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FACULTY
 Susan Hinshaw
has worked as an actor in London, Seattle, and Los Angeles, appearing in numerous leading roles on-stage and in films. Favorite roles include, Beatrice in
Much Ado about Nothing, Karen in the
Children's Hour, Emma in Betrayal and Le Marquis de Merteiul in
Les Liasons Dangereus. Currently, she is performing her solo show,
Nirvana, in various venues around the country. She holds a Master of Fine Arts in acting from California State University, Fullerton (where she was a scholarship recipient), and a Bachelor of Arts from the University of Washington School of Drama.
Susan has trained and studied with many notable artists including Barry Kyle (artistic director of the Royal Shakespeare Company), members of the Royal Shakespeare Company, Michael Shurtleff, George Shadanoff (formerly of the Chekhov Theatre, in partnership with Michael Chekhov), and studied seven years with Jose Quintero (cofounder of the Circle in the Square Theatre, collaborator/ interpreter of Tennessee Williams and Eugene O'Neil).
Susan has studied voice using the Linklater technique with training from the Nobel institute in Sweden, and movement using the Alexander technique with training under Jean-Louis Roderique.
Susan's professional affiliations include Actor's Equity Association, the Screen Actor's Guild, American Federation of Television and radio Artists, Women in Film and Women in Theatre. She was inducted into Who's Who in American Teachers in 2004 and again in 2005.
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Paul Wickline
(chair of the theatre department) is an actor and
director and holds a BA in Theatre and an MA
in education with an emphasis in theatre. From acting in a sketch comedy
show in Seattle with Bill Nye (the science
guy!) to singing with SOUNDSATION, a
critically acclaimed vocal jazz ensemble, to
acting professionally, Paul has always been
active as a performer. However, as much as
he enjoys performing, his passion is
teaching and directing.
From 2003-2007, Paul
was Director of Theater Arts and a theater
instructor at Walla Walla Community College.
During this period, he also directed the
annual Outdoor Summer Musical at Fort Walla
Walla and founded and directed the Walla
Walla Summer Acting Camp for high school
students. His theatrical training includes
studying classical acting for two years with
Wesley Van Tassel (director and author of
Clues to Acting Shakespeare), workshops
in the Meisner technique with Larry
Silverberg, and Spolin-based improvisation
with Paul Sills at his Wisconsin Game
Center.
Paul has produced and
directed more than fifty productions in the
last fifteen years including Noises Off
(COC), Cinderella,
The Foreigner, South Pacific,
Pippin, Godspell, The Fantasticks
(twice), A Midsummer Night’s Dream,
Little Shop of Horrors, Rough Crossing,
Annie, Born Yesterday, Bye Bye Birdie, The
Dining Room, Vanities, Flaming Idiots, The
Odd Couple, The Music Man, Guys and Dolls,
and many more. A character actor, some
of Paul’s favorite roles include
televangelist Melvin P. Thorpe in The
Best Little Whorehouse in Texas, Frankie
in Frankie and Johnny in the Claire de
Lune, and Barry Champlain in Talk
Radio. In 2005 the Kennedy
Center/American College Theatre Festival
awarded Paul a Meritorious Achievement Award
for his work as the text coach on Walla
Walla University's production of Othello.
Paul is also active as a respondent for the
Kennedy Center/American College Theatre
Festival.
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 Dee Marie Nieto is the founder, director and writer of the Shakespeare and Friends Foundation, a non profit professional acting company. The foundation was recently awarded "best practice in race and diversity" by the YWCA and has been given an assistance grant from Actors Equity Association.
Ms. Nieto has acted, sung and danced her way through a myriad of productions while also establishing herself as a respected director and acting instructor to both student and professional actors.
She has held leads in such plays as The Time of Your Life,
A View From the Bridge, Henry V,
Shakespeare's Women, Our Town,
La Ronde, and The Tavern with Henry Darrow; sold Tuborg Beer on TV; died in
Police Story and appeared with Joanna Gleason in
Once Upon a Mattress, starring John Rubenstein. Directing credits include
The Comedy of Errors, Tartuffe,
Story Theatre, and You're a Good Man Charlie Brown. She has written and directed Shakespeare's Woodland Magic,
Building Bridges, Seeds of Violence As Seen Through Romeo and Juliet
and Farce: That's Shakespeare.
