Summer Academy Faculty
Jim Jack
Director of Summer Theatre Academy
Jim is the Director of Education and Outreach for George Street Playhouse. Prior to GSP, Jim co-founded and was the theatrical curriculum specialist of Bronx Theatre High School, a New Century High School in partnership with Roundabout Theatre Company. Jim served in many capacities for Roundabout Theatre Company, most notably as Acting Director of Education. Jim has worked with the education departments of 92 Street Y, Metropolitan Opera Guild, Westfield State College and Northern Stage. Jim received his MFA from the Academy for Classical Acting at George Washington University.
As an actor, Jim’s favorite New York and regional acting credits include: Horatio in Hamlet; Benedick in Much Ado About Nothing; Banquo in Macbeth; the Bastard in King John; John Hale in The Crucible; Jacques in As You Like It; the Cardinal in The Cardinal; Flute in A Midsummer Night’s Dream; Mercutio in Romeo and Juliet; and Tom Joad in The Grapes of Wrath. Jim has performed with the Shakespeare Theatre, Pennsylvania Shakespeare Festival, San Jose Repertory Theatre, Northern Stage, and Everyman Theatre to name a few. Directing credits include: K2 (Dramalogue Award); The Birds; Where is Home?; The Way it Was; Burn This; Life and Limb; The Dumb Waiter; and The Zoo Story. Jim is currently in post-production as the writer and director of his first film: Door Number Two. Proud member of AEA and SAG.
Christa Cillaroto
Summer Theatre Academy Assistant Director
Christa Cillaroto (Education Associate / Teaching Artist) – has been a teaching artist with George Street Playhouse since 2008. Previously, she taught for The Children's Acting Academy in New York City. Her passion for teaching theater developed while working with the Livingston Theatre Company, a student-run theater company at Rutgers University. While with the LTC, Christa was involved in over 18 musical theater productions as well as the Education/ Outreach Summer Program for middle school students in the greater Piscataway area. In addition to teaching, her theater experiences range from performance and design to directing and producing. Christa is a graduate of Douglass College, Rutgers University with a BA in Theater Arts
Annie Rutherford Lutz
Summer Theatre Academy Assistant Supervisor
Annie Rutherford Lutz recently graduated from Douglass College this May with a double major in Theatre Arts and English. She has been a member of the Livingston Theatre Company since her freshman year, where she directed Seussical, the Musical!, costume designed four shows, and performed in nine. Previous roles include Little Sally in Urinetown, Jeanette in The Full Monty, Woman 1 in Songs for a New World, Marueen in Rent, and Beggar Woman in Sweeney Todd. Annie also had the fortune to appear in last year's NYC Fringe Festival in The Green Manifesto, where she won a Producer's Award for her performance. This Fall, she will be joining the cast of the George Street Educational Touring Company.
Mark Bruckner
Music Director
Intercultural theatre, musical adaptation, and new play development is the primary focus of his theatre work; he has received commissions from colleges, universities, and producing organizations across the country to compose, direct music, and create sound for classic and contemporary plays. For the past 15 years, he‘s been working within communities to make theatre that gives expression to diverse visions and underrepresented voices. Highlights include Krasang Tree (Theatre de la Jeune Lune), a chamber opera based on the poetry of U Sam Ouer, developed through outreach to the Cambodian refugees in Minnesota; God, the Crackhouse and the Devil (LaMama, NYC) by Levy Lee Simon, scored for hip-hop jazz sextet; a musical adaptation of Midsummer Night’s Dream, commissioned by the University of Iowa; Gift of the Magi, a new musical for Riverside and Eulenspiegel Puppet Theatres; Suzan-Lori Park’s In the Blood and Stephen Adly Giurgis‘ Jesus Hopped the A Train (Brooklyn College), featuring music for jazz-percussion ensembles. He has been resident music director for Iowa Summer Rep for the past 20 seasons. In NYC, he’s worked with such companies as The Women’s Project, Circle Repertory, Imua, LaMama, the Workshop Theatre and Algonquin Theatre, and he’s a frequent guest artist at Brooklyn College. He received a 2008 NY Innovative Theatre Award nomination for his spoken-word musical, Same Train. As a teaching artist he has been blessed to teach songwriting, musical theatre, composition, and intercultural music workshops to youth in schools throughout NYC.
Christi Hanson
Acting Instructor
A longtime GSP Academy Instructor, Christi Hanson recently completed her masters' degree in educational theatre and English education from New York University. Since 2003, she has worked with children in a variety of capacities, specializing in drama work but also working with both mainstream children and children with special needs in English, drama and life skills education. She has experience with children as young as three and as old as eighteen, often in groups of mixed ages, requiring advanced differentiation. She has directed and stage managed professionally, as well as touring as a puppeteer. She passionately believes that all students can learn and that drama can help them do it.
