Denise Santisteban has been working in performing arts her entire life, and is committed to what arts and culture bring to our communities and how it enriches them. She started working seasonally at the Festival in 1997 when she and her family moved from California to Connecticut. Somehow she never left, and over the past 25 years she has worked in almost every department of the Festival. 

As the Curator of the Tours and Storytelling Programs, she loves helping people discover what a great city New Haven is by finding them new eats, interesting places to see, and great stories to hear.  Before moving here, she was a stage and production manager in the San Francisco Bay Area working at, among others, the Berkeley Repertory Theatre, Marin Theatre Company, the Aurora Theatre, the San Jose Civic Light Opera and the Magic Theatre. She received her BA in Theatre from San Francisco State University and her MA in Journalism from Quinnipiac University.

Originally from Texas, Tiffany Hopkins moved to New Haven in 1996 to take a job as the props runner at Yale Repertory Theater. A chance meeting at an end-of-year party led to a seasonal job at the 1997 International Festival of Arts & Ideas, and that is where she has found herself every June since. In 2007, she joined the Festival staff year-round.

When not at the Festival, Tiffany is the owner and creative director of Solo-Me Films. She has produced video content for the Pop Culture Collaborative, the CT Book Awards, the New Haven Pride Center, the International Society for the Performing Arts, among others.

Tiffany has an AD from Hill College in Hillsboro, TX, a BA in media production and an MA in journalism, both from Quinnipiac University.