LIONWOMAN PRODUCTIONS TX
HOSTS
WOMEN EMPOWERMENT: CHANGING THE LANDSCAPE
A CONVERSATION WITH HOUSTON WOMEN LEADERS
Meet our esteemed panelists, representing various disciplines in business and the arts here in Houston.
Malinda Beckham
Co-Founder and Co-Artistic Director, Dirt Dogs Theatre, and business entrepreneur
MALINDA L. BECKHAM is a founding member and the Artistic Director of DDTCo. She’s been a prominent member of Houston’s theatre community since her stage debut in 1993. Since then, she’s appeared in Appropriate (Toni), Misery (Annie Wilkes), Clybourne Park (Bev/Kathy), The Revolutionists (Olympe de Gouges), Boston Marriage (Anna), The Graduate (Mrs. Robinson), Five by TENN (Hardwicke-Moore/Woman/Cornelia Scott), Death and the Maiden (Paulina Salas), Lu Ann Hampton Laverty Oberlander (Lu Ann), A Few Good Men (LCDR JoAnne Galloway), Proof (Catherine) and The Bad Seed (Christine). Malinda directed the world premiere of The Boundary, as well as The Pillowman, Coyote on a Fence, A Steady Rain (2016 & 2022), Twilight: Los Angeles, 1992, The Exonerated, Glengarry Glen Ross and co-directed A Lie of the Mind for DDTCo. Malinda was a finalist of the Houston Theater Awards for best artistic director and best director (The Pillowman) in 2024 and for best artistic director and best actress (Misery) in 2023. In 2022, she won best supporting actress, as well as best ensemble for Clybourne Park. She also won best costume design for the DDTCo. productions of Clybourne Park and The Revolutionists. In addition, she is a past award finalist for set design for both Glengarry Glen Ross and The Philadelphia Story.
Claudia de Vasco
Managing Director, Miller Theatre Advisory Board, and longtime arts and culture advocate
Claudia de Vasco's career as an arts manager, creative, and industry change-maker has been navigated by her mission to transform communities through arts and culture, and to continue the legacy of storytelling as an integral part of the human experience, for entertainment, advocacy, education, inspiration, and connection. She has spent the last two decades working in the US and abroad.
Claudia is the Managing Director of the Miller Theatre Advisory Board at the historic and iconic Miller Outdoor Theatre in Houston. She is also a collaborator with Creative Evolutions, and she continues to work as a consultant and creative in the theater industry. She was previously the Executive Artistic Director of The Public Theater of San Antonio, serving as the first Latine leader in the theater’s 100-year history. In addition, she launched the Department of Cultural Integrity at BrickHouse Talent, as an effort to legitimize and advocate for cultural workers in the Arts. In LA, she worked as Managing Director of Emerging Arts Leader/LA and led the organization through a merger with the respected advocacy organization, Arts for LA. In addition, she has worked as a creative and performer in theater, tv, and film. On screen credits include roles on Netflix, ABC/Disney, HBO, Prime, among others. Claudia’s experience working in politics, community organizing, and marketing has informed her work as a change-maker, leader, and advocate in American theatre and performing arts.
A current fellow in the DeVos Institute of Arts Management Global Arts Management Fellowship, Cohort 8 Latina Leadership Institute, and a San Antonio Area Foundation Equity Fellow, Board and Committee positions include Texans for the Arts, Houston Museum District, and the New Musicals Festival Committee with the National Alliance of Musical Theatre. She is a member of theatre advocacy group, The Kilroys.
In 2022 and 2024 she was named 100 Influential Texans to know by American Business Journals, first in San Antonio, and in Houston the following year. She has been featured in articles in NY Times, American Theatre Magazine, Los Angeles Magazine, among others. Claudia is a proud Tejana, first generation Mexican American.​
Judge Dolores Lozano (Precinct 2, Position 2)
First female justice of the peace to be elected to the position, Advocate for Hispanic community.
Judge Dolores Lozano made history in November 2022 as the first woman and minority elected to serve as Harris County Justice of the Peace for Precinct 2, Place 2. Her jurisdiction encompasses key areas of the Greater Southeast Houston region, including Houston, South Houston, Galena Park, Jacinto City, Pasadena, Pearland, and Friendswood. Born and raised in Southeast Houston, Judge Lozano has dedicated her life to breaking barriers, serving her community, and empowering the next generation of leaders.
