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More About Me
In short, I consider myself to be a "jack-of-all-arts." I am a trained theatre director & advocate with formal business training, a rich background in education, a proven international expertise, and an accomplished history as a musician who wishes to combine these and other specialized skills for my life's passion: bringing theatre to the world.
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Photo credit: Justice Prude
My professional life since graduating with an Honors BBA from Texas Christian University has been far from the straightforward path in Marketing and E-business it was poised to be. I have spent the last decade honing a craft as a master educator, while methodically shifting to an eclectic and accomplished career as a theatre director.
As an educator, I am a former Teacher of the Year and Department Head at a pioneering, nationally-recognized language magnet school where I thrived as German Teacher and eventually Theater Arts Teacher/Director. While at Alicia R. Chacón International School, I became Campus Lead Mentor, presented at multiple state and national educators' conferences and conventions, served on the committee to develop the state's new certification examination for German teachers, and even won a state citation for “Outstanding Program” for my response to the federal government's declaration of 2005 as The Year of Languages. Beyond language department successes including developing a highly unique curriculum, administering a high-profile model Sister School/exchange program abroad, and producing large-scale events, I also founded and directed an after-school Drama Club. Its rapid and emphatic prosperity led to a Theater Arts component to be successfully added to the school's existing, demanding curriculum.
Simultaneously, I developed quickly in local youth, community and semi-professional theater. I was compelled to pursue a formal theatrical training, so I left my teaching post to earn a terminal Masters of Fine Arts in Theatre Directing from a conservatoire in London, graduating with distinction in 2011. While at East 15 Acting School (voted once again as the highest-rated Drama School in the United Kingdom), I developed a myriad of pre-existing and new skills, further researching and practicing my known theatrical passions (including Musical Theater, Youth Theater) and gaining a perspective and passion on new ones (Shakespeare, Expressionism, European Theater, Opera, and more), all while learning under dozens of the UK's most influential theatricians and consuming as much theatre as possible.
During that time, I identified a world-class, West End director whose career and work most inspired me and wrote to him to express my interest in learning under him. He responded and I became Open Air Theatre Regents Park Artistic Director Timothy Sheader's Resident Director-on-Attachment, where I assisted on his reimagining of Lord of the Flies and the first major revival of Crazy for You, which won the Olivier Award® for Best Musical Revival (the third in a row for Sheader).
Since returning from England, I maintained a Guest Artist-in-Residence position with the University of Texas at El Paso, directing for the opera and choir programs. I have worked for several seasons as resident Assistant Director and Director of Educational Outreach with El Paso Opera, eventually working my up to Guest Director, Interim Artistic Director, and now Artistic Director.
I was Assistant Director on the world premiere of (Disney Legend) Sir Tim Rice's musical Lute!. I was on the creative team as Assistant Stage Director on the first-ever Western opera production in the Himalayan Kingdom of Bhutan, a UTEP Centennial-Smithsonian Institute co-production, Opera Bhutan: Acis & Galatea which premiered in Autumn 2013 to enormous success, with Her Royal Majesty the Queen of Bhutan in attendance, and again in Texas in Autumn 2014. Next, I was Stage Director for a co-production between the El Paso Symphony Orchestra and the El Paso Holocaust Museum to celebrate the museum's 50th anniversary with a premiere concert-drama of Verdi's Requiem in an adaptation of Josef Bor's novelization of his experience in the Theresienstadt concentration camp.
I then became the recipient of Asolo Repertory Theatre's season-long Directing Fellowship - I assisted Artistic Director Michael Donald Edwards on Somerset Maugham's Our Betters, Peter Amster on Thorton Wilder's The Matchmaker and Tony®-winner Frank Galati on Maxwell Anderson's Pulitzer Prize-winning Both Your Houses, called "as good as anything you're likely to see on Broadway, or anywhere else, this season" by the Wall Street Journal. Immediately following my time in Sarasota, Florida, I made my way to Los Angeles for an SDCF (Stage Directors and Choreographers Foundation) Observership with Art Manke on Tony®-winning South Coast Repertory's production of Peter and the Starcatcher.
