PCPA (2016-2018, since 2022): Mamma Mia!; The Hunchback of Notre Dame; Homegrown: A Cabaret Project; The Purple Marble; Freaky Friday; Newsies; Beauty and the Beast (Solvang); Lend Me a Tenor. Upcoming: Cinderella.
Regional Theatres: Texas Shakespeare Festival: The Music Man; Nell Gwynn; The Bridges of Madison County; Into the Woods. Timber Lake Playhouse, IL: Newsies. Horsecross Arts, Perth, UK: Beauty and the Beast. Showstoppers, Lusaka, Zambia: Showstoppers! Weathervane Theatre, NH: The Wiz; The King and I; Mamma Mia!; Memphis; Next to Normal; Mary Poppins; Annie; Once on This Island; Shrek; Les Miserables; Annie Get Your Gun; Young Frankenstein; Avenue Q; 9 to 5; Kiss Me, Kate.
University Theatre: University of Mississippi: A New Brain; Little Women; Assassins. Royal Conservatoire of Scotland: Return to the Forbidden Planet; Under the Ground (World Premiere); Candid Cabaret; The Last Five Years; West Side Story; Swingin’ into Christmas. SUNY Fredonia PAC: The Spitfire Grill.
Composer: Spirit (with Michael Marszalkowski); The Purple Marble (with Leo Cortez); Treasure Island; The Emperor’s New Clothes (with Kirsti Carnahan).
Teaches: Sing Tech II and Musical Theatre Lab
Training: BA Music Education – SUNY Fredonia; MA Musical Theatre Music Direction – Royal Conservatoire of Scotland.
Teaching Philosophy:
Musical Theater is all about telling stories, using the medium of song to further plot, deepen character, and express emotion. As we work through repertoire in Singing Techniques, I want my students to be clear and concrete about the story they want to tell and why it’s important for them to tell it. Once we’ve got that framework in mind, we use all of the tools at our disposal to mesh our individual, active creative voice with the voices of the composer and the lyricist.
Studying musical theater history gives us context: the stories we have told and those we have not yet encountered, and the ways that our predecessors have chosen to tell those stories. Knowledge of music theory gives us access to the subtext – the language and palette that a composer uses to color the text. Once we know the subtext and the context, study of vocal technique allows us to explore the different ways we can use our instrument to bring them off the page and to the stage. Acting through song is the apotheosis of our journey, taking the text, subtext, and context of a song and putting them together into one complete, cohesive package.
It is my hope that when an actor knows why they tell each story, they will start to cultivate the process of how to do so in a highly personal, highly effective way. This process will be a lifelong tool, serving the actor past graduation and into their career as they breathe new life into old stories and use their voice and expertise to craft compelling new ones.