Ken Baltin (Acting)
is a life long professional actor, director, and acting teacher. He has performed off Broadway and in regional theatre throughout the US , as well as in numerous TV shows, films and commercials. He continues to work regularly in Boston area theaters. Recent critically acclaimed performances include Kig of the Jews at the Huntington Theatre, Brooklyn Boy at SpeakEasy Stage Co., Permanent Whole Life at Boston Playwrights Theatre, Scapin and Waiting for Godot at New Repertory Theatre, and Glengarry Glen Ross and Arms and the Man at Lyric Stage Company. In 2005, Baltin was voted Outstanding Faculty of the Year in the Theater Division by The Boston Conservatory Student Government Association. He has taught both acting and communication skills at several colleges and trade schools, including SUNY Fredonia, Franklin Pierce College , Northeastern University, UMASS Boston, and Connecticut College among others. In addition, he has coached literally hundreds of business executives and professional speakers in the art of presenting. He trained extensively under Uta Hagen and Herbert Berghof at the HB Studio in New York City, and holds a B.A. in Journalism from Rutgers University and an M.F.A. in Theatre Arts from Brandeis University. Maureen Brennan (Musical Theater). Maureen Brennan has the distinction of being nominated for a Tony Award and winning a Theatre World Award for her professional debut. While a student at the University of Cincinnati/College Conservatory of Music, she was selected by Harold Prince to star as Cunegonde in the revival of Leonard Bernstein's revival of Candide. She has since appeared on Broadway as Madeleine Manners in Going Up, Tina in Knickerbocker Holiday, and Goldie Gates in Little Johnny Jones and Stardust. She toured nationally starring as Mabel in the New York Shakespeare Festival's production of The Pirates of Penzance and has appeared Off-Broadway in Shakespeare's Cabaret. Ms. Brennan has appeared as a featured soloist in several concerts with the Minnesota Orchestra in Minneapolis, where she also starred in the Guthrie Theatre's production of Anything Goes. She has been a featured soloist with renowned symphonies and pops orchestras in Florida, Pittsburgh, Philadelphia (with Peter Nero), Indianapolis, Baltimore, Houston, Omaha, Erie, Boston (with Keith Lockhart), Grand Rapids, Knoxville, and Portland Oregon. She has appeared at Carnegie Recital Hall in No, No, Nanette, The Gay Divorcee, and Mr. Gershwin Goes to Washington. Ms. Brennan's many other regional stage appearances included leading roles in You Can't Take it with You, Annie Get Your Gun, My Fair Lady, Girl Crazy, Good News, Oklahoma, Showboat, She Loves Me, Carousel, The Student Prince, Fifty Million Frenchmen, Side by Side by Sondheim, History of the American Film, The Most Happy Fella, The Desert Song, Something's Afoot, and I Do! I Do! Ms. Brennan can also be heard on the soundtrack recordings of Disney's animated film classics Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin, and The Hunchback of Notre Dame. She participated in the 2002 Sundance Theatre Institute where she performed in a new play titled Bel Canto. She is recreating her role in the Boston premiere this summer at The Wheelock Theatre. Ms. Brennan is singing with the Hartford Symphony for their 2003 July 4th Celebration.
Christopher Caggiano (Musical Theater) A.B. Boston College, Phi Beta Kappa, magna cum laude. Resident writer and lyricist for the Boston Gay Men's Chorus. Author of The Lost in Boston Carols, a suite of Broadway-themed Christmas songs for the BGMC's December 2003 concerts. As a performer, Chris has appeared on the following recordings: Oz and Beyond, Gloria!, Eos, Razzle Dazzle, and A Splash of Pops with the Boston Pops, under the direction of conductor Keith Lockhart, and has performed solos at Symphony Hall and Carnegie Hall. Chris is currently working on a number of book projects, including Everything I Know I Learned from Musicals.
