Profile of Directors and Executives

EDWARD R. FRIEDMAN, ESQ. (Board Vice Chair) is the managing partner in the Beverly Hills law firm of Turner, Friedman, Morris & Cohan LLP. He received his B.A. degree from Pomona College in Claremont, California and his Juris Doctorate from Loyola University Law School in Los Angeles. Ed specializes in real estate law and has a very rich history as a patron of the arts. We are very happy to have him on our board.

DAVIDA S. JAMES (Board Chair) is a UCLA alumna, with a degree in English. She also attended the Penn State Dickinson School of Law in Carlisle, PA. Davida spent 20 years in arts management for the UCLA Center for the Performing Arts and the Reichhold Center in St. Thomas, U.S. Virgin Islands handling theater budgets of up to $1.2 million, marketing and box office operations. Davida is the founder of Wordsmith Productions and the High Desert Book Festival. She is a professional writer of both her own work, and a freelance writer and editor for private clients, as well as a freelance journalist.

SHARON MORDECAI (Secretary) is a Cal State University alum with a Bachelor’s in Business Marketing and an MBA in Business Marketing from University of Phoenix. Sharon has an extensive career in web design and programming for private clients and major corporations where she supervised entire redesigns of company websites and created original design. Sharon is an avid supporter of the arts and has participated in rowing competitions for years. She has also coached rowing for several girls’ teams.

DAVID HUDSON OBAYUWANA is a screenwriter, actor and a Los Angeles native with a lifelong interest and involvement in the performing arts. Hudson is a member of the Writers Guild of America (WGA), and he has a Bachelor’s from Howard University in film production and a minor in theater. He also has experience as an actor, stagehand and film crew member. In addition to his personal screenplays, he and his writing  team “Murder Ink” produced a Netflix film titled “#Reality High” in September 2017, which is still streaming. They are actively engaged in other film negotiations.

LINDA THOMAS (Treasurer) is a UCLA alumna, with  B.S. in Psychology and a Master’s in Public Health. Linda recently retired from UCLA in 2012 after a prestigious 40-year career in the Chancellor’s Office where she managed operations for the Chancellor’s Communications Services. This office handled dissemination, analysis, distribution and archival of thousands of documents addressed to executives of the university. Linda oversaw the complex process over the decades of changing this from a manual to computerized system. Linda is an avid supporter of the arts and has several subscriptions to Los Angeles theater series.

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