Ms. Nieto is a member of the Southern California Educational Theatre Association, Actors Equity Association, the Screen Actors Guild and holds an MFA from the University of California, Los Angeles.
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 Theresa Layne holds a BFA in Musical Theatre from the United States International University and an MFA in Acting from the University of Arizona, where she appeared at the Arizona Repertory Theatre as Miss Pross in A Tale of Two Cities, Mme Pinglet in A Little Hotel on the Side, Mama Maddelena in Nine, and Miss Prism in The Importance of Being Earnest. Her first theatrical home was at the Moonlight Amphitheatre in San Diego where she played Abigail Adams in 1776, Agnes Gooch in Mame, and the Narrator in Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, among many other productions.
Since transporting herself to LA, she has worked at the Civic Light Opera of the South Bay Cities in Sound of Music, and The Candlelight Pavilion in The Secret Garden. Theresa's new theatrical home is the Colony Theatre Company -an award-winning, nationally-recognized professional company located in Burbank. She made her Colony debut as the Alto of The Angel City 4 in the Theatre LA Ovation Award-winning production of
City of Angels. She has also appeared as Sister Felicity in the second stage production of
Suddenly
Last Summer.
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David Stears is an actor, director and producer originally from New York and has been involved in live theatre for the past twenty years. David is a founding member of the highly acclaimed Actor's Project in Long Island and trained at HB studio’s in New York. David came to California where he continued his training at California Institute of the Arts School of Theatre (Libby Apple, Dean). David has produced and directed over thirty productions and has been involved in over sixty as an actor. Upon graduating, David founded The Santa Clarita Repertory Theatre and was the company’s Producing-Artistic Director until July 2001.
As SCRT’s leader, David developed the company’s Educational Outreach Program. Fostering relationship with school districts and working with teachers and professional theatre artists, the SCRT’s Educational Outreach Program reached more than 20,000 students each year, developed nine original scripts, five bilingual plays, dozens of in-school workshops and garnered the support of the Henry Mayo Newhall Foundation, The Ahmanson Foundation, winner of the Los Angeles Times Community Partnership Award (1994) and the Citibank Education award (1994). Mr. Stears was the consultant and producer of four curricular based plays for children as part of the Spotlight Project with the Sulphur Springs School District. Also while at SCRT, David initiated the Summer Theatre Festival/ Shakespeare in the Parks series & Apprentice Programs and designed and opened the new facility for SCRT located in Downtown Newhall.
David is one of the Founding Members of the Arts Alliance in Santa Clarita and has a certificate in Fund Raising from U.C.L.A. He works as an independent producer/director and fund raising consultant, running Stears & Associates, a producing & event management and fund raising consulting company.
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 John DeMita
has been a teacher and professional actor for more than 18 years, and is currently a faculty member of College of the Canyons, Santa Ana College, Citrus college, and El Camino College. As an actor, he has performed with many of the nation's most prestigious theater companies including the Geffen Playhouse, American Conservatory Theater, Seattle's Intiman Theater, the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, and the Williamstown Theater Festival.
Currently, he can be seen on the CBS series
Jag as Marine Colonel Clifford Blakely. John was also a series regular on Comedy Central's
The Clinic and has guest-starred in more than 40 films and television shows. His most recent credits include TNN's 18 Wheels of Justice and
Life of the Party-The Pamela Harriman Story with Ann Margaret for Lifetime Cable Television. Directing credits include:
A Midsummer Night's Dream, The Hot L Baltimore,
The Two Gentlemen of Verona, Holiday,
Marisol, and Grease. John also continues to work as a voice actor in such cartoons as Disney's
Kiki's Delivery Service, Princess Mononoke,
Spawn, and the feature film Final Fantasy.