Bill Casey (Musical Theater). BM, MM, Louisiana State University; postgraduate work, University of Missouri, Kansas City Conservatory of Music. Piano Studies with Joanne Baker, Jack Guerry and William Knight. Voice Studies with Inci Bashar. Extensive experience as coach/accompanist, singer, actor, editor and teacher. Recording credits for Hall Leonard Publications include several collections of music for voice and piano and a series with the Grammy award-winning ensemble Canadian Brass for Hall Leonard Publications. Editorial Staff of G. Schrimer's Operatic Aria Anthologies. Currently principal coach/accompanist for the Kansas Civic Opera Theater. Recent credits include The Pirates of Penzance, The Merry Widow, Die Fledermaus, and Il Matrimonio Segreto.
Fran Charnas (Musical Theater). B.F.A., Ohio University; MA, Emerson College. Graduate Musical Theatre Thesis Director, Senior New York Showcase Director. Early training at the Cleveland Playhouse. Has directed at various commercial, regional and college theaters; Presents lecture-demonstrations on popular, American vocal styles of the twentieth century. Former Administrative Director of The Boston Conservatory Summer Institute in Musical Theater. Conceived and directed Too Marvelous for Words, The Magic of Johnny Mercer. Conceived, directed and choreographed The All Night Strut!, a musical celebration of the 1930's and 40's that has toured the United States, Canada, and Europe, was a nationally broadcast special on PBS, and is now licensed by Music Theatre International in New York. Co-author and Director of a new 60's musical, Sheboppin', which premiered at the Wilbur Theater in Boston. Has created In the Groove, a post WWII musical joyride. Currently preparing a musical based on the life of Ethel Waters. Michelle Chassé (Musical Theater Dance Coordinator and Resident Choreographer;Jazz, Ballet). Michelle Chassé trained with the Boston Ballet School and Maestro Vincenzo Celli, and was on scholarship at the School of American Ballet in New York City. She graduated cum laude with a B.F.A. in Dance Performance from the Boston Conservatory, where she was the first recipient of the prestigious Ruth Sandholm Ambrose Award. Since then she has both studied and performed with ballet, concert dance and Broadway legends from around the world. Ms. Chassé has appeared as a guest artist with Franklin Performing Arts, Granite State Ballet, was a featured ballet dancer in a VHI video starring Michael Crawford, a featured jazz dancer and model for numerous television commercials and industrials, and has performed openings for Gregory Hines and Harry Connick, Jr., among others. She has choreographed numerous musical theater productions at the Boston Conservatory, including its recent critically acclaimed productions of Candide, The Wild Party, and Kismet. Additionally, she has performed and choreographed for the nationally recognized Boston Gay Men’s Chorus. Ms. Chassé is the leading female dancer for the Boston-based Ace Entertainment, a company specializing in film, stage and corporate entertainment productions nationwide. She is on the dance faculty of the Boston Conservatory, where she serves as Dance Instructor, Resident Choreographer, and Musical Theater Dance Coordinator, and she also is on faculty at the Jeannette Neill Dance Studio and Boston Youth Moves.
Nicole Sell Danizio began her pursuit of dance in her home town of Scottsbluff, Nebraska. As a teen, she spent her summers studying dance at the Ballet/Aspen program in Colorado and at the Dupree Studios in Los Angeles. She completed her high school years at the Idyllwild School of Music and Performing Arts in California and graduated Valedictorian of her class. She then studied at The Boston Conservatory, earning a BFA in Dance and graduating Summa Cum Laude and Salutatorian of her class. Ms. Danizio has performed regionally and internationally with Prometheus Dance, ACE Entertainment, Impulse, and Boston Dance Company, and has also danced a leading role in an industrial video for Spalding sports equipment and a TV commercial for W.B. Mason, for which she was also the choreographer. She is currently on faculty at the Jeannette Neill Dance Studio, Boston Youth Moves, Walnut Hill School, and The Boston Conservatory.
Paul Daigneault (Directing, Musical Theater) As Producing Artistic Director of SpeakEasy Stage Company, Paul has produced thirty-six Boston Premieres since 1992. Directing credits: For SpeakEasy - Bat Boy, the Musical and Passion (2003 Elliot Norton Award, Outstanding Director Small Company), A Man of No Importance, A New Brain, Violet, Merrily We Roll Along, A Class Act, Songs for A New World, Floyd Collins, Jeffrey, and Love! Valour! Compassion! Regional: Grand Hotel, the Musical and Nine (The Boston Conservatory, Cincinnati Conservatory of Music), Blue Window ( Boston College ). Upcoming: Elegies (SpeakEasy), Wonderful Town (The Boston Conservatory). His 2003 production of Bat Boy, the Musical ran for 105 performances and won the Elliot Norton Award for Outstanding Musical Production and the IRNE Award for Best Musical.