Scaffolding
Alongside my theatrical freelancing, I have continued as an Educator, working as a long-term Certified Substitute Teacher for one of Texas' fastest-growing urban school districts and as an Instructor and Curriculum Team Specialist for the district's Community Education department.
Sax
Destination Imagination
As an educator, I am a former Teacher of the Year and Department Head at a pioneering, nationally-recognized language magnet school where I thrived as German Teacher and eventually Theater Arts Teacher/Director. While at Alicia R. Chacón International School, I became Campus Lead Mentor, presented at multiple state and national educators' conferences and conventions, served on the committee to develop the state's new certification examination for German teachers, and even won a state citation for “Outstanding Program” for my response to the federal government's declaration of 2005 as The Year of Languages. Beyond language department successes including developing a highly unique curriculum, administering a high-profile model Sister School/exchange program abroad, and producing large-scale events, I also founded and directed an after-school Drama Club. Its rapid and emphatic prosperity led to a Theater Arts component to be successfully added to the school's existing, demanding curriculum.
Simultaneously, I developed quickly in local youth, community and semi-professional theater. I was compelled to pursue a formal theatrical training, so I left my teaching post to earn a terminal Masters of Fine Arts in Theatre Directing from a conservatoire in London, graduating with distinction in 2011. While at East 15 Acting School (voted once again as the highest-rated Drama School in the United Kingdom), I developed a myriad of pre-existing and new skills, further researching and practicing my known theatrical passions (including Musical Theater, Youth Theater) and gaining a perspective and passion on new ones (Shakespeare, Expressionism, European Theater, Opera, and more), all while learning under dozens of the UK's most influential theatricians and consuming as much theatre as possible.
During that time, I identified a world-class, West End director whose career and work most inspired me and wrote to him to express my interest in learning under him. He responded and I became Open Air Theatre Regents Park Artistic Director Timothy Sheader's Resident Director-on-Attachment, where I assisted on his reimagining of Lord of the Flies and the first major revival of Crazy for You, which won the Olivier Award® for Best Musical Revival (the third in a row for Sheader).
Since returning from England, I maintained a Guest Artist-in-Residence position with the University of Texas at El Paso, directing for the opera and choir programs. I have worked for several seasons as resident Assistant Director and Director of Educational Outreach with El Paso Opera, eventually working my up to Guest Director, Interim Artistic Director, and now Artistic Director.
I was Assistant Director on the world premiere of (Disney Legend) Sir Tim Rice's musical Lute!. I was on the creative team as Assistant Stage Director on the first-ever Western opera production in the Himalayan Kingdom of Bhutan, a UTEP Centennial-Smithsonian Institute co-production, Opera Bhutan: Acis & Galatea which premiered in Autumn 2013 to enormous success, with Her Royal Majesty the Queen of Bhutan in attendance, and again in Texas in Autumn 2014. Next, I was Stage Director for a co-production between the El Paso Symphony Orchestra and the El Paso Holocaust Museum to celebrate the museum's 50th anniversary with a premiere concert-drama of Verdi's Requiem in an adaptation of Josef Bor's novelization of his experience in the Theresienstadt concentration camp.
I then became the recipient of Asolo Repertory Theatre's season-long Directing Fellowship - I assisted Artistic Director Michael Donald Edwards on Somerset Maugham's Our Betters, Peter Amster on Thorton Wilder's The Matchmaker and Tony®-winner Frank Galati on Maxwell Anderson's Pulitzer Prize-winning Both Your Houses, called "as good as anything you're likely to see on Broadway, or anywhere else, this season" by the Wall Street Journal. Immediately following my time in Sarasota, Florida, I made my way to Los Angeles for an SDCF (Stage Directors and Choreographers Foundation) Observership with Art Manke on Tony®-winning South Coast Repertory's production of Peter and the Starcatcher.
Scaffolding
Alongside my theatrical freelancing, I have continued as an Educator, working as a long-term Certified Substitute Teacher for one of Texas' fastest-growing urban school districts and as an Instructor and Curriculum Team Specialist for the district's Community Education department.
Sax
Destination Imagination