Margolis, Dir.) and Sullivan’s Cox and Box (both on stage and film!) for NYGASP as well as Die Fledermaus and Le Nozze di Figaro at The Copland School of Music, Queens College. He has edited/directed student versions of The Gondoliers, Patience, HMS Pinafore and Ruddigore for NYGASP and Lake George/Saratoga Opera.  

Gayden Wren (Director, Very Truly Yours, Gilbert and Sullivan) has been a member of the company since the 1970s. During that time, he has directed The Sorcerer, H.M.S. Pinafore, Patience (twice), Iolanthe (three times), Princess Ida (twice), The Mikado, Ruddigore, The Yeomen of the Guard, The Gondoliers and Utopia, Ltd., as well as A Gilbert & Sullivan Christmas Carol; Very Truly Yours, Gilbert & Sullivan; and a number of staged readings of Gilbert plays. He is the author of A Most Ingenious Paradox: The Art of Gilbert & Sullivan (Oxford University Press, 2001) and the upcoming Only in Theatrical Performances: Reading ‘The Mikado.’

Michael C. Haigler (Orchestral Director H.M.S. Pinafore) is a conductor of choral, orchestral, operatic, and theatrical music, a frequent recitalist, published author and composer, clinician, coach, and teacher. Equally at home in many styles of music, he made his New York City conducting debut in 2004 with the Opera Company of Brooklyn’s production of Le Nozze di Figaro at CAMI Hall in Manhattan, and has since won guest conductor positions with the Larchmont Symphonia, the New York Symphonic Arts Ensemble, the Orchestra of the Bronx, Bronx Opera, the Lehman College Drama Department, the Opera Company of Brooklyn, Park Avenue Synagogue, the Westchester Chorale, and the Winter Harbor Music Festival, among others. In 2001 he was honored to be selected from over 350 candidates as a North American finalist in Lorin Maazel’s International Conducting Competition.  In December 2018 he made his Lincoln Center debut as an invited conductor in the National Chorale Messiah Sing-in.  He currently serves as Music Director at Christ Church Episcopal in Oyster Bay, Long Island, home to the Christ Church Festival Orchestra which he founded in 2006.

Isabella Eredita Johnson (Vocal Music Director H.M.S. Pinafore) lives in Northport, and accompanies and teaches piano professionally. She was awarded a scholarship to the Manhattan School of Music where she received both her Bachelors and Masters Degrees, studying with Constance Keene. She has won both the prestigious George Schick award for outstanding musicianship and 1st prize at the Mason & Hamlin Piano competition. Among her proudest accomplishments are the presentations of the Diabelli Variations and the Goldberg Variations. Each of these two concerts involved the gathering of over thirty fine pianists, each performing a single variation. Ms. Eredita is an active advocate for the arts on Long Island, and is the founder and director of “Opera Night, Long Island.” www.operanight.org .

Sara Elliot Holiday (Producer/Technical Director, Very Truly Yours) cut her teeth with the Texas Gilbert and Sullivan Company in the 1990s, and went on to Oberlin College and the Gilbert & Sullivan Players there. She made her Light Opera Company debut as Angelina in Trial by Jury in 1997, and has played various roles with the company ever since, including music director of Utopia, Limited and Iolanthe. Her favorite Gilbert & Sullivan roles include Patience, Yum-Yum and Casilda, as well as all the female roles in The World According to Gilbert & Sullivan and Very Truly Yours, Gilbert & Sullivan, Hilarion in Gilbert’s The Princess and, perhaps most of all, Bob Cratchit in A Gilbert & Sullivan Christmas Carol. In her spare time she is head of events at the New York Society Library and author of A Thousand Dances: A Novel of the British Blues Boom (Coral Press, 2018)..

LIFETIME MEMBERS

The following individuals have been elected lifetime members of the Gilbert & Sullivan Light Opera Company of Long Island, in recognition of their unique and valuable services to the company over the course of many years. Most of them are still with us; some have moved on to other pursuits, some have passed away, but all have made substantial contributions to everything we do, whether or not they are involved in a particular production.

---