The 418 Project
The place to move and be moved
Our Team
Meet our Staff
Laura Bishop
Executive Director
Office hours by appointment:
Tues/Thurs 10:00am-4:00pm
laura@the418project.org
Laura Bishop builds an Engaged and Moving Community in the Heart of Santa Cruz and Beyond, cultivating a community arts organization serving 1,000+ residents weekly of all ages and abilities--20,000+ individual users annually--who express high levels of loyalty, commitment and use, focusing the principles of respect, affordability, accessibility and inclusiveness.
Guiding the organization through environmental challenges, Laura leads a dedicated team who effectively engages with our large and diverse community to foster joyful participation.
For R&R, she plays in nature, cooks, reads mystery novels and hangs out in her garden with her partner, friends, bonus daughter and dog.
Abby Pistoni
Community Development
Coordinator
Office hours by appointment
community@the418project.org
Having spent her formative years in the zany circus arts world and her high school and college careers immersed in performing arts, Abby has always had a soft spot for the arts and their community spaces. With a BA in Community Studies from UC Santa Cruz and a deep love for performing, Abby has been eagerly applying her skills and education into the The 418 Project's mission in fostering community and creating spaces for personal/artistic growth. You can also see Abby co-hosting the Contact Impov Jam on Tuesday nights and emphatically soaring through the air with her movement friends!
Megan McGuire
Financial Operations
Coordinator
Office hours by appointment
finance@the418project.org
Having an accessible safe place for her community to be authentic, grow and gather is important to Megan. She appreciates that she can bring backstage enthusiasm and proactivity to The 418 Project. Megan’s past work experience was in affordable housing where she managed large communities, such as The Artspace Tannery Campus but changed to finance with ideals to support in a more personal way to individuals and organizations, such as The 418 Project.
Dougli
Facilities Manager
A native of Pennsylvania, Dougli came to Santa Cruz in 1980 and found his Home. When not sweeping up Galactic dust at The 418 Project (since November 2005), he crafts a Life out of reading, playing music, enjoying Nature and pursuing Mastery at Tai Chi and Qigong.
Meet our Board
Gabrielle Adelman
President
Gabrielle Adelman, President of the Four-Eighteen Project, had an idea at one time that she might be a pilot, like her grandfather, or in the movie biz, like her Papa, or even a businesswoman, like her great-great grandfather, but didn’t quite think she’d be able to be all three. Fortunately, having no previous experience in any of these endeavors, she didn’t know that middle-aged women who had a lot of joy and love for flying, movies, and making an organization run weren’t supposed to do these things, and did them anyway.
Mark Schneider
Secretary
Mark Schneider has lived in Santa Cruz since 1993. Soon after arriving, he stumbled upon an African dance class at The 418 Project. He kept stumbling, but kept dancing, and over the years traveled to Africa twice for drum and dance workshops and participated in a number of local dance performances. When he's not dancing, he works as an executive recruiter, focused on recruiting finance executives worldwide. He also is passionate about empathy and communication practices, and has facilitated workshops in Non-Violent Communication (NVC) locally and at the Esalen Institute in Big Sur, California. He joined The 418 Project’s Board of Directors in 2010, and serves as Secretary and lead Chocolate Truffle Maker, and says he is grateful to give back to a place that has enriched his life beyond measure.
Beatriz Ehrenfried
Treasurer
Beatriz grew up in Brazil in a musical family, where dance was also very much part of life. She took dance lessons for years, but it was Ecstatic Dance, a free-form dance practice, that brought her to The 418 Project. She is grateful to The 418 and its strong Ecstatic Dance community for having re-discovered the joy of dancing through the many embodied movement practices that it offers. Beatriz has a degree in Economics from the University of Sao Paulo and holds a position in Finance at a high tech company.
Stan Grindstaff
Board President Emeritus
Stan Grindstaff is in his ninth year as Performance Coach for What Is Erotic? With an MFA in Theatre (specializing in Directing) from UC Riverside, he brings valuable experience as a former staff member of the Oregon Shakespeare Festival and the American Conservatory Theatre (ACT) in San Francisco. He was a cofounder and one of the principal actors of the Murrieta Repertory Theatre. As The 418 Project Board President Emeritus, Stan is proud of how What Is Erotic? creates original presentations, developing skill levels in people from novice through experienced artists, inspiring confident performances for a professional caliber show.
Gregory Speed
Board Member
Bio coming soon!
Timothy Duncan
Board Member