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 Andrea
Slominski
– COC Adjunct teacher and Director, is also
the Co-Producing Artistic Director of The
Theatre Project/SCV), a professional AEA
contracted theatre company headquartered in
Santa Clarita. Andrea is a director and
producer with over 24 years of professional
experience. She received two degrees from
the University of Rhode Island, one in fine
art and one in theatre, directing and
acting. Ms. Slominski's training includes
voice, Seth Riggs method, acting, Meisner
method with Kimber Wheelock and David Eliet
of Trinity Square Repertory Theatre,
Providence, RI. Her movement training
includes Grotowski and Alexander as well as
various forms of dance. She was the artistic
director of the Astor's Beechwood Theatre in
Newport, RI. Following two successful
seasons, she opened a musical cabaret theatre
in Houston, TX.
Directing credits include eleven original
Cabaret shows through her professional
theatre company in Houston and An Evening
with Stephen Schwartz (
co–director/producer) for The SCV Theatre
Project at the Santa Clarita Performing
Arts Center at COC. For the COC Theater
Dept. she has directed The Little Prince, (for which she
composed an original score) Big River
(Assistant Director), Company, Tartuffe, The
Southern California Premiere of Georgia Stitt and David Kirshenbaum’s new musical
revue, Sing Me A Happy Song, as a part of
The Festival of New American Musicals and
most recently South
Pacific. Andrea co-produced The World Goes Round directed by Kay Cole for The SCV
Theatre Project, and produced a local
performance of COC theatre instructor Susan Hinshaw’s
original play Nirvana. Andrea has worked
for the past ten years in music production,
recording three albums of folk, jazz and
spiritual music and performing throughout the
US and Mexico. She is a member of ASCAP as a
songwriter and a publisher.
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 Leigh Kennicott
received her Ph.D. in theatre from the University of Colorado in summer 2002. Prior to that she directed more than 30 plays both in Los Angeles and the Denver area, including
Tales of the Lost Formicans, at CU;
Strange Interlude at Cal State
Northridge, where she earned a Master's
Degree; Lanford Wilson's Women at LA's Victory Theatre; and
Superwoman at Hollywood's Matrix Theatre.
Before returning to the university she worked in film and television." for Leonard Goldberg Productions, in Current Television at ABC, and in production for Miller-Boyett Productions, who brought
Perfect Strangers, Family Matters and
Step by Step to the small screen.
She has written, directed and produced two films - the festival short "Rubber Gloves" and the documentary "Streakin'.
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 Stephen Whelan received his Bachelor of Arts degree in Theatre Arts with an emphasis in acting and directing at Cal State University Long Beach. Stephen had the pleasure of getting to participate in workshops conducted by John Houseman and the Acting Company from Julliard, Patrick Stewart and the Royal Shakespeare Company, and Stella Adler. He received a broad range of exposure to classical, modern and experimental plays from professors such as Mathias Reitz, Betsy Hamilton (currently at DePaul University), William Raffeld and Michael Lyman.
Upon graduation he studied with Michael Holmes at the Chandler Studio in Los Angeles where he assisted in teaching Uta Hagen-style technique classes and played the role of Macbeth from Shakespeare's Scottish tragedy and the dual roles of Posthumous/Cloten in Cymbeline.
After teaching and directing for two years at the Orange County High School of the Arts, Stephen worked for the film director/producer Martin Brest and on such feature films as
Scent of a Woman with Al Pacino and
Meet Joe Black with Anthony Hopkins and Brad Pitt. After almost eight years in the film industry he returned to teaching at the Orange County High School of the Arts for one year, but for the past five years has been the sole theatre arts instructor and director at Valencia High School in Santa Clarita. He also holds a Teacher's Certificate and Master of Education from the University of La Verne.
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 Annette
Reid Crump
is an actor-producer. She started
acting in summer stock with her father at
the age of nine. She received a BFA in
Music Theatre from The Ohio State University
and an MFA in acting from Cal State
University, Fullerton. She took a long
hiatus from acting, working for Disney and
traveling the world. She recently returned
to the business, and has appeared on
Desperate Housewives, in the short film
“Training Wheels” which was featured at
the International Family Film Festival,
and most recently appeared onstage in Los
Angeles with Mariette Hartley in the world
premier of In the Wings.