Neil Donohoe (Director, Theater Division; Musical Theater). B.A., Holy Cross College. Neil Donohoe has directed throughout New England, including at the Chiswick Park Theater in Sudbury, The Charles Playhouse in Boston, the Waterville Summer Music Theater in Maine, Timberlake Playhouse in Illinois, College Light Opera Company of Falmouth, Keene Summer Theater, Bill Fegan Attractions of Dallas, Green Mountain Guild of Vermont, and Jesus Christ Superstar at Boston Shakespeare Company in 1984. Principal singer for Light Opera of Manhattan. Produced the Kurt Weill Festival and a benefit performance for the Fenway Community Health Center starring Madeline Kahn, both at The Boston Conservatory in 1990; co-produced The Boston Conservatory's 125th Anniversary Celebration culminating in a Gala performance at Symphony Hall; choreographed opening night at the Boston Pops starring Tyne Daly in 1992 and stage directed production numbers for Opening Night at the Pops: Farewell Tribute to John Williams in 1993, both televised on PBS; director of the Vincent Club Show, annual fund-raiser for Women's Care division of Massachusetts General Hospital since1993; principal performer in Boston Premier of Love! Valor! Compassion! in 1996. Guest instructor in Musical Theater, Boston University, 1986, 1988.
Carol Efron-Flier (Tap) A tap dance instructor for the Musical Theater Division at The Boston Conservatory since 1994, Efron-Flier has performed with tap-legend Dianne Walker, Broadway-veteran Sue Ronson, as well as with tap soloists Barbara Duffy and Derek Grant. Her professional credits include a series of concerts entitled Let’s Dance that were sponsored by the Massachusetts Cultural Council; A Tribute to Jimmy ‘Sir Slyde’ Mitchell (Jimmy Slyde’s former dance partner); Dianne Walker and Friends at the Boston Center of the Arts Cyclorama; The John C. Zacharis Memorial Forum, a Dianne Walker “Tappin’ in Boston” event; numerous First Night events in Boston; and a Boston Conservatory Faculty Performance. She also appeared in PBS’s tap-documentary JUBA, and performed with Sue Ronson in a Dance Inn production entitled Tapestry ’99 – a celebration of National Tap Dance Day. In March, 2005 Efron-Flier co-directed a tap workshop at Massachusetts Institute of Technology with Dianne Walker, and in July of 2004 she taught at The Brookline Community Center for the Arts (BCCA). Previous teaching experience includes serving as an Artist-in-Residence at The Boston Arts Academy; The Jeannette Neil Dance Studio’s scholarship program “Boston Youth Moves;” and creating an after-school tap dance program for young children at The Pierce School located in Brookline, Massachusetts. Having served on the Board of the former Leon Collins Dance Studio, Efron-Flier has also provided pro-bono public relation services for the BCCA, The Dance Inn’s production of Tapestry ’99, and a Skating Club of Boston production of Ice Chips.
Jennifer Farrell-Engebretson (Jazz) holds a B.A. from Tufts University. Presently, she is on faculty at The Boston Conservatory, Emerson College, and Suffolk University. Jen danced professionally in shows starring Gregory Hines, Rita Moreno, Harry Connick Jr., The Pointer Sisters, and The B52’s. She has also performed nationally and internationally in numerous dance concerts and trade shows. As a choreographer, her works include Rogers and Hart’s Peggy-Ann with American Theater Classics, Alan Brody’s A Company of Angels, and Alfred Urhy’s Parade. Additionally she has choreographed concert dances for Holy Cross College, Northern Essex College, and a World Trade Show for New Balance Athletic Shoe, Inc. She is a founding member of 5 Flights Up, a contemporary dance company, artistic director Adrienne Mincz.
