Education Consultants are professional educators who have years of teaching, collaborating with artists and educators and who have trained new teachers before. TAC’s Education Consultants work with TAC teachers in providing teacher training and curriculum advisement.
Production Electrician
BFA Theatre
Sarah is a New York based freelance production electrician and project manager, specializing in events and theatre. Sarah has enjoyed sharing her knowledge and love of technical production with all ages, from day campers and university students, to working professionals. Sarah holds a BFA from East Carolina University where she was an undergraduate teaching assistant in the technical theatre department. Sarah is the recipient of the Roulston Award for theatrical excellence from East Carolina University.
Business Owner, Rigger, Inventor
ETCP Certification as Theatrical Arena Rigger; IRATA & SPRAT rope access certs; BFA Sculpture
Anthony Bonilla is a long-time rigger and artist. In college, Anthony began his studies in Art Education and finished his studies in sculpture. During college he got the theatre tech bug through playing with fellow TAC member, Shawn Robinson. Anthony and Shawn funded their college educations largely through gigging in the city, where Anthony, an avid climber, found rigging to be his calling. Twenty years later, Anthony is an ETCP Certified Theatrical Arena Rigger with IRATA and SPRAT rope access certs. He toured for eight years and then settled down in New York City to rig over one hundred events per year as the head rigger at event space, Cipriani 42nd, and for his own company BNW Rigging. Tony has also developed the iPHONE app “Event Rigging Helper”to aid riggers on the go everywhere. To learn more about Tony’s work, please go to BNWRigging.
English Teacher, Community Service Coordinator
MA English, MFA Creative Writing
Nicole Butterfield was born and raised in Andover, Massachusetts, and she has been teaching English in independent schools for twenty years. Currently, Mrs. Butterfield teaches 7th and 9th grade English and Community Service at a prestigious independent school in Westchester, NY. After Hurricane Sandy hit the East Coast, Mrs. Butterfield and Hackley’s current ninth grade class established an ongoing effort to serve storm-damaged communities on Staten Island and in the Rockaways. She enjoyed spending her summers in Vermont, New Mexico and Oxford, England while earning her MA from Middlebury College’s Bread Loaf School of English. The MFA program at Sarah Lawrence College brought her to Westchester County where she has been living, writing, and teaching since 1994. In her free time, she travels throughout New England with her family, camping, kayaking, and taking hundreds of photographs
Teacher, Curriculum Writer, Production Manager, Director, Playwright, Lighting Technican & Actress
MFA in Performance and Interactive Media Arts; MA in Applied Theatre; IB Certifications in MYP Arts/Theatre; MYP Design Technolgy; PYP
TAC is a culmination of things I’ve been enjoying and thinking about since I was young. At six years old I found immense joy in creating theatre. I decided then that theatre would be my work in life, so I never understood why it was marginalized in my schools – relegated to purely an after school activity until I was in High School. By 15 I was acting, directing, writing, teaching theatre and hanging lights. This world of theatre, being on ladders and teaching made sense to me, yet it was more discouraged than encouraged because it was not “practical”. As an adult, I find that this most impractical theatre training of my youth is the ground on which I practically build an interesting fulfilling life as an adult. A life that has led me to Rwanda to use theatre to help heal the effects of the genocide; to train formerly incarcerated men to work with teens through theatre; to write a curriculum in four subjects to support Eve Ensler’s work with teenage girls and her plays, I Am An Emotional Creature: the Secret Life of Girls Around the World; and to teach hundreds of first through eighth graders mandatory theatre and design technology that reinforced their academics while developing their social and emotional growth and, of course, their theatre artistry.
