Staff
Executive Director: Lisa Beth Vettoso, lisa.v@literaturetolife.org
Co-Founding Artistic Director: Elise Thoron, elise.t@literaturetolife.org
Company Manager: Kelvin Grullon, kelvin.g@literaturetolife.org
Grants & Database Manager: Simone Messer, simone.m@literaturetolife.org
Marketing & Outreach Manager: Alyssa Monte, alyssa.m@literaturetolife.org
Arts Education Intern: Wyatt King, intern@literaturetolife.org
Lisa Beth Vettoso | Executive Director
Lisa (she/her) is an innovative and strategic leader with 15+ years of experience in arts administration. Most recently, she served as the Executive Director of The Art School at Old Church, where she championed several transformational initiatives for the 46-year-old arts and cultural center in Northern NJ. Previously, Lisa was the Director of Education for The New York Pops and the American Repertory Ballet (where she also served as Interim ED), and was the first Managing Director for the New York City Arts in Education Roundtable. She holds a B.A. in Communication and Theatre from Villanova University, and an M.A. in Educational Theatre from NYU. Lisa is a professional theatre producer, director, and choreographer, and manages her own youth theatre company, Aspire Performing Arts, based in NJ.
Elise Thoron | Co-Founding Artistic Director
Elise (she/her) is a playwright, adaptor, and an acclaimed director, whose plays have been produced in the United States, Europe, Japan, Russia, and Cuba. Her ongoing collaboration with Japanese paper artist Kyoko Ibe Recycling: washi tales is the subject of documentary and articles. For twenty years, she created cross-cultural exchanges with Russian and American theater artists, adapting and directing The Great Gatsby at The Pushkin Theater in Moscow - where it played for over nine years - and her translations of Russian plays have been produced and published in the United States and Canada. As Associate Artistic Director at American Place Theatre, she worked closely with Wynn Handman, developing new plays, solo shows, and educational programming which led to Literature to Life. She has adapted Diaz’s The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, Baldwin’s If Beale Street Could Talk, Cisneros’ The House on Mango Street, Lowry’s The Giver, and developed County of Kings with Tony award–winning poet Lemon Andersen, which went on to the Public Theater and venues around the world. She also developed and directed Andersen’s play Toast with the Sundance Theater program and Public Theater. Her Afro-Cuban-Yiddish opera Hatuey: Memory of Fire, with composer Frank London, had its inaugural production in Havana at Opera de la Calle, and North American Premiere at Peak Performances. She is developing Felon: A Play, a solo performance with formerly incarcerated lawyer-poet Dwayne Betts and his Million Book Project, bringing books and authors into prisons across the country. Elise was commissioned by the Oregon Shakespeare Festival: Play On! to “translate” Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice into contemporary English soon to be published.
Kelvin Grullon | Company Manager
Kelvin (he/him) is a Dominican American actor from Washington Heights, New York City. A graduate from the University of Virginia (2013), he launched his acting career with Literature to Life performing the SOLO show based on The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, in which he plays 10+ characters from Junot Diaz's Pulitzer Prize–winning novel. He is a multi-talented artist with a passion for storytelling, often working as a filmmaker, producer, spoken word performer, visual artist, and electronic musician DJ’ing under the pseudonym Wild Chico. You may have seen him on numerous national commercial spots for brands like Casper, Spectrum, Tic Tac, or featured on various independent film and new media projects such as the YouTube web-series DominicanYork. He received his actor training at Humanity Studios, where under the guidance of acting coach Shae D'lyn (Dharma & Greg) he developed a strong acuity for playing impassioned leaders and tragic heroes.
Simone Messer | Grants & Database Manager
Simone (they/she) is an artist, scholar, and bookworm based in New York City. Simone has done development work for nonprofits across North America tackling issues including Indigenous rights, industrial fashion pollution, fair trade advocacy, and children's literacy. They especially appreciate getting to bring arts education to underserved communities within their hometown of NYC and beyond. Simone holds a BA in English from Bates College and is currently earning a master's degree in Fashion and Textile Studies from FIT.
Alyssa Monte | Marketing & Outreach Manager
Alyssa Monte (she/her) is an artist and writer based in New York. Her personal work focuses on landscape and memory; varying in mediums and processes such as film photography and poetry. She is interested in the way text and image create conversations and inform each other. Alyssa holds a BFA in Photography and Journalism from SUNY Purchase. She currently works in social media and communications; fascinated by the ability to tell impactful stories and build community in the digital space.
Wyatt King | Arts Education Intern
Wyatt (he/him) is an interdisciplinary artist born and raised in Oregon. He is an NYU student pursuing an MA in Educational Theatre. He holds a BFA in Acting and a BA in The Arts with concentrations in Music, Dance, and Theatre Arts from Western Oregon University. Performance credits include Dad in Greybeard Productions’ film ⅞, Brian in the Oregon Contemporary Theatre’s production of Wickhams: Christmas at Pemberley, and Homer in Struts & Fret's production of Anatomy of Gray. Offstage credits include dialect coach at Valley Shakespeare Company, fight choreographer, and acting instructor at Stagedoor Manor. He can also be found singing and dancing, devising original works, and playing the cello and alto saxophone. In his free time, Wyatt volunteers as a supporting artist with CO/LAB Theater Group. Wyatt continuously strives to empower people’s voices and create art that has something to say.