Gina M. Fiore (Musical Theater). B.M. in Piano Performance, New England Conservatory; M.M. in Conducting from Ithaca College. At Ithaca, Ms. Fiore was the assistant conductor/vocal coach/accompanist for the choral, opera and musical theater divisions; and was recognized by the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts for her musical direction and a cappella arrangements of Stephen Vincent Benet's adaptation of John Brown's Body. Formerly Faculty Lecturer, Ithaca College Theater. Extensive experience as a musical director/vocal coach/accompanist. Affiliations include Gateway/Candlewood Playhouse, North Shore Music Theater, The New Opera and Music Theater Initiative (NOMTI), Virginia Stage Company, Virginia Opera and the Hangar Theater. Performances at Lincoln Center and the Fringe Festival, Edinburgh Scotland where she conducted productions of A Chorus Line and Chicago. Ms. Fiore is also a vocal coach/accompanist for Opera Lirica in Orvieto, Italy. Member- Pi Kappa Lambda. Faculty, Walnut Hill School for the Academic and Performing Arts.
Karen Kopryanski (Voice and Speech) is an Associate Teacher of Fitzmaurice Voice Work and a regular guest teacher for the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, the Heifetz International Music Institute, and the Massachusetts Drama Guild. She has taught and coached at the Williamstown Theatre Festival, Harvard Extension School, Brandeis University, Indiana University, the Moscow Art Theatre School, and the Cantiere Internazionale Teatro Giovani in Forli, Italy. As an actor, Karen studied at the Shakespeare Theatre’s Classical Summer Conservatory where she played Celia in As You Like It, toured with the internationally acclaimed Das Puppenspiel Puppet Theatre, spent several summers with Shakespeare in Delaware Park in her hometown of Buffalo, NY ( as Portia in The Merchant of Venice and Bianca in Taming of the Shrew), and recently performed in a short piece for Coal Miner Films that won Best Science Fiction Film in the National Film Challenge. She holds an M.F.A. from the American Repertory Theatre/Moscow Art Theatre Institute for Advanced Theatre Training at Harvard University, and a B.A. from the State University of New York at Oswego.
Doug Lockwood (Acting) is a founding member of the Actors’ Shakespeare Project here in Boston and has performed in King Lear (in Boston and Off-Broadway at LaMama in June 2006), Measure for Measure, and Richard III. He has performed Wallace Shawn’s one person show, The Fever, in 44 living rooms from 2002 to the present. In Boston, he has performed in Twelfth Night, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead, and The Waverly Gallery (New Rep Theatre); After Mrs. Rochester(Wellesley Summer Theatre); Pericles (American Repertory Theatre); Pippi Longstocking, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (Wheelock Family Theatre). Regionally, he was in Othello, The Winter’s Tale, A Midsummer Night’s Dream and Henry V (Colorado Shakespeare Festival); The Tempest (Fairbanks Shakespeare Theatre). He has performed two summers at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. In New York City he was in The Hussy Chronicles (Go Go Room at Show World); A Tale of Two Cities (Culture Project); The Erpingham Camp, The Ride Across Lake Constance (Showroom Theatre). Doug has taught for The 52 nd Street Project in New York City, and here in Boston for New Rep, the Huntington Theatre, The Wheelock Family Theatre, Emerson College, and the Actors’ Shakespeare Project. At the Boston Conservatory, Doug has directed Landscape of the Body, and a concert version of The Two Gentlemen of Verona. Doug’s short play, Baggage, was the winner of the Boston Public School Short Play Development Award in 2006. Doug received his M.F.A. in Acting from the University of Washington under the direction of Steve Pearson.
