Gabrielle L. Kurlander is an innovative non-profit entrepreneur, community organizer, actor and theatre director.
Over the past twenty-five years as president and CEO, Ms. Kurlander has transformed the All Stars Project from a grassroots all-volunteer effort into a new national model for engaging poverty through afterschool development and community organizing. Funding the ASP entirely through private donations, Ms. Kurlander has won the support of hundreds of prominent business leaders, philanthropists and corporations, and raised $110 million during her tenure. Today, ASP is supported by thousands of individual donors, and over 200 corporations, including national partners MetLife, Latham & Watkins, Tiffany & Co. and Ernst & Young.
Ms. Kurlander has steadily expanded the ASP’s size and influence from one city to six cities. She expanded from New York City, where she opened the All Stars Project’s national headquarters, a 31,000 square foot $20 million performing arts and development center on 42nd Street in 2003, to San Francisco/Bay Area in 2007, and Chicago in 2008. In 2013 she established the country’s first Center for Afterschool Development in Newark, New Jersey, where ASP began in 2000. In 2013, the ASP also opened in Dallas, Texas, and in 2014 in Bridgeport, Connecticut.
After a brief stint in the commercial theatre, Ms. Kurlander now creates off-Broadway theatre, and has performed in dozens of shows and directed numerous plays and musicals. In 2011, Ms. Kurlander directed Playing with Heiner Müller, which won an AUDELCO Award for Outstanding Ensemble; her direction of the 2012 production of Sally and Tom (The American Way) won five AUDELCO Awards, including a Best Director Award for her. She recently directed Clare Coss’ play Dr. Du Bois and Miss Ovington starring Kathleen Chalfant, and the Fred Newman/Annie Roboff musical Carmen’s Place (A Fantasy).
In the early 1990’s Ms. Kurlander raised investment capital to found an organizational change company called Performance of a Lifetime (performanceofalifetime.com), which trains dozens of corporate clients worldwide.
Ms. Kurlander is a trained community organizer with experience in inner-city communities nationwide. In September 2014, she was honored for her leadership and vision at the Volunteer Referral Center’s 25th Anniversary Gala. She has decades of training in all aspects of performance and theatrical producing, and holds a B.A. from CUNY/Empire State. Ms. Kurlander resides in Greenwich Village in New York City.
| Credit Type | Production | Season |
|---|---|---|
| Director | Dr. Du Bois and Miss Ovington | 2013-14 Season |
| Director | Dr. Du Bois & Miss Ovington (2020) | 2020-21 Season |