Ashley Arrington
Ashley is the North Carolina Human Service Training Support Manager, overseeing the technical and policy training needs for public assistance workers across 100 counties. She splits her time between Raleigh, NC and her home in Asheville. Ashley discovered Different Strokes! Performing Arts Collective in 2011, while supporting the LGBTQ organization Youth Outright (beneficiary for Different Strokes’! production of the Laramie Project). She has followed the company ever since, attending performances and events throughout the year. Ashley is an avid supporter of the arts who believes wholeheartedly in the social justice mission behind Different Strokes’s work. When not at work or supporting her community, Ashley can be found at Girl Scout meetings with her daughters, or traveling with her partner and bonus kids, watching sports of all kinds, or lounging with her pups.
Trish Hickling Beckman, Vice-Chair
Trish is a nurse-midwife and hospital administrator. In her professional capacity, she is responsible for all clinical and financial operations of the women’s division of a non-profit community hospital. In her leisure time, she enjoys theatre in Asheville and spends most of her free evenings with different local theatre companies. She has long wished for more socially provocative themes on stage and is thrilled to support Different Strokes! as a founding board member. Trish’s socially provocative credentials include being a member of the lesbian community, being in an interracial gay marriage and extensive travel to third-world countries. Trish is bilingual in English and Spanish.
Zakiya Bell-Rogers, Chair
Zakiya was transplanted to Asheville over 20 years ago. If you ask her, she will say she is a native of this area “because you grow wherever you’re planted”. She is married with “three bonus children and one bio kiddo”. She was formerly a social worker known as exhausted and is now working to assist women and children who have survived the clutches of Domestic Violence. She graduated from Asheville High School in 1998 and from WCU in 2002. ZaKiya is a member of Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority Inc and celebrated her 17th year in November 2018. She has been the chair of multiple platforms, and both vice president and the president of the local chapter in Asheville. ZaKiya has been Facilitating Different Strokes’! Post Show Discussions since 2017. She is passionate about enriching the lives of those in her community and always being vocal about the truth.
Meg Hale-Brunton
Meg has been a lover of theatre and a performer her entire life. She has been lucky enough to act in productions by Different Strokes!, Anam Cara Theatre, and The Magnetic Theatre. She also served as Producing Director for Zealot, another Theatre Company, from 2006-2009, and as Troupe Leader/Head Writer for Bombs Away Cabaret. Despite what she hopes is her sweet nature, her favorite roles as an actor have been the (arguably) femme-fatale roles of Evelyn in The Shape of Things, and that of Ivana Stabobitch for Bombs Away Cabaret. Professionally, Meg has been working in the advertising industry for nearly 15 years. She started in print media, as a sales representative and writer for The Times-News in Hendersonville, followed by Sophie Magazine. Currently, she is balancing her role as a new mom with that of “the Asheville Deal Lady” for the Asheville Radio Group.
Sona Merlin
Sona’s first experience with theater was Jesus Christ Superstar in 1971, in Boston. She was 11 years old and on a field trip for school. She remembers sitting in the theater and marveling how this “live” show had her holding her breath for the whole production. It was an electrical charge. She had so much to say but could not find the words So she remained speechless until she came across another play- a Different Strokes! production called – A Lesson Before Dying. The floodgates opened, and she was transported to an earlier version of herself where she found her rhythm and her voice. Thank you DSPAC. Sona was asked several months later if she would be interested in joining the board and did not think twice. Sona says “Though I didn’t think I could do anything that would help, they took me in- because Different Strokes! knows that we ALL make a difference”.
Karen Teel
Karen Teel has been a lover of theatre since her childhood. In the summer of 1987, with her husband and three children, Karen started attending theatre performed by actors at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival (OSF) in Ashland, Oregon. OSF introduced Karen to diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) work which she found inspiring and long overdue. With her partner, Greg, Karen moved to Asheville from California in 2016 to be closer to both of their families. She recently joined the board at the Asheville Community Theatre, hoping to promote more diversity there. Karen met Stephanie when Stephanie directed Rabbit Hole at ACT. From Stephanie, she learned about Different Strokes! Karen recognized Different Strokes! as a theatre very much like OSF in the DEI actions it has taken to reach out to a broad and diverse Asheville community and to produce shows that represent the brilliance of BIPOC playwrights, actors, and production crews. She is thrilled to be an active part of it.