A proud first-generation college graduate, Judge Lozano earned her bachelor’s degree from Baylor University in Communication Sciences and Disorders. Overcoming significant challenges, she worked multiple jobs to fund her education while navigating institutional barriers. Judge Lozano began her professional career in speech pathology, providing critical services to children in underserved communities. She later transitioned into sports and entertainment, contributing to high-profile events such as Super Bowl LI, NCAA Final Four tournaments, and NBA All-Star games. Her passion for social impact led her to co-launch Impact Hub Houston in 2018, an organization focused on addressing systemic inequities and empowering communities through innovative solutions.
In her role as Justice of the Peace, Judge Lozano has a commitment to fostering justice and dignity, which drives her to continually innovate within her courtroom. In 2024, she received the Texas Association of Counties Best Practice Award and the Texas Housers Award for launching an Eviction Diversion Initiative, a program designed to combat homelessness by educating landlords and tenants while providing critical resources to foster win-win solutions. Beyond the courtroom, Judge Lozano remains deeply committed to education and leadership. She serves as Assistant Secretary of the KIPP Texas Board of Directors, advocating for equitable opportunities for students across the state. She is also an active member of the Junior League of Houston and a fellow of prestigious programs such as the Aspen Institute Ideas Scholars, Management Leadership for Tomorrow, and Latinos for Education.
Eileen J. Morris
Artistic Director, The Ensemble Theatre, and longtime civil rights activist
Eileen J. Morris is Artistic Director of The Ensemble Theatre where she has produced over 90 productions which include 1l world premieres and over 75 regional premieres.
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Eileen was named 2023 Best Artistic Director by Houston Press Awards of which The Ensemble Theatre was awarded over eight awards in numerous categories. She was also named the 2021 Director of the Decade for Fences by Broadway World Houston and awarded the 2020 US/TT Thomas DeGaetani Award for her contributions to the performing arts community in Texas. She is part of the first cohort of the BOLD Women's Theater Leadership Circle, which has benefitted The Ensemble Theatre in receiving $1.25 million dollars in the past five years.
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Under her artistic leadership, The Ensemble Theatre has received numerous awards and recognitions that have helped to strengthen the
institution while positioning the theater on a national scale. Her most recent Ensemble Theatre directing credits include Stew, On Midnight, Friday the Thirteenth, The Piano Lesson, Chicken & Biscuits, Paradise Blue, Brother Toad, Love & Southern Discomfort, Single Black Female, The Lawsons: A Civil Rights Love Story, I, Too, Am America, More Than Christmas, and School Girls; Or the African Mean Girls Play to name a few. In 2021, she was Associate Director of Sweat at Alley Theatre - Houston. Eileen directs annually at Pittsburgh's New Horizon Theatre (co-founded by August Wilson). Eileen has also worked with other Pittsburgh theatres including Pittsburgh Playwright's Theater, City Theatre and she served as Managing Director of the University of Pittsburgh Kuntu Repertory Theatre. She currently serves as Consultant for the Black Theatre Network and Advisory Board Member for Houston Cinema for the Arts. A proud member of SDC (Stage Directors and Choreographers), Eileen holds the distinction of being the ONLY woman in the world to direct nine of the ten August Wilson Century Cycle Plays. She is honored to hold this distinction.
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Tamara Siler
Director, University Relations - Admission, Rice University, and Houston singer and actor
Tamara Siler has played a role in shaping the undergraduate class of Rice for the past 32 years as a member of the Office of Admission. As a Deputy Director before her recent appointments, Tamara serves as a thought leader in admission, with a special focus on programming related to the recruitment and support of historically excluded student populations throughout the recruitment and admission process. The undergraduate class at Rice is one of the most diverse among research universities, with over 60% of students identifying as a student of color, and over 30% identifying as a historically excluded student of color. Before she completed a three-year term on the National Association for College Admission Counseling (NACAC) Board of Directors, Tamara served in the presidential cycle of the Texas Association for College Admission Counseling (TACAC) from 2008 – 2010. She now serves on the IB College and University Relations Committee (CURC) and is a former Board Member for ACCEPT – Admissions Community Cultivating Equity and Peace Today.
Tamara graduated from Rice in 1987 with a B.A. in History. She was heavily involved in theatre on campus, and in 1985, appeared in “Ain’t Misbehavin’” at Brown College, which was the first all-Black production to be produced at Rice. Tamara has been a community associate at Brown College for over 30 years, and has been recognized with the Outstanding Community Associate award for a number of years.
