Board of Directors
Sonja BerggRen
Sonja Berggren is a theatre advocate, actor, director, and producer who lives in Long Beach, CA, and Cambridge, MA. She spent a year as a special research fellow in directing at the Yale School of Drama in 2012-13 and never really left. Sonja co-founded Panndora Productions in 2003, a company dedicated to supporting playwrights and encouraging the development of new plays. Panndora recently wrapped after 20 years, closing Panndora’s Box New Works Festival (for now). In addition to Heartbeat Opera, Sonja sits on the Board of Fringe Benefits (promoting theatre for social justice). She is a member of the Yale School of Drama Board of Advisors and Rattlestick Theatre’s Advisory Board. Sonja was the founding board president of Westerly School, the first independent K-8 school in Long Beach. Sonja and her husband Patrick Seaver have actively supported opera in Long Beach and Los Angeles. Born and raised in Ojai, CA, Sonja is a reformed lawyer and partner at Latham & Watkins, specializing in labor law. She is the proud mother of three grown children and a happy grandmother to four and more.
Thérèse Esperdy
Thérèse retired from a global investment banking career and now serves as an independent chairman and director on a number of corporate boards. Her many years in banking were counterbalanced by her passion and support for the arts. She is a member of the RSC (Royal Shakespeare Company) America board and was a board member of the Brooklyn Academy of Music (BAM) from 2010-2020. She has loved opera since she was a child and was immediately smitten with Heartbeat’s vision, vibrancy and artistry.
Robert Fitzpatrick
Robert Fitzpatrick believes in commitments of intensity not of duration and this is reflected in his multiple and sometimes dual careers: Dean of Students at Johns Hopkins University while serving as an elected Member of the Baltimore City Council, President of California Institute of the Arts and Director the 1984 Olympic Arts Festival, a 10-week international festival of performances preceding the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics and subsequently Director of the Los Angeles Festival in 1987. From 1987 he became CEO of Euro Disney Resort, overseeing the creation and opening of Paris Disneyland.
In 1995 he was named Dean of Columbia University’s School of the Arts. In 1998, he became Director and CEO of the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago. In 2008 he became an art consultant and also began mentoring pro bono individuals beginning their careers or changing careers.
Stephen M. Foster
After international career stints in banking, law, publishing and the arts, I am now “in retreat,” as the French say, but still on the battlefield, pursuing a third, 18th century historic preservation project and supporting fantastic organizations like Heartbeat Opera. I was sold on Heartbeat thirty minutes into attending my first performance (Lucia, 2015). This is a spirited and immensely talented company with an inspired, singular vision for opera theatre in the 21st century. As a board member, I hope to help in a modest way to see that vision fully realized… in New York, across the USA, and beyond.
LIZ DIAMOND
Liz Diamond is the Chair of Directing at the David Geffen School of Drama at Yale University and Resident Director at Yale Repertory Theatre. Among many productions she has directed at Yale Rep and nationally are premieres by playwrights Nilo Cruz, Marcus Gardley, Suzan-Lori Parks, Anna Deavere Smith, and Octavio Solis, and productions of classical and modern works by Stravinsky, Shakespeare, Euripides, Sophocles, Shaw, Racine, Molière, Beckett, and Brecht. Her work has garnered OBIE awards and Connecticut Critics Circle Awards. Liz is honored to serve on the Society of Stage Directors and Choreographers Executive Board, and on the Boards of Heartbeat Opera and the Krymov Lab NYC.
DEBRA VALENTINE
Debra Valentine recently served as the senior independent director and Chair of the Remuneration Committee at Lamprell plc. From 2008-2016 she was the first global General Counsel at Rio Tinto, a leading FTSE 100 company, and then its Group Executive, Legal & Regulatory Affairs. Earlier, Debra worked for over two decades in Washington DC, where she was a partner with the law firm O’Melveny & Myers and served as General Counsel at the Federal Trade Commission from 1997 to 2001.
She is the Chair of the Board of the Touchstones Discussion Project and a Trustee of the Glimmerglass Festival and was a board member of the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative and on the North American Advisory Council for Chatham House. She has an AB magna cum laude from Princeton University, a JD from Yale Law School, and is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and the American Law Institute.
ETHAN HEARD
CO-FOUNDER & FORMER ARTISTIC DIRECTOR
See Ethan’s bio on our Heartbeat team page.
LOUISA PROSKE
CO-founder & FORMER CO-ARTISTIC director
See Louisa’s bio on our Heartbeat team page.