What most bothers me about my own education is that every teacher, especially in high school, knew that theatre was my passion. Yet, instead of teaching me to build with my geometry, I was banned from the theatre for flunking geometry. I know now that if I had built with my geometry I would have understood it’s use and formulas in my limbs, which would have helped me to make understanding in my mind. As a teacher who has taught several subjects, it is my opinion that if a student does not understand the relevance of a subject, then the educational system has failed, not the student. Why should a student learn something if that student does not understand how what they are learning is useful? We understand the usefulness of what we learn by using our learning in ways that have meaning to us. Our educational system often does not emphasize the real application of concepts through making things that matter to us as students. TAC is an attempt to help bridge this gap. By bringing designers and technicians together with educators to create project-based lessons, TAC aims to create learning experiences that inspire students and deepen their understanding of what they are already learning in their classes by linking theory to practice. I am hoping that our program will grow and inspire others to use theatre as a tool for teaching academics and art, while developing social and emotional growth in students.
Kim has 20 years both as a theatrical professional and as a teacher. Kim holds an MFA in Performance and Interactive Media Arts from Brooklyn College; an MA in Applied Theatre from the University of Southern California; International Baccalaureate Certifications in: Primary Years 1, Middle Year Arts 1 & 2, Middle Year Design Technology 2; Alexander Technique Teacher Certification; and a BA in Theatre, Literature and Religion from Sarah Lawrence College. She was awarded the American Shakespeare Center’s Words in Action Award for Excellence in teaching Shakespeare in 2011. While teaching, Kim has continued to work as a professional production manager, stage manager and production electrician. She has worked for Lincoln Center, Brooklyn Academy of Music, George Lewis, Meredith Monk, Danspace, The Wooster Group, Conway & Pratt Projects, Festival Productions and many, many others. In addition, she continues to work as an Alexander teacher and to freelance in production.
In her free time Kim enjoys being with her friends and family, reading, cooking, fostering kittens, making packages of joy to surprise friends and family, getting to the ocean and writing plays, letters, journal entries, poetry, lists and notes in the margins of books.
Business Owner & Head of Educational Programming for her Company
BFA Performance and Technical Theatre
Melissa is an owner and Vice President at Tinc Productions, a NYC based production management and labor staffing firm. She began working in the theater at the age of 3, singing and dancing in musicals, TV commercials and corporate fundraising events. She knows without a doubt that the education she gained working in the theater as a child and adolescent has had profound effects on her career and opened her eyes to the world of business through art. Her parents are both scientists and artists, and taught her from an early age that science IS art.
She is the founder of Tinc Tuesdays, a continuing education and networking initiative aimed at providing continuing education opportunities and community for NYC area “freelance” theatrical and events technicians. Educational programming centers around the continued need to focus on safety, innovation, and communication.
She worked as an instructional designer and manager for global education events for Goldman Sachs and holds a degree in performance and technical theatre from Emerson College in Boston. In her spare time she cuts gemstones, looks through her microscope, sings in a community choir and travels the world.
Teacher, Curriculum Writer, Director & Actor
MA Shakespeare & Renaissance Literature; BFA Theatre; earning Certification as Linklater Voice Teacher
Becky Kemper has been a director, actor, and teacher specializing in Shakespeare and Voice for more than 20 years. Having just returned from four months in New York City working directly with Kristin Linklater, she is currently Director of Training at San Francisco Shakespeare Festival and teaches at Berkeley Rep and Academy of Art University. Prior to San Francisco, she served as Producing Artistic Director for Maryland Shakespeare Festival (an equity theater she founded in 1999), Artistic Director of the Metawhateverphor Theater in NYC, Director of Education for Baltimore Shakespeare Festival, and chairperson of the Artistic Council of Shakespeare Theater Association. She is a company member and text teacher for Shakespeare & Co. in Massachusetts.
Becky holds a BFA from NYU’s Tisch School of Arts, a Master of Letters in Shakespeare & Renaissance Literature, an MFA in Directing (both from the American Shakespeare Center), and is currently working toward a certification as a Linklater Voice Teacher later this year. Favorite directing credits include: Macbeth, Hamlet, Romeo & Juliet, W;t, Learning to Drive. Favorite acting roles include: Amy in the NY premiere of Thank You, Amy; Kate in Taming of the Shrew; Viola in Twelfth Night; Mistress Ford in Merry Wives of Windsor at Maryland Shakespeare Festival; and Lancelot Gobbo in Merchant of Venice at Shakespeare & Company. She has presented her research into Shakespeare’s dramatic use of rhetoric at numerous national conferences, and theatrical workshops across the country, as well as having her scholarship published in the Wooden O Journal and Shakespeare Criticism, online.
