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October 31, 2023The Gilbert & Sullivan Society of Houston recently met online for the annual General Meeting and the election of new Board Members. The Society is pleased to announce the following community members have agreed to two-year terms.
April Freeman is a native Georgian. She comes from a musical family; she and her whole family sang together as a group in church. In her early 20’s, she did a lot of musical productions, mostly concerts. For many years, she was a wedding and event planner. More recently she has transferred into sales. She does a lot of volunteer work and has both live auction and fundraising experience.
Melissa Stonebrook is a native Houstonian with a long history with the Houston Gilbert & Sullivan Society. She grew up attending performances each summer with her grandmother, Eleanor Miller, who founded the society in 1951 along with John Cooper and Art Goddard. She went to The Kinkaid School from kindergarten through 12th grade and then graduated from Trinity University in San Antonio. She now enjoys retirement after 40 years in the financial services industry and spending time with her husband, Victor, and their two grown children and grandchildren.
Melody Torno spent her formative years in the audience of a theatre developing a love of the Arts while watching her mother direct school plays and teach. She later went on to obtain a degree in RTV Mass Communications, a Masters in Theatre and a Masters in Education Administration. Melody enjoys serving in Educational Theatre opportunities and giving back to her community. She currently works for America's largest and oldest non-profit, The American Heart Association as a Development Director for the Houston Heart Ball. She loves God, Family, her two Dogs (Charlie & Hector), a great cup of coffee, and traveling around the world. She has been skydiving twice, and survived. She joins The Gilbert and Sullivan Society hoping to contribute with her past skills in promotions, marketing, directing, theatre production, television production, broadcast journalism, event management, live hosting, mass communications and fundraising. Here we go, YEE-HAW!
Among current members, John Anderson and Timothy Jones have chosen not to stand for re-election. The Board would like to thank them for their service.