Learning through the Arts, is a culmination of my life’s work as a director and educator.  It is rooted in the timeless truth that the Arts is a catalyst for freedom and liberation and an agency for healing, discovery, curiosity and change.  As a healing agent, the Arts revives innate creative genius and potential. When the Arts moves us, it becomes a force for freedom and liberation.   Without the Arts, creative thinking found in discovery and curiosity are not present.  Learning through the Arts holds space for all these truths.

As a theater director, I bring my creative imagination to the work we produce, illuminating big ideas and universal themes about humanity.  I seek to bring to focus the seamless connection between the Arts, literacy development and critical thinking to inspire creativity, self-love, and liberation.   As a producer and manager, I engage with culture bearers and artists whose work transforms experiences and dismantles oppressive ideas.  As an artist/educator, I seek to uplift creative work and people who act as an antidote to xenophobia, racism, homophobia and misogyny.

Originally from Kansas, I began my creative pursuits with acting studies at NYU’s Lee Strasberg Theatre Institute before earning a Bachelor of Arts degree in Drama Studies at SUNY Purchase. I then pursued a Master of Fine Arts in Theater Directing and Management from Brooklyn College. For over 20 years, I worked as a theater director and educator in New York City, directing numerous plays and musicals for both youth and adults. My work was primarily based at Harbor Conservatory for the Performing Arts, but also included directing at the NYU graduate writing program and my own theater, Underhill 190 in Brooklyn. Additionally, I hold a master’s degree in literacy education from Binghamton University and have 27 years of experience teaching all ages, from children to adults.