Carrie Paff (Education Director) has taught theatre as a means for empowering young people with StageWrite, Word for Word, Berkeley Rep, San Francisco Shakespeare Festival, Brava! for Literacy, Leap...imagination in learning, Richmond District After-School Collaborative, and New Conservatory Theatre Center, as well as independently at various Bay Area elementary schools and the University of Thessaloniki’s Summer Language Institute in Greece. In New York she worked with the 52nd Street Project in midtown Manhattan and spent three years as an actor/teacher with The Creative Arts Team (CAT), an award-winning educational theatre company addressing social issues with children in the city's public schools and Head Starts. Carrie has also worked extensively as an actress. Her stage credits include A.C.T., Arizona Theatre Company, Aurora Theatre Company, San Jose Repertory Theatre, Magic Theatre, Marin Theatre Company, Center REP, The Shee Theatre Company, Woman's Will, Word for Word and Shakespeare Santa Cruz. She holds a B.A. in Theatre Arts and Women's Studies with honors from the University of California at Santa Cruz and a master's degree in Educational Theatre from New York University. She is the cofounder of StageWrite, Building Literacy through Theatre. After contributing to YCWP for two years as an actor and assistant to the program director, she stepped into the position of program director in the summer of 2004.

David Ford (writer, director) writing and has been collaborating on new and unusual theatre for eighteen years. THE INTERROGATION OF NATHAN HALE, premiered at SCR and was published by Dramatic Publishing Company. He’s had play readings at The Mark Taper Forum, South Coast Rep., Magic Theatre, Theatreworks (Palo Alto), and Bay area Playwrights Festival. He is currently working on a commission from the Magic Theatre as part of their Sloan Foundation Initiative. Recent directing work includes: Recent work includes NOT A GENUINE BLACKMAN with Brian Copeland, which performed more than 370 times in San Francisco, LA and New York.  Charlie Varon’s RUSH LIMBAUGH IN NIGHT SCHOOL had it’s ten year revival to sold out houses. Other work of note includes, with storyteller-holy-man Ron Jones and Michael Rice, a mentally disabled performer, SAY RAY; and  with Charlie Varon: TEN DAY SOUP  and THE PEOPLE’S VIOLIN. He also worked with Bill Talen on the original creation of REVEREND BILLY, the Obie award winning theatre piece/ political action. David’s work has been seen regionally at the Public Theatre, Second Stage, St. Clement’s, Dixon’s Place, One Dream Theatre and Theatre for the New City (NY), Highways (LA) and Woolly Mammoth (Washington DC) as well as at theatres around the Bay Area including the Magic Theatre and Marin Theatre Company.

Leon Goertzen (YCWP Assistant Director) started out as an actor in this program in 2002 and was recruited by Carrie Paff to help run YCWP in 2006.  After graduating with a BFA in Acting from the North Carolina School of the Arts, Leon performed in numerous plays, staged readings and school tours in the San Francisco Bay Area and Los Angeles, with such companies as Berkeley Rep, Asian American Theater Company, East West Players, Aurora Theatre Company, Rough and Tumble, Road Theatre Company, Lobero Theatre, Will and Company, Playground, and the San Francisco Mime Troupe.  Leon is a proud member of Actors Equity Association and the Screen Actors Guild. 

Cherylene Lee's plays have been produced throughout the US. Plays produced in the Bay Area include: ARTHUR AND LEILA (Brava: For Women in the Arts, 1993 published in Women Playwrights: Best Plays of 1993 by Smith and Kraus) THE LEGACY CODES (TheatreWorks, 2003) and ANTIGONE FALUN GONG (Aurora Theatre, 2004) among others. She has taught
playwriting to Bay Area high school students for TheatreWorks in Schools and the Magicʼs Young California Writers Program. She's the recipient of several grants, awards, and commissions, including a TCG/NEA playwright's residency with East West Players in LA, a Fund For New American Plays grant from the Kennedy Center, a California Arts Council Playwriting Fellowship, a Gerbode Playwriting commission, and most recently a Center for Cultural Innovation Investment in Artist grant. Her poetry, short fiction, and creative non-fiction have been widely published. She is currently writing a memoir about her days as a child performer growing up in Hollywood.

Baruch Porras-Hernandez has had the pleasure of working for YCWP since 2004. He started out as an intern for the Magic Theater and is now an Audience Services Assistant. He's acted in several YCWP plays and has worked in several small projects with the Magic, including staged readings workshops and The Launch Pad playwriting contest. In the Bay Area he's performed with CalShakes, ShotGun Players, Aruora Theater, Impact Theater, TheaterFIRST, Word for Word's School and Library tour and has understudied at Berkeley Rep.