Summer 2021 Intensive Instructors

CHOREOGRAPHY INTENSIVE:

Jennifer J. Hopkins, after many years working in New York, is happy to call the DC theatre community her home. Here she has been fortunate to work with several companies including, Folger Shakespeare, Constellation, Rorschach, Taffety Punk, Longacre Lea, and Keegan. In addition to performing, she has been an educator both in the US and abroad; teaching courses in England and France. She currently serves as the Department Chair of Musical Theatre Dance at Metropolitan School of the Arts in Alexandria, VA. Her direction and choreography credits include 6 summers with Festival 56 in Illinois where she has choreographed Cabaret, The Full Monty, Gypsy, The Addams Family, The Hunchback of Notre Dame, and Mary Poppins. She also directed their productions of As You Like It, The Drowsy Chaperone, Sweet Charity, A Midsummer Night’s Dream and Othello. For Providence College in Rhode Island she choreographed The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee, Bat Boy, Something Rotten, and is set to return in Spring 2021 for Cabaret. Locally in DC, over the next year (should she ever escape quarantine), she is slated to choreograph Hedwig and the Angry Inch for Keegan Theatre, The Nance for 1st Stage, and also direct The Theory of Relativity for George Washington University. She has a BFA in Musical Theatre from Webster Conservatory and an MFA in Classical Acting from George Washington University and Shakespeare Theatre Company’s Academy for Classical Acting.

DIRECTING INTENSIVE:

Jon Jon Johnson is a multidisciplinary artist in the DMV area. Once called “A Swiss Army Knife” and a “Local Favourite” on separate occasions, Jon Jon directs, acts, plays violin, writes plays, and dabbles in many things theatrical. A self-proclaimed Pokemon Master and a tabletop GM, Jon Jon delights in the arts of collaborative storytelling. He is an outspoken advocate for Social Justice in the arts. Love to ET, KH, RT, SWA, DW, DS, RB and DM.

MUSIC DIRECTING INTENSIVE:

Marci Shegogue has served as music director for hundreds of professional, community and educational program productions in the D.C. area over the past 40 years. In addition to working with The Free Theater (Fame, Mamma Mia, In the Heights, Pippin), she is the resident Music Director for Free Range Humans, a professional immersive theater company, and serves on the Board for the brand new Free Range Kids program (both based in Frederick, MD). Marci has worked extensively with various educational musical theater programs in the DMV, including Montgomery County Public Schools drama programs. Favorite productions include Jekyll and Hyde (immersive), Murder Ballad, Always Patsy Cline, Striking 12, 35mm (Free Range Humans), Double Trouble (Imagination Stage), Infinite Future: A Celebration of Leonard Bernstein (Monumental Theater), Catch Me If You Can (Act Two at Levine), Tommy (Kensington Arts Theater), Aida and In the Heights (Northwest High School), Spamalot and Forever Plaid (Rockville Musical Theater), and Beauty and the Beast (Damascus Theatre Company). She is a University of Maryland theater and music department alumnus and has trained professionally with DC and NYC artists. Marci is also a collaborative accompanist, mentor, audition coach and freelance musician.

STAGE MANAGEMENT INTENSIVE:

Rebecca Talisman is a working stage manager for theater and opera, occasional playwright, and constant quip machine. DC area stage management credits include: 1st Stage: columbinus, Hero’s Welcome; Adventure Theatre MTC: Blueberries for Sal; Constellation Theatre Company: The Master and Margarita; Mosaic Theater: The Vagrant Trilogy, Hooded, or Being Black for Dummies, Paper Dolls, Queens Girl in Africa; NextStop Theatre: Godspell; Rorschach Theatre: Sing to Me Now; Theater J: The Jewish Queen Lear, Love Sick, Occupant, Talley’s Folly, The Wanderers; UrbanArias: Glory Denied, The Juliet Letters. Rebecca earned her BFA in Music Composition at Carnegie Mellon University.

ACTING INTENSIVE:

Clayton Pelham, Jr. (AEA) is an Actor/Spoken Word poet and playwright in the DC Metropolitan area. A native Washingtonian by way of Southeast, DC and Prince GeorgesCounty resident since the age of 5. Clayton is a Suitland High School Visual and Performing Arts graduate with a concentration in Acting. He is also a graduate of The Studio Theatre Acting Conservatory in Northwest, Washington, DC becoming the inaugural recipient of The Nancy Paris Scholarship – a scholarship, “Chosen by the faculty and presented to a highly dedicated third year student enrolled in Comedy class.” Clayton’s most recent productions includes Light (Signature Theatre S/R); The Royale(Olney Theater Center /1st Stage (co-production)); The Brother Size, Hero’s Welcome, and Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom (Helen Hayes Nomination, Outstanding Lead Actor in a Play – 1st Stage); Native Son, Charm (Mosaic Theater Company); The Great Society (Arena Stage); Words Become Flesh (Helen Hayes Nomination, Outstanding Lead Actor in a Play – Theater Alliance); The Orbit in Mercury (Spooky Action); A Theatrical Mixtape of the 90s (Flying V); Season of Lights (Discovery Theater); The Miser (Faction of Fools); Solomon and Marion (Anacostia Playhouse); A Raisin in the Sun (Compass Rose Theater). FILM: Army: SHARP Hazing and Sexual Assault, Army: Resilience Directorate (ARD) PSA (Rocket Media), Money Matters (Streamline Productions), Orange Juice in Bishop’s Garden (20/20 Productions). TELEVISION: Criminals at Work (BET); Southern Fried Homicide (Investigation Discovery). EDUCATION: The Studio Theatre Acting Conservatory; American Musical and Dramatic Academy (AMDA). UPCOMING: The Till Trilogy (Mosaic Theater).

AUDITION WORKSHOP:

Rikki Howie Lacewell is a WATCH nominated choreographer, director and performer based in the Washington DC area. She has worked extensively in the Professional and Community Theater community over the past 20 plus years.

Marci Shegogue See above.