Teacher; Curriculum Writer
MA Applied Theatre; BFA Theatre Arts Administration
Lakaysha Lee-Hill is a passionate arts educator who holds a B.F.A. in Theatre Arts Administration from Howard University and M.A. in Applied Theatre Arts from the University of Southern California. Her career as an arts educator has allowed her to form several curricular programs with schools and community organizations that integrate theatre in education, therapy and social change movements. Lakaysha is a co-founder of Changing Ways, a participatory theatre group for formerly incarcerated men who seek to mentor youth through theatre. She spent last summer in Rwanda using theatre for healing in traumatized communities and hopes to continue to pursue innovative work in theatre and education.
Teacher, Technical Director, Carpenter, Rigger
MFA Technical Design and Production
John McCullough has been building things for plays since he worked for his class company in eighth grade. Now, he is the Technical Director at New York City College of Technology,where he teaches scenery construction and stage machinery. John is also the Technical Director for New York Stage and Film’s Powerhouse Summer Season. Other work includes freelance technical direction and event production with companies such as Ars Nova, Yale Repertory Theatre, and Viva Creative. John earned his MFA in Technical Design and Production at the Yale School of Drama.
Stage Manager
BA Technology in Entertainment Technology; AA Humanities, Social Sciences & Early Childhood Education; NY State Certified Early Childhood Development; Certified Teacher of English as a Foreign Language
Nicole K Press (Stage Manager, Production Manager, Theatrical Technician) has been professionally stage managing for theater, dance, music, circus, opera and special events for over 15 years. She has worked at such institutions as Lincoln Center, Carnegie Hall, Avery Fisher Hall, NYU Skirball Center, New York City Center, Jacob Javits Center, The Irish Arts Center, The New Victory Theater, The SoHo Playhouse, HERE Arts Center and more. She has toured both nationally and internationally with the Troika/Broadway Asia’s tour of The Sound of Music, Lee Breuer’s The Gospel at Colonus, The Nai-Ni Chen Dance Company, Cirque Le Masque, The Rap Guide to Evolution/The Canterbury Tales Remixed, among others. Recent New York highlights include: Gotham Chamber Opera Company’s world premier of Eliogabalo, Lee Breuer’s opus work: La Divina Caricatura, Julie Feeney: 10 nights in New York at the Irish Arts Center and a most humbling ASM position for the world class benefit: From Broadway with Love: A benefit concert for Sandy Hook. When not backstage, Nicole has often found herself in the classrooms of New York sharing her passions of what happens behind the scenes. She has been working as a Teaching Artist mentoring students in Stage Management, Lighting Design, Scenic Design and other backstage arts for the last 10 years with The Roundabout Theater Company, Town Hall, and other schools. Nicole holds a Baccalaureate in Technology in Entertainment Technology from New York City College of Technology, an Associates Degree in Humanities and Social Sciences with a focus in Early Childhood Education from SUNY Rockland, is NY State Certified in Early Childhood Development and is recently certified to teach English as a Foreign Language. An avid traveler, explorer, scuba diver, and general student of the world, Nicole is eager to aid students young and old become agents in their own learning.
Science Teacher, Sculptor, Carpenter, Environmental Scientist
MSEd Middle School Science; BFA Fine Art
Georgia Warren has been an educator for the past decade and has worked with all ages ranging from infants to adults. With a background in art and science, she melds her love of learning with her training as a sculptor, carpenter, and environmental scientist/educator, as well as informing her pedagogy with the most current neuro-developmental research. She holds a BFA from Tufts University in Fine Art, a Masters in Middle School Science Education from CCNY and is currently a Middle School Science teacher at Hellenic Classical Charter in Brooklyn. She intends on continuing her climb up the Academic ladder and pursuing a PhD investigating the relationship between tactile manipulatives and neuroplasticity as it relates to learning. She lives in Brooklyn with her lovely husband, two cats, two fire bellied toads, and a dog (aka the WarLough micro-zoo.)
