TheatreWorks Leading Ladies to Celebrate Arts & Tech, 2/7

TheatreWorks, the nationally-acclaimed theatre of Silicon Valley, celebrates passion in arts and innovation with TheatreWorks Leading Ladies. This extraordinary afternoon includes a luncheon, during which attendees have an opportunity to meet and exchange ideas with fellow Silicon Valley powerhouses, and a private performance by renowned indie recording star Vienna Teng. Guests will also be energized by short, enlightening presentations by inspiring women who have followed their passions, including tech leader-turned New York Times bestselling author Lalita Tademy (Cane River), Emmy-nominated writer/producer Margaret Nagle (Boardwalk Empire), and passionate and powerful US Congresswoman Anna G. Eshoo. The event will be hosted by Leading Ladies Event Chair Jenny Dearborn, Senior Vice President and Chief Learning Officer of SAP. Leading Ladies will take place at 11:00am, Saturday, February 7 at the Mountain View Center for the Performing Arts, 500 Castro St., Mountain View. For tickets ($150 individuals/ $1000-$25,000 sponsors) please contact the TheatreWorks Special Events Department at (650) 463-7135 or jfriedman@theatreworks.org.

The theme of this year's event is "Passion," exemplified by the dedication and drive of the incredible women honored at Leading Ladies. Bold, unapologetic dreaming is what allowed these dauntless women to succeed in their challenging and multi-faceted careers. From technology and indie-pop music to screenwriting and politics, each participant uniquely embodies the spirit of innovation and ambition that defines the forward-thinking Bay Area community.

For this fundraiser, guests are invited to participate at the Title ($25,000), Producer ($10,000), Associate Producer ($5,000), Fan ($3,000), or Bravo ($1,000) sponsor levels. Individual tickets are also available for $150. Sponsors receive blocks of seats to TheatreWorks Leading Ladies for a group of guests, as well as a block of tickets to be donated to the women's group or charity of their choice. All proceeds of the event benefit TheatreWorks programs to support new works and new voices: from developing productions for the stage, to education programs such as the Young Playwrights Project.

Originally from Saratoga, California, indie music favorite Vienna Teng graduated from Stanford with a degree in computer science and went on to work for Cisco Systems in San Jose, later leaving the tech world to pursue her passion for music. Inspired both by years of private piano lessons and her parents' eclectic record collection, Ms. Teng released her debut album, Waking Hour, in 2002, and has recorded five additional studio albums with a rich blend of folk, pop, and classical-infused music. Ineffably ambitious, Ms. Teng also recently completed a graduate degree in sustainability at the University of Michigan's Erb Institute, a partnership between the School of Natural Resources and Environment and the Ross School of Business. Her most recent album, Aims, was released in 2013 and hailed by The Huffington Post as a work that "not only brings emotion and innovation but also euphoria and intelligence."

New York Times bestselling author Lalita Tademy is a Berkeley-raised former executive who has been recognized for her contributions to business by Fortune, Black Enterprise, Ebony, and others. After spending more than a decade serving as Vice President and General Manager at various technology corporations in Silicon Valley, Ms. Tademy focused her energy on a second career as a full-time writer, releasing her debut novel Cane River in 2001. Cane River was met with great critical acclaim and was chosen as Oprah's Summer Book Pick in 2001 and as the city of San Francisco's choice for its "One City, One Book" award in 2007. Most recently, Stanford University selected Cane River as required reading for all incoming freshman. Ms. Tademy's work focuses on African-American issues and on her family's Southern roots in particular. She has published two additional works of historical fiction, Red River, in 2007, and Citizens Creek, which was just released in November 2014.

Emmy Award-nominee and Piedmont native Margaret Nagle made her screenwriting debut with critically acclaimed HBO film Warm Springs, which won the Emmy for Outstanding TV Movie and received a record-breaking sixteen total Emmy nominations, including Ms. Nagle's nomination for Outstanding Writing for a Miniseries, Movie, or a Dramatic Special. She continued her television career as a writer and producer on the first two seasons of Martin Scorcese's Boardwalk Empire, and she was nominated for two Emmys for Best Series and three Writers Guild Awards, winning the award for Best Written New Series. She also wrote the screenplay for The Good Lie, a film about the Lost Boys and Girls of Sudan, starring Reese Witherspoon and produced by Ron Howard and Brian Grazer. She also developed and wrote the pilot for the new Fox drama Red Band Society. Her upcoming film, The Goree Girls (based on the legendary Texas Monthly article by Skip Hollandsworth about the first all-female country western band), begins shooting next year under Christine Jeff's direction.

Congresswoman Anna G. Eshoo found her calling in public service and has dedicated the past two decades to advocate for the needs of the Silicon Valley community, representing California's 18th district. She has passionately defended consumers, promoted American competitiveness and innovation, fought for access to health care for families and children, protected the environment, and encouraged development of clean energy technology. Rep. Eshoo serves as the Ranking Member of the powerful House Communications and Technology Subcommittee, the first woman in the history of the Subcommittee to serve in a leadership role. Her work consistently earns the highest approval from a wide range of organizations, from the League of Conservation Voters, to the Humane Society, the American Association of University Women, Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans, the Biotechnology Industry Organization, the American College of Emergency Physicians, and the Science Coalition. The San Jose Mercury News named her one of the ten most powerful women in Silicon Valley. This November she was re-elected to Congress for her twelfth term in the U.S House of Representatives.

Jenny Dearborn, host and Event Chair of Leading Ladies, is the Chief Learning Officer and Senior Vice President at SAP. She leads an internationally acclaimed team that was recognized by eLearning Magazine as the #1 performing corporate learning department in the world. Before her work with SAP, Ms. Dearborn was Chief Learning Officer at Sun Microsystems, as well as holding executive positions at Hewlett Packard and SuccessFactors. She has been honored as one of the 50 Most Powerful Women in Technology by the National Diversity Council, and was the recipient of the Silicon Valley Women of Influence Award in 2014, and the Silicon Valley Tribute to Women in Industry Award for 2013. Her first book, Data Driven: How Performance Analytics Delivers Extraordinary Sales Results, will be published by Wiley in February, 2015. Through the Fortune Most Powerful Women Network, she is a mentor for the US State Department to female entrepreneurs in developing countries. With degrees from UC Berkeley, San Jose State, and Stanford, Ms. Dearborn's expertise is international business.

Since its inception in 1970, TheatreWorks has produced hundreds of productions that celebrate the human spirit, including 62 world premieres and over 140 regional premieres, directed by award-winning local and guest directors, and performed by professional actors cast from across the country. The company's New Works Initiative has cemented its national reputation as a leader in the development of new plays and musicals for the American stage. TheatreWorks provides education programs to more than 35,000 students each year through TheatreWorks for Schools, and with its Healing Project provides arts therapy to patients at Lucile Packard Children's Hospital.

Sponsors for TheatreWorks Leading Ladies include: Carla Befera & Co, Gerstco, Harrell Remodeling, SAP, Tarlton Properties, and Nordstrom. The media sponsor for this event is Gentry Magazine.

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