Other favorite stage
roles include Mrs. Hardcastle in She
Stoops to Conquer, Billie in Women of
Manhattan, Edward/Victoria in Cloud
Nine, and Woman 2 in Side by Side by
Sondheim. As a producer she worked with
the Classical Theatre Lab, and the Will Geer
Theatricum Botanicum “Seedlings” New Plays
series. She has done voice over work for
Walt Disney Imagineering, giving voice to a
number of interactives in worldwide theme
parks, for HeadTrips Audio Tours, and most
recently can be heard as the voice of
“Mnemnosyne 99” in the most recent episode
of The DNA Files: Unraveling the
Mysteries of Genetics with John
Hockenberry.
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Allan
Trautman is a professional actor,
puppeteer and director. His career spans 34
years, the last 28 in Los Angeles. As an
actor, he has appeared in the Coen brothers
movie Intolerable Cruelty and the
1984 cult classic Return of the Living
Dead, in which he performed the infamous
Tarman. Recent television appearances
include Joan of Arcadia, Grounded
for Life, and a Dr. Pepper commercial.
Recent stage work includes leading roles in
Hamlet, Much Ado About Nothing
and Brighton Beach Memoirs.
Mr.
Trautman has performed with the Jim Henson
Company for the past 18 years as a lead
puppeteer, performing Ferdinand the duck in
Babe, Eddie Murphy's dog in Dr.
Dolittle, one of the leads in The
Country Bears, and various roles in
Cats & Dogs, Muppets from Space,
and many other projects. He also worked on
the two Men in Black movies,
Monkeybone, and Jack Frost. He
was a series regular on Dinosaurs and
Unhappily Ever After, and his work
appears in Greg the Bunny, Muppets
Tonight, A Very Merry Muppet
Christmas Movie, and The Muppets
Wizard of Oz. Recent Internet
appearances include the lead character of
Skrumpy in The Skrumps on Yahoo Kids,
and the soon-to-be-released SUDS and
Alt Reality on Warner Studios 2.0. He
is currently appearing in Hollywood monthly
in the Henson company's improvisational show
Puppet Up - Uncensored, having toured
to sold-out successes at the Edinburgh
Festival Fringe in Scotland and the
Melbourne International Comedy Festival in
Australia.
Mr.
Trautman has just finished directing
episodes of the new PBS children's TV series
Sid the Science Kid. He has also
directed stage productions throughout the
southland.
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 Madeline
Miller Lindenheim
has performed in New York on
Broadway, starring with Chita Rivera in the
musical Bajour, and in the comedy
The Apple Doesn’t Fall…directed by
Leonard Nimoy. She also appeared
off-Broadway in the revival of Slow Dance
on the Killing Ground for which she was
nominated for Best Actress by the New York
Theatre Critics. Additionally, Madeline has
appeared off-Broadway, on tour, and in
regional theatres around the country in such
roles as Gorgeous in The Sisters
Rosensweig, Blanche in Broadway Bound,
Doris in The Owl and the Pussycat.
Madeline has also starred in such musicals
as West Side Story, Fiddler On The
Roof, Oklahoma, The Fantasticks, and
The Cradle Will Rock. She has performed
her Cabaret act in New York, Los Angeles,
and on cruise ships.
Madeline received a
scholarship to study with Sandy Meisner at
the American Musical and Dramatic Academy in
New York, and with Lee Strasberg at the
Strasberg Institute in New York, also on
scholarship. Other notable teachers were
Lehman Engel (musical theatre), Hanya Holm
(dance), and Philip Burton (Shakespeare).
She received her Bachelors Degree in Theatre
Arts at the State University of New
York/Empire State College.
She has taught and
directed previously at Norwalk Community
College (Connecticut) and Fairfield High
School (Connecticut). She has conducted
seminars and lectured at corporations around
the world, speaking on such topics as the
art of listening, communicating effectively,
and presentation skills. Ms. Lindenheim
currently has a private practice coaching
professional singers and actors.
Professional
affiliations include Actor’s Equity
Association, Screen Actor’s Guild, and
American Federation of Television and Radio
Artists.
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Nancy Giacomi
is an
adjunct instructor in the COC theatre
department and has been involved in theatre
since 1975. She received her BA and MA from
Cal State Northridge. She also has been
involved in theatre at Moorpark College and
at the Teenage Drama Workshop for 12 years.
