About Destiny Ensemble Theatre Company
Officers
Chairman - Karl D. Gardner
Board of Directors
Tonarra Clark a native of Chattanooga is working toward her Degrees in Human Ecology & Interior Design. She is the business owner & operator of “Baskets of Love”, which was designed to offer unique & creative baskets through expressions of love. She also has a great desire to inspire inner-city youth and has functioned in the capacity of the Youth Leader for Temple of Faith Deliverance C.O.G.I.C., since May 2002. She works in partnership with Lessons for Life, a practical faith-based organization designed to encourage women. Her theatre experience began when she worked in collaboration and designed the lobby display for the Destiny Theatre Company’s stage play “Crowns” and “Jar the Floor”. She also serves as Destiny’s Box Office Manager. She is the proud mother of 3. She thoroughly enjoys interior design, wedding planning, modeling and traveling.
Thomas W. Jones II (Writer / Actor/ Director) has directed, written, and performed in more than 200 plays worldwide. In 1978, Tom founded Jomandi Productions, where, as Co-Artistic Director and Producing Director, Tom led Jomandi to become the third largest African-American theatre company in the United States. His work as writer, director, and actor has been acclaimed nationally and internationally. His work has received 42 Washington DC Helen Hayes Award nominations winning 12 awards, including Best Director for Samm Art Williams’ Home and his own Bessie's Blues. He has also received 3 New York Audelco Award nominations, the Dramalogue Award, the San Diego Critics Award, NAACP Phoenix Award, among others. In 2000, Tom and his co-founders left Jomandi to create the entertainment company VIA International Artists, Inc. and subsequently VIA Theatrical. His most recent works include Three Sistahs, Point of Revue, Two Queens One Castle, Cool Papa’s Party and he is currently working on an after-hours cabaret series based on Delores Bundy’s Brown Sugar Diaries.
Dr. Ternae T. Jordan, Sr., a second-generation minister, grew up in Chattanooga, Tennessee and received a Bachelor of Science degree with a major in Business Education and a minor in Religious Studies from the University of Tennessee. In addition, he received a diploma from the Harvard School of Divinity, Leadership Institute. Dr. Jordan began his first pastorate at the Bethlehem Baptist Church in Chattanooga, followed by 15 years of service at the Greater Progressive Baptist Church in Fort Wayne, Indiana. He is currently the Pastor of Mt. Canaan Baptist Church, Chattanooga, Tennessee.
Luz E. Mason is a Registered Nurse and holds a BS in Nursing from University of Maryland. She is currently working towards her PhD and her Nurse Midwife/Nurse Practitioner License. She works at Memorial Hospital on a cardiac intensive care unit. Her passion for people along with leadership, literacy and nursing experience allow her to open potential to incorporate and create crucial framework by fully engaging extension programs that develop moral character, literacy, and success that are an inseparable part of the “arts and education. She received grant funding to sponsor the first “2007 Hispanic Tennis Clinic” in the City of Chattanooga in partnership with Neighborhood Services and the Racqueteers. Luz is founder and director of Discovering Destiny, an arts-based youth theater program. Presently she is working in collaboration with Chattanooga’s African American Museum 2008 summer camp. She has also been the Prop Master for Destiny Theater Company’s productions “Crowns,” “Jar the Floor,” “Bessie’s Blues and Black Nativity.” In addition, she serves as a missionary and humanitarian and travels all over the world in effort to eradicate poverty and hunger. Her most recent accomplishment was giving birth to a beautiful healthy baby boy!
Anne O. McGintis - Retired school administrator and educator. Prior to her retirement she was the Parent School and Community Involvement and the 21st Century Community Learning Center Director for the Hamilton County School System. As an educator she served on many local, state and national boards such as Arts in Education Chattanooga Health Department Community Board, Memorial Hospital Healthy Communities Initiative Advisory Council, and YMCA Board of Directors, UTC Chancellor’s Roundtable, Ballet Tennessee and The Tennessee Family Resource Center Coalition. She is the recipient of numerous awards including JC Penney’s Ambassador for After school Programs, Southside Chamber of Commerce Educator of the Year Award, Embossed and Unbought Outstanding Woman Award-Girls Inc.and U.S Department of Education Leadership and Commitment Award. Career highlights included being selected as a delegate at U.S.Brazil Educational Summit in Saul Paulo, Brazil, invited to team teach at Fisk University and MTSU with former Vice President Al Gore, was featured in the Southern Living Magazine and Charles Mott Foundation In Focus Magazine. She currently serves as the National Co-Chair of Membership Services Committee for Delta Sigma Theta Sorority Inc., board member of Partnership for Family and Children Services, Chancellor’s African American Community Roundtable at UTC and is also a board member of The Chattanooga Choral Society for the Preservation of African American Song and The Chattanooga Chapter of The Links Incorporated. Married to Jimmy McGintis and has one daughter Jennifer. Member of First Baptist Church on East Eighth Street.
Booker T. Scruggs, II holds a master of arts degree in sociology from Atlanta University and serves as the director of the Upward Bound Program at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga (UTC). He also serves as instructor of sociology at UTC. Mr. Scruggs is the producer and host of the Point of View television show, which can be seen weekly on WDEF-TV, Channel 12. His leadership and passion for community activism has extended to many organizations over the years including Partnership for Families, Children, and Adults; READ of Chattanooga; Memorial Auditorium/Tivoli Theatre; the NAACP; and the Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity, and the Arts & Education Council.
John Taylor, Sr. a native of Chattanooga is a graduate of Brainerd High School and holds an A.A. and B.A. degree in Religious Education and Bible from South Western Christian College. Currently, Mr. Taylor serves as President of Taylor Funeral Home and CEO of Renaissance Urban Development Company. He is a Minister at East 3rd. Street Church of Christ. John also served as Chattanooga City Councilman in District 7 for 8 years.