Peter Mansfield ( Piano, Musical Theater, Repertoire)
Conductor, composer, arranger, and pianist, Peter Mansfield has been a member of The Boston Conservatory theater faculty since 2005. He is a native Bostonian, having majored in music at Harvard College where he arranged for and directed the world famous Harvard Krokodiloes, and where he later embarked on a 20-year tenure as Music Director and Supervisor of the renowned Hasty Pudding Theatricals. It was during this time that he met and apprenticed under acclaimed conductor and Boston Pops arranger Eric Knight, and studied with James Yannatos, chairman of Harvard's conducting faculty. In 1981, he began an affiliation with John Williams, Keith Lockhart, and The Boston Pops Orchestra, where he has worked as pianist, arranger/orchestrator, and music coordinator of several Evening at Pops P.B.S. television specials. Recent Boston Pops seasons have featured several Mansfield arrangements, including an original work for narrator and orchestra, Casey at The Bat. Mansfield now coordinates the annual collaboration between the Pops and The Boston Conservatory. Since 1981, his symphonic arrangements have been performed by many major U.S. orchestras. In September of 1988, he became Conductor and Music Director of Concert On Ice, the first-ever international tour featuring Olympic and World Champion figure skaters in concert with major U.S. and Canadian orchestras, for which he has conducted the orchestras of Atlanta, Dallas, Omaha, Pasadena, San Diego, Seattle, Spokane and Vancouver, as well as the American Symphony Orchestra, the Kennedy Center Opera House Orchestra, the Philadelphia Pops, the National Symphony Orchestra, and in a special national television production in 1995, the Houston Symphony. He served as Pops conductor of the Kansas City Symphony during the 1997-98 season, and more recently, conducted and arranged several programs for the Hartford Symphony during the 2003-2004 season. He has also guest-conducted Pops programs for The Milwaukee, New Hampshire, and Vancouver Symphony orchestras, as well as The Hudson Valley Philharmonic. In 2005, he began an ongoing affiliation as arranger/orchestrator for singer/songwriter Elisabeth Von Trapp, granddaughter of the legendary Captain Von Trapp of Sound of Music fame, and he continues to compose, arrange, and conduct music for Jacques D'Amboise and The National Dance Institute in New York, Boston, and New Hampshire, an affiliation that started in 1985. In the theater world, Mansfield has served as music director/conductor and arranger for several regional and New York equity productions, as well as the legendary MUNY summer theater in St. Louis. At The Boston Conservatory, he served as Music Director/Arranger and Orchestrator for the 2007 world premier of Heaven and Hell.
Eric Louis Martin (Musical Theater --Pianist/Coach) D.M.A., The University of Texas at Austin; M.M., Louisiana State University; B.M., Loyola University in New Orleans. Eric has performed extensively throughout the United States, Europe, Central America and Africa. Upon invitation of the Centro Cultural de Costarricense Norteamericano, he represented the U.S. as a cultural ambassador throughout Costa Rica, performing concerts and conducting master classes. Eric has performed in New York at Avery Fisher Hall and Merkin Hall at Lincoln Center, The Roosevelt House, and Weill Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall. He is the recipient of numerous awards and scholarships, including the National Teachers Association Piano Competition, the Dalies Franz Memorial Scholarship, and the Nena Plant Wideman International Piano Competition. He is also in demand as a collaborative artist and accompanies performers from the Metropolitan Opera and the Broadway circuit. He has toured Europe with several artists and has worked in some of the most acclaimed voice studios in Manhattan. For two seasons, he toured as music director/performer/actor with the internationally acclaimed Off-Broadway theater company, The Paper Bag Players, and also composed music for several of their productions. He has performed many cabaret shows at Caroline’s, the Duplex and the Triangle in New York, and has collaborated on the creation of new musicals with emerging BMI composers. From 1996-2000, Eric served on the faculty at The Nightingale-Bamford School in Manhattan. This past season, he was invited to perform and lecture on the Sea Cloud II, which sailed along the Adriatic Sea as part of Academic Arrangements Abroad’s Metropolitan Museum tours.
Steve McConnell (Acting, Directing, Shakespeare). B.A., Allegheny College; M.F.A., Brandeis; other studies at the University of Birmingham, England and Rutgers University. Former faculty at Rutgers University, The University of New Hampshire and Brandeis University. Professional actor and director in England and the United States. Member: Actors' Equity.