Board Members
Board Chair: Laura Handman
Vice Chair: Jeffrey Rosenstock
Secretary: Marion Greenup
Treasurer / Company Chair: Tarantino Smith
Board Member: Julia del Palacio
Board Member: Edward Gallagher
Board Member: Eva Jacobs
Board Member: Elise Thoron
Board Member: Peter Tallian
Laura Handman (Chair)
“Literature to Life has been a part of my life ever since my dad, Wynn Handman, 27 years ago, asked Toni Morrison if he could adapt her book, The Bluest Eye, for a theatrical production at the American Place Theatre. She had just won the Nobel Prize and her agent told her she was hot stuff so she said no, but you can do it in schools. That was the birth of Literature to Life. Our dad then created verbatim adaptations of over 20 books with a professional actor performing all the roles in schools in New York and across the country. As it turns out, in the time of COVID, which tragically took his life, it has given a rebirth to Lit to Life—with one actor performing all the roles, no worries about social distancing between actors and performances available by video to enrich remote learning in schools. I have been on this journey with Lit to Life from the beginning and am so excited about its most recent incarnation. I am grateful for the dedicated company of actors, teaching artists, and staff and to my law firm, Davis Wright Tremaine, which provides pro-bono legal support. As a First Amendment lawyer, I share my dad’s love of language, and that is what Lit to Life is all about.”
Jeffrey Rosenstock (Vice-Chair)
Jeffrey Rosenstock has served as AVP of External and Governmental Relations at Queens College, which is part of the City University of New York (CUNY). As part of his portfolio, Jeff is the Executive Director of the Kupferberg Center for the Arts, which includes the college museums (Godwin-Ternbach Museum, Art Center, and the Louis Armstrong House Museum and Archives), and the performing arts centers (2,100-seat Colden Auditorium, 475-seat Lefrak Concert Hall, and 480-seat Goldstein Theatre). The Kupferberg Center for the Arts is the largest cultural campus in the Borough of Queens which has a population of 2.4 million. Jeff developed the CUNY Dance Initiative, a project which brings 24 New York City-based dance companies to 11 City University of New York campuses throughout all five boroughs each year. He also founded the Louis Armstrong International Music Festival which is an all-day Festival taking place in Flushing Meadows Corona Park, the site of the 1939 and 1964 World’s Fairs, and features local, national, and international talent celebrating the legacy of the late Louis Armstrong.
Julia Del Palacio (Board Member)
Julia del Palacio is the Director of Strategic Partnerships and Development at Kupferberg Center for the Arts/Queens College (KCA), where she leads strategic and fundraising efforts for KCA’s presenting season, educational programs, and borough-wide initiatives. She also works closely with KCA’s entities and partners, including the Louis Armstrong House Museum, the Godwin-Ternbach Museum, Social Practice Queens, and the CUNY Dance Initiative, among others, to aid their outreach and development endeavors. Born and raised in Mexico City, Julia moved to New York in 2005 to obtain her doctorate in Latin American history from Columbia University with a concentration on the arts and cultural policy. Julia is a professional performer of Mexican folk music and dance, and has recorded three albums and toured to over 50 cities in the United States, Canada, and Mexico. She has given lectures on Mexican traditional music and dance at Harvard University, Lehman College, Mary Baldwin University, Salisbury University, Swarthmore College, and Cornell University. Julia is the Board Chair for the Jalopy Theater and School of Music and is member of Dance/NYC’s Advisory Committee.
Marion Greenup (Secretary)
Marion Greenup joined the Simons Foundation in 2007 as Vice president of Administration. She is responsible for developing and managing administrative systems and policies to support the foundation’s programs. Greenup earned an undergraduate degree in psychology from Harriet Sophie Newcomb College, an M.Ed. in early childhood development from Tulane University, and an M.P.A. from Columbia University School of Public Health. She has worked in health and university administration for more than 20 years. Most recently, Greenup was administrative director of the New York University Child Study Center and Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry. Previous appointments include assistant vice president of administration at Columbia University Health Sciences and department administrator of pediatrics at Columbia University. She also served as senior vice president of education and health promotion at the March of Dimes, where she led the development of educational programs for consumers and health professionals. She is a new and enthusiastic supporter of Lit to Life, and says “I am excited to help this transformative program expand its reach to more communities.”
Eva Jacobs (Board Member)
Eva is a lifelong lover of theater and the arts with a background in nonprofit fundraising, writing, and stage management. She is currently the Grants Manager at Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, where she drives grant writing and institutional fundraising efforts for Lincoln Center’s campus-wide educational, artistic, and civic public programming. Most recently, Eva served as Institutional Philanthropy Manager at Repair the World. She also continues to stage manage as time permits, and is thrilled to join Literature to Life's board and support an organization so aligned with her personal passions. Eva received her B.A. in Political Science and Gender & Women’s Studies from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Tarantino Smith (Company Chair)
Tarantino is humbled and grateful to be the company chair on the Board, having been a company member for well over a decade and a half - and is looking forward to many years and years to come. He can still be found performing Black Boy by Richard Wright and Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison, but now - following in their footsteps - he is taking pen to paper and telling his own stories.
Peter Tallian (Board Member)
Peter is a management consultant with financial and operating expertise gained from leadership roles in public and private companies beginning with 13 years at IBM. Introduced to Literature to Life in the Fall, 2021, as part of a PennPAC pro-bono consulting project that focused on strategic recommendations, he has actively followed Lit To Life’s growing impact on education and theater. Since 2021, Peter has worked with six NYC non-profit leadership teams on planning, vision and mission definition and fundraising. In addition to team consulting roles, he mentors young entrepreneurs through the national organization, SCORE. Having experienced the transformative influence of theater and the arts within his own family, Peter is thrilled to join the Literature to Life community as it delivers on its vision, “We believe a book can transform a life.”