She maintains her involvement in theatre, having appeared in over 80 productions in and around Houston, and is a company member of Paul Hope Cabarets at Ovations. Tamara has served on four theatrical boards, and is the current treasurer for Thunderclap Productions.
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Dr. Diana Strassmann
Carolyn and Fred McManis Distinguished Professor in the Practice, Emerita, at Rice’s Center for Women, Gender, and Sexuality; Scholar in feminist economics
Dr. Diana Strassmann is the Carolyn and Fred McManis Distinguished Professor in the Practice, Emerita, at Rice’s Center for Women, Gender, and Sexuality. A leading scholar in feminist economics, her efforts to bring feminist perspectives into economic thought have changed the field of economics—not only in terms of what is studied but also how it is studied and who studies it.
Dr. Strassmann received an AB in economics from Princeton University and MA and PhD degrees in economics from Harvard University. Convinced that addressing neglected economic issues relating to women’s lives was an urgent research priority, she co-founded the International Association for Feminist Economics (IAFFE) in 1992 and in 1994 founded the scholarly journal, Feminist Economics, with the goal of better incorporating gender, sexuality, and reproduction into economic theories.
Within its first two years, Feminist Economics received an award for Best New Journal from the Council of Editors of Learned Journals. Feminist Economics is now an internationally acclaimed journal, with individual subscribers in over 60 countries and a distribution to over eighteen thousand libraries and institutions worldwide. The journal has championed debates on diverse topics, including intersections with race and sexuality.
In addition to her work at Rice, Dr. Strassmann served regularly as a Visiting Professor at the University of Chicago Law School, where she taught a seminar on Feminist Economics and Public Policy. She has served on the boards of the International Association for Feminist Economics, Inprint, the Meadville-Lombard Theological School, and the Wiki Education Foundation (as board chair).
Geraldina Wise
Artist, Co-owner of Sawyer Gallery Studios, Advocate for Hispanic voices and diversity, Activist for the Environment and Cultural Awareness
Geraldina, a multi-disciplinary artist, began her art education at the age of 10, on the ravines of the San Salvador Volcano, under the tutelage of a protégé of the muralist Diego Rivera. Many decades later she would be awarded the 2023 Mayor’s Hispanic Heritage Award in Art in the Community in Houston, which she has called home for 45 years. A Rice University graduate in Architecture/Art/Art History ’83, BArch ’85, it was 2 months into Rice when she received the phone call that would make her an accidental immigrant: the civil war had erupted and she couldn’t return home.
After a career in architecture in NYC, San Francisco, San Antonio Geraldina settled in Houston to continue her residential design practice. 25 years later she returned to her art full time , which would give her complete freedom of expression and robust platform to advocate for the planet and for women as keepers of all life on it. She is an abstract expressionist artist; her artist voice is inspired by the vast intellectual patrimony left by her Maya ancestry. She is co-owner of a studio building - Sawyer Gallery & Studios- which serves as her art laboratory & showroom. She is a research-based artist, and works at the intersection of art+science. She has been artist-in-residence at the Brain Center at UH School of Engineering, constantly seeking to take art to its most contemporary expression.
It was the day in 2021 that the laws in Texas went against women’s reproductive rights that she found the transformational and healing power of art. During her architecture career she had been wearing the helmet of acceptance of the anthropometric myth- Modular Man- introduced by world renowned architect Le Corbusier in Paris in 1949 as the standard proportions by which we would understand nature, and design the man-made world.
73 years later Geraldina introduced in Paris- the site of the Paris Agreement on climate change- her Modular Woman wearable art concept at the ZoomArt Magazine Art gala, in the form of a cape and crown that transformed Geraldina into the 50th generation Maya Warrior Queen for the environment. She represented her native El Salvador at the UNESCO headquarters Art Exhibit in Paris in 2023, introduced her La Monarca Project in Paris in 2024, and has been invited to exhibit in Lisbon in 2025.
Geraldina is on many nonprofit boards in Houston. She is leading the formation of a new Latino Museum Complex in Houston for the authentic representation of US Latino art and culture. She is Board Chair of ALMAAHH- the nonprofit she co-founded for this mission. She is a proud Senior Fellow of the American Leadership Forum.