Marjorie Morgan (Movement for Actors) B.A., Oberlin College, Louis Sudler Arts Award recipient), is a choreographer, composer, dancer and singer who works and explores in the fields of dance, music and theater with equal enthusiasm. Boston critics have cited her work as being one of the top ten dance events in 1996 (Boston Globe), 1998 (Boston Globe), 1999 (Boston Phoenix), 2001 (Boston Herald and Bay Windows), and 2002 (Boston Globe and Boston Phoenix). Ms. Morgan has received grants from the Massachusetts Cultural Council (2000) and the Bolton Cultural Council (2001, 2002, 2006). In 2004, Ms. Morgan received a Tanne Arts Foundation Award for Outstanding Achievement in the Arts. In addition to her own productions, she has performed in projects with Bill T. Jones and Robert Davidson, and has danced in the companies of Pooh Kaye, Paula Josa-Jones, Snappy Dance, Caitlin Corbett, and Brian Crabtree. Marjorie has worked in collaboration with trombonist Tom Plsek, Croatian printmaker Boris Kajmak, visual artist Whitney Robbins, and various members of the Mobius Artists Group. Ms. Morgan teaches Movement for Actors at The Boston Conservatory.
Michael Nash (Dean of the Conservatory, Directing). Prior to his appointment as Dean, of The Boston Conservatory in June 1999, Michael Nash served as Chair of the Division of Performing Arts at Boston's Emerson College (1990-1999), Director of the School of Theater at Kent State University (1987-1990). His previous work in professional theater training programs included stints as a faculty member in theater at the Mason Gross School of the Arts of Rutgers University (1977-1984), teaching directing and mentoring M.F.A. directing candidates, for the Conservatoire Royale of Liege, Belgium (1977-1980), teaching acting, and for the Dutch National Theater School in Maastricht, The Netherlands (1974-1985), where he taught acting and directed projects. Nash has directed nearly one hundred productions for theater training programs and professional companies in New York, Ohio, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, Holland and Belgium, including Jean-Claude Grumberg's The Workroom, Uncommon Women and Others by Wendy Wasserstein, Comedy of Errors, The Taming of the Shrew, Noel Coward's Private Lives, A History of American Film by Christopher Durang and Mel Marvin, Talking With (Jane Martin), Neil Simon's Brighton Beach Memoirs, Gilbert and Sullivan's Gondoliers, Candide (Leonard Bernstein and Richard Wilbur), Awake and Sing by Clifford Odets, Moliere's The Learned Ladies and Tartuffe, On the Verge or the Geography of Yearning (Eric Overmyer), Dieu aboie-t-il (Francois Boyer), and Romulus the Great by Friedrich Durenmatt. Nash served as Resident Director for the Theatre du Nouveau Gymnase in Liege, Belgium, from 1982-1984, and for People's Light and Theater Company in Philadelphia from 1981-1990. He was Associate Artistic Director of the Fulton Opera House in Lancaster, PA (1985-1987). From 1985-1987, Nash was Producing Artistic Director of Central Casting Theater Company, an Equity Regional Theater in Ithaca, NY, and from 1987-1991 he led Porthouse Theater Company, in Cuyahoga Falls, OH, as its Producing Artistic Director. He is a member of the Society of Stage Directors and Choreographers (SSDC) and the International Council of Fine Arts Deans (ICFAD), for which he is particularly involved in international collaborations.
Cathy Rand (Musical Theater). B.M., piano, magna cum laude, Baldwin-Wallace Conservatory of Music; M.M., piano/chamber music, summa cum laude, University of Maine; Special student of Vocal Accompanying, Boston University. Piano Studies with Robert Mayerovitch, Alain Planes, Alan Rogers. Music direction, conducting, and orchestration credits, include work for the American Repertory Theater, Eugene O'Neill Theater Center, En Garde Arts, Huntington Theater Company, Musical Theater Works, Boston Music Theater Project, The Market Theater, The Boston Conservatory. Recent works, "Kurt Weill, Songs Degenerate & Otherwise," performed excerpts in Carnegie Hall, Michael Feinstein Concert Series. Extensive performances. Published arranger and lyricist.
