The People Behind the Show

Silvian is currently the CEO of Transiris Corporation, a visionary subject matter expertise company with a global reach. Silvian’s bio for this show was written years ago by his publicist, Bruce Pachtman, and is provided here verbatim.

Silvian Centiu is currently a director at Oracle Corporation, but he found his way there only after pursuing an extremely circuitous and often humbling path. Born and raised in the Transylvania region of Romania, Silvian arrived in America as a young man with many marketable computer skills. Because he had such a tenuous grasp of the English language, he applied for work as a pizza deliveryman. Unfortunately, he was turned down for the job. Perhaps it's all for the best because he then committed himself to learning English by speaking it for five hours a day, everyday to anyone who would listen. He soon found employment as a computer programmer first for Aetna, and later for Sony and Ross "Dress for Less".
Although Silvian's parents never fully grasped what a programmer did, they became very proud of their son when they found out that his software created the price tags at Ross. A few years later, Silvian had the choice of either enrolling in Stanford's MBA program or managing a soccer club. Obviously it was an easy choice. In fact he attributes his management skills at Oracle to his experience with the soccer club. At Oracle, he was a key contributor to the "Oracle 8 Database" the product that made Oracle the second largest software company in the world. He now manages Oracle Applications staff in more than ten countries as a Global Applications Flow Owner. (Whatever that means. Just know that there are only five of them in the world.)

But despite all of his accomplishments, Silvian has still not gotten over his disappointment at being turned down by the pizza delivery service. He thinks he would have done a really good job.

Bruce Pachtman, March 2004

Silvian Centiu combines a successful career in technology management at several top companies including Oracle, Sony, and Aetna with outstanding performing and public speaking skills, covering subjects like creativity, motivation, communication, diversity, globalization, cross-cultural issues, human rights, leadership, planning, change, education, management, success, etc.

Silvian has acted on stage in San Francisco, New York, Los Angeles, and Europe and has been the main speaker at corporate and academic events in the United States, Europe, Asia and Australia. In 2005, after over eight years at Oracle, Silvian gave up a director position to embrace a career in arts and entertainment and has since been also involved in educational and charity work.

Kenneth Vandenberg (Director for the 2004 San Francisco staging of “A Transylvanian in Silicon Valley”) is a member of, and the theater manager for the Actors Theatre of San Francisco.

He has worked on many shows with the ATSF in a variety of capacities. Among the plays he has directed are Tennesse Williams’ Orpheus Descending and Cat On A Hot Tin Roof.

Bruce Pachtman (Publicist and Production Manager for the 2004 San Francisco staging of “A Transylvanian in Silicon Valley”) is a playwright and performer whose show “Don’t Make Me Look Too Psychotic” ran in San Francisco for 68 weeks and then in Philadelphia for 16 more weeks.

“Psychotic” reopened at the Shelton Theatre in San Francisco in 2004. Pachtman has worked as the publicist or production coordinator for “Mother’s Milk”, “It Could Have Been A Wonderful Life”, “Rice and Beans” and “The Yoga of Moby Dick”.

He is proud to be a founding member of Club Solo – a group that provides artistic guidance as well as emotional support to solo performers.

Jerry Scripter (Sounds and Lights Technician) has been with the show from the first “sanity check” pilot in March 2004 and in addition to skillfully operating the sound and lights boards for the stagings in San Francisco and New York, has provided invaluable feedback and support throughout the critical first 30 shows.

For their generous support and inspiration, special thanks to:

Eric Fraser, Shannon Kokoska, Dave Anselmi, Sylvia Harley, Cherie Hung, Mark Fisher, Steve Carter, Ejaz Hussain, Saviana Stanescu, Laura Toma, Maria Stoian, Grigore Culian, Niky Scarlat, Matei Visniec, Stefania Magidson, Leslie Hawke, Ioan (Nick) Vlad, Ilie Ardelean, Florinel Fatulescu, Stefan Peca, Mircea Diaconu, Andreea Dumitru, Cristi Nicolae, Jan H. Mayer, Chris Phillips, and Stan Slap.