Daphnie Sicre
Acting Instructor
Daphnie holds a B.A. in Journalism, History & Theatre from Lehigh University, M.A. in The Teaching of Social Studies from Teachers College, Columbia University, and an M.A. in Educational Theatre from New York University. Formerly a Swortzell Scholar, she is now Ph.D. candidate in Educational Theatre at New York University. For the past year, she has taught “Dramatic Activities in the Secondary Classroom” , “Theatre for Young Audiences I & II” at NYU, and “Intro to Speech” at BMCC. She has also conducted various workshops on Theatre for Social Change. In addition to her doctoral work, Daphnie works as a teaching artist for the George Street Playhouse and Hudson Valley Shakespeare Festival. She has directed over 25 productions with high school teenagers in Miami, Florida and since commencing her studies in New York, She has directed, “AfroLatino~Ism” “NuYork Pastorela”, and “Collateral Bodies”. Raised in Madrid, Spain but born in Guayaquil, Ecuador to Peruvian and Spanish parents, Daphnie shares a deep passion for discovering multiple Latino and African American perspectives in drama. While at NYU, she plans to focus her doctoral research on AfroLatino theatre and performance.
Dustin Ballard
Acting Instructor
Dustin Ballard is stoked to be at George Street Playhouse for the Summer Academy. As an actor, Dustin was the 2009 Region II Winner and National Finalist of the Irene Ryan Acting Scholarship. He has performed with many theatre companies in the area including Premiere Stages, Classics on Tour, Playwrights Theatre of New Jersey, Westco Productions, and on the Kean University stage where he received a B.F.A. in Theatre Performance. His favorite roles include Tybalt/Friar Lawrence in Romeo and Juliet, Mr. Cladwell in Urinetown, and Gail in Our Lady of 121st Street. As a teaching artist, he has worked with WINGS Performing Arts in South Mississippi, Hands-On Broadway in New York, and Kean University's Summer Musical Theatre Intensive. With WINGS, he directed the productions of The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe, Disney's 101 Dalmatians Kids!, and Alice and Wonderland. He is also a founding member of Live LIVE!, a New Jersey based theatre company.
Kristin Pfeifer
Stage Management and Technical Director
This is Kristin’s 4th summer teaching for the Academy. She is excited to be returning for what will be a great summer. Kristin is a graduate of Rutgers University with a Bachelor’s Degree in Theatre. She has stage managed numerous community theatre productions in the area including a few at Plays in the Park. Kristin has been working for the George St. Playhouse for the past 4 years. She started off as the Educational Tour Stage Manager for the first two years and is now the Assistant Stage Manager for the Mainstage.
Michael Walker
Musical Theatre/Acting Instructor
Michael holds a B.A. in theatre from the University of Alabama and is currently in his second year of training for an MFA in acting from Rutgers. He began his professional career working off-off broadway at the Brooklyn Gallery Players, Jean Cocteau Repertory, and the Looking Glass Theater in NYC. He has appeared in the National tours of Seussical, The Musical as Horton and Hairspray as Edna Turnblad, which he later performed at the Walnut Street Theatre. In addition, he has taught acting and musical theatre workshops at the University of Alabama, Theatre West Virginia, Greenbrier Valley Theatre, and numerous high schools. AEA member.
Fiona Daubon
Assistant Director Young Company
A native of the beautiful island of Jamaica, Fiona is committed to the development of the theatre arts education with youth. She holds a Bachelor of Arts Degree in Theatre Arts and Literatures in English from the University of the West Indies in Jamaica in conjunction with the renowned Edna Manley School of the Visual and Performing Arts. Fiona has been serving as a Theatre Arts Instructor at the George Street Playhouse Academy for the past year.
Kathleen A. Smith
Choreographer/Movement Instructor
Ms. Smith received her dance training at American Repertory Ballet’s Princeton Ballet School. She has also studied at the Joffrey Ballet School in New York City. Ms. Smith has performed in ARB’s production of “The Nutcracker” as well as having performed with Susan Tenney and Dancers, a Modern Dance company. Since 2003, Ms. Smith has taught at ARB’s Princeton Ballet School, specializing in Young Children’s Dance Education. Ms. Smith teaches and choreographs for DANCE POWER & DANCE POWER II outreach programs of American Repertory Ballet in collaboration with the New Brunswick Public School system. She also teaches Appalachian Clogging and has her own dance group called The Century Cloggers. This is Ms. Smith’s first summer at GSP.