Perry Payne began work at Virginia Theatre Association in 2014 as its first full-time executive director. VTA is the central resource for connecting, creating, cultivating, and advocating for practitioners of theatre in Virginia, through its six divisions: College & University, Community Theatre, Professional, Secondary Schools, Technical Theatre and Theatre for Youth. She comes to VTA from a stint as Creative Director at the Paramount Theater in Charlottesville, after a twenty-year career in business and the arts in Manhattan, where she was a Senior Vice President in Douglas Elliman's Lincoln Center office. Perry served from 2006-2010 as Warden of St. Michael's Church on Manhattan's Upper Westside and for several years prior on its Vestry. She chaired St. Michael's Buildings Committee, and served for seven years on her Washington Heights co-op's Board as its President. She has worked in artist management, non-profit administration, and corporate and government sectors. As a NYC based singer, actress, and writer for twenty years, she worked at the Kennedy Center in the long-running Shear Madness and around the country in numerous regional theatre productions. She was an investor in In The Heights on Broadway, the Tony Award-winning musical which featured the Washington Heights neighborhood of upper Manhattan where she lived and worked for over a decade. Her performance in Keith Thompson’s Kooky Tunes (off-Broadway) led InTheatre Magazine and Show Business Weekly to name her one of the top ten funniest performers in New York cabaret. She also appeared as Sylvia Fine--Danny Kaye's power diva wife--in Danny and Sylvia: A Musical Love Story off-Broadway. Her holiday novelty single, Santa Claus Won't Get Lit Up (At the Trailer Park Gate This Year), was featured in Billboard Magazine as a Top Ten Holiday Song for some years. She has returned to her beloved hometown of Lynchburg, Virginia, where she resides with her husband, Victor Millner, and an enormous springer spaniel named Arlo.