Nancy designed costumes for The Little
Prince at COC. She teaches Costume
Crafts, Costume Design and Make-up Design
here at COC. She recently designed costumes
for COC's productions of Some Girl(s)
and Noises Off.
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PAC STAFF |
 Technical Director
Brodie
Steele
is a Scenic Designer and
Technical Director with twenty years
professional experience and over 200
production credits. A native of Indiana, he
holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Theatrical
Design from Ball State University where he
designed many shows including Dancing at
Lughnasa, Keely and Du, and Les
Belles Soeurs. He holds the rare
distinction of winning both the 1st
place and runner-up regional American
College Theatre Festival awards in the same
year for his designs of A Streetcar Named
Desire and Sweet Charity. Brodie
was later honored at the Kennedy Center in
Washington D.C. with the National Design
award for Charity.
He
designed the first regional production of
Titanic in New York and adapted the
Broadway set of State Fair for
regional production in Connecticut. He
toured nationally with the New York-based
production of Meet Me in St. Louis
and technically directed shows for Sandra
Bernhardt, The Bacon Brothers, and
Bernadette Peters, among others, in New
York. While working for Staging Techniques
in Manhattan, he assisted in research and
development of 3-D, projected scenery
methods in addition to operating as ATD for
productions for Microsoft, American Express,
and Broadway events. In the Los Angeles
area, Brodie designed and built the west
coast premiere of Marked Tree for The
Road Theatre Company and just recently
designed and supervised the build of The
Who’s Tommy at the Ricardo
Montalban Theatre in Hollywood.
Brodie is
currently the Resident Scenic Designer and
Technical Director for the Santa Clarita
Performing Arts Center at College of the
Canyons where he has designed and built a
number of productions including Jesus
Christ Superstar, Big River,
The Rocky Horror Show, Cabaret,
and A Doll’s House.
Brodie is also an accomplished rigger and
master carpenter as well as an experienced
flyman, welder, and scenic artist and has
worked in many of these capacities for such
theatres as Illinois Shakespeare Festival,
Starlight Musicals, Clowes Memorial Hall,
Goodspeed Opera, New Jersey Shakespeare
Festival, Gallery Players, Gateway
Playhouse, the Norris Center, and University
of California, Irvine. |
Theatre Manager
Tami Toon
is a graduate of The American Academy of Dramatic Arts in Pasadena, where she earned her Associate’s Degree in Theatre. In her
thirty years of professional stage management and production management experience, Tami has worked in a wide variety of locations, including Japan, Europe, New York, Miami, Denver and Broadway.
Fool Moon with Bill Irwin and David Shiner,
Burn This with John Malkovich and Joan Allen,
A Lesson from Aloes with Lou Gosset Jr.,
A Lie of the Mind with Holly Hunter, ‘night Mother with Kathy Bates,
Roza, directed by Hal Prince, and King Lear
and A Midsummer Night’s Dream with Kenneth Branagh and Emma Thompson, are among her many professional credits. She has also worked with two-time Pulitzer prize winner, August Wilson, Arthur Miller, Tony Kushner, and Lanford Wilson.
She has managed corporate events with such luminaries as Frank Sinatra, Lucille Ball, Sammy Davis Jr., Liza Minnelli, Milton Berle,
Dionne Warwick, Burt Bacharach, Herb Alpert
and Natalie Cole. Southern California venues
include the Mark Taper Forum, the Performing
Arts Center of Los Angeles County, the
Doolittle Theatre, the Coronet Theatre, the
Geffen Theatre, the Pasadena Playhouse, and
the La Jolla Playhouse. At College of the
Canyons, she serves as the Theatre Manager
for the Performing Arts Center.
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Assistant Technical
Director
Michelle Wall
has worked at the Santa Clarita
Performing Arts Center since it’s inception
in October 2004. She has worked on every
COC produced show in that time. Her skills
encompass all fields of technical theatre,
including Rigging, Carpentry, Electrics, and
Scenic Design. Along with her work here,
she has freelanced as a Carpenter for
theatres in Washington, New York and Los
Angeles. Some Favorite Shows include
Little Shop of Horrors, The Rocky
Horror Show, The Laramie Project
and Company.
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