Kevin Siegfried (Music Theory) B.A., AntiochCollege; M.A., The University of Iowa (Theory/Composition); D.M.A., New England Conservatory (Composition). Studies with Lee Hyla, Michael Gandolfi, and Daniel Pinkham (composition); Sriram Parasuram (South Indian Vocal Music). Composition fellow: European American Musical Alliance (Paris, France), June in Buffalo Festival. Teaching Fellow: HarvardUniversity, New England Conservatory, The University of Iowa. Performances: National Public Radio, SeattleArt Museum, National Choral Directors Association National and Regional Conferences, The Tudor Choir, Bella Voce, The Dale Warland Singers, Emmanuel Music. Recordings: “Gentle Words: Shaker Songs arranged by Kevin Siegfried” (The Tudor Choir, Loft Recordings); “Harvest Home” (The Dale Warland Singers, Gothic Records). Music published by E.C. Schirmer, Earthsongs, Trinitas. Website: www.kevinsiegfried.com
Bret Silverman (Musicianship). Bret Silverman is a pianist, composer and vocalist working in Boston for the past 16 years. He is the composer of the musical, The Paisley Sisters’ Christmas Special, which The Boston Globe called “a tour de force” and The Boston Tab included in its Top Ten Plays of 1998 (visit www.paisleysisters.com). Tree of Life, his eight-movement cantata for children’s chorus, chamber orchestra, baritone and mezzo, was described as “uplifting” and “imaginatively written” by The Globe. His choral compositions will soon be available from Boosey & Hawkes. Bret teaches freshman music theory at Boston Conservatory, and gives private piano instruction at Brookline Music School. For ten years he was the in-house composer/arranger and pianist for PALS Children’s Chorus in Brookline, MA, as well as director/arranger for the a cappella group AKA Fellas. He has taught piano for the Boston University Institute at Tanglewood, and served as pianist/assistant conductor for the MIT Chamber Chorus and Concert Choir. He has music directed for theaters throughout New England, including the historic Barnstormers in New Hampshire, the New London Barn (NH), Merrimack Repertory Theatre, and the Publick Theatre in Brighton, MA. He has worked as pianist and musical coach at Boston Conservatory and Brooklyn Conservatory (NY). Bret received his Bachelor of Music in piano performance from Boston University.
Annie Thompson (Voice/Speech). B.Ed., University of Leicester, England; M.F.A., Brandeis University. Studied modern dance and mime in London, Alexander Technique in Boston with Joe Armstrong and Neal Katz, and Functional Voice Technique with Eugene Rabine from Germany. Has performed with repertory companies in England and street theater projects in Northern Ireland. Currently performs story telling programs in Greater Boston Schools, and acts and directs with her own theater company, Words Move. Has taught at Brandies University and Jeannie Lindheim's Theater Workshop School. Private teacher of voice therapy and vocal coaching.
Phoebe Wray (Theater History, Cultural Perspectives) Extensive work as actress/director/playwright in the Off-Off-Broadway Movement in New York City, at Caffe Cino, La Mama E.T.C., Playwright's Workshop and The Old Reliable; in original cast of Balm in Gilead and French Gray; Champlain Shakespeare Festival (Vermont) three seasons, appearing in As You Like It, Henry VIII, Merry Wives of Windsor, Richard II, Othello, Antony and Cleopatra. Played Lady Macbeth and Viola for Boston Herald-Traveller Rep Company, Boston . Leading roles in NYC cabarets, regional theater and summer stock , Off-Broadway at Brooklyn Academy of Music and Actor's Playhouse. Directed three plays at the Globe Playhouse, West Hollywood , including award-winning Henry VIII and Cromwell. Honorable Mention, Sony Annual Video Awards (1986) as writer/director of the short narrative Persephone. Video director/writer at EZTV Video Gallery, Hollywood , syndicated on cable. Six plays produced in New York , Los Angeles and London . Toured with jazz trio “ Shelton , Blake & Wray” throughout the USA including the Bon Soir , New York and The Sands, Las Vegas . Writer of numerous songs performed by Lainie Kazan, T.C. Jones, Brock Peters and the rock band Condor. Roles in five films plus radio and television work. The voice of the Tree Dragon and the Twell Tribe on the PlayStation2 game Darkling Skye. Frequent lecturer and writer on endangered species conservation in USA and abroad; advocate for the snow leopard. Publication as a science fiction/fantasy writer. Winner of the Weathervane Best Actress Award (Ohio). Artist-in-Residence, Colby College; Richard King Mellon Fellow, Yale University (1981-1982); Assistant Professor of Drama, University of Southern California (1986-1988); Adjunct Professor at Bradford College (1997-1999). Member of AEA, SAG, AGVA, ASCAP.
