Staff/Faculty
ARTISTIC DIRECTOR:
Artistic Director JENNIFER BOESING began working professionally as a singer/actor in Minneapolis at the age of nine. Before she graduated from high school, she had performed with At the Foot of the Mountain Theater Company, Mabou Mines Theater, Heart of the Beast Puppet and Mask Theater, the Minnesota Orchestra, and the Minnesota Opera.
Jennifer graduated from the Neighborhood Playhouse School of the Theater in New York City, where she studied acting with Sanford Meisner and Richard Pinter. In 2002 she earned a Masters in Music from the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, where she recieved the Award for Outstanding Achievement in Operatic Performance. Locally, she has performed opera, oratorio, and new music theater; her professional credits include work with San Francisco Opera Center, San Francisco Lyric Opera, Pocket Opera, Golden Gate Men's Chorus, Gold Coast Chamber Players, Berkeley Symphony Orchestra, Berkeley Opera, Oakland East Bay Symphony, Oakland Opera Theater, Festival Opera, and North Bay Opera. She has been teaching voice privately since 1998.
She began working with YMTC in 2000 as Music Director, and served as Vocal Coach in 2002. She has served as Stage Director for all of YMTC's productions and has led the intensive singer/actor workshops for the company since 2004. She has been YMTC's Artistic Director since 2005.
RESIDENT MUSICAL DIRECTOR:
DAVID MOSCHLER is a conductor, accompanist, and instrumentalist originally from North Carolina. He conducts music-theatre, orchestral, choral, and chamber music, and film scores. After receiving his Master of Arts degree in conducting from UC Davis, Moschler made his bay area debut in the Fall of 2009 as music director for the sold-out run of The Threepenny Opera with Shotgun Players. He continues to work as music director with Light Opera Theatre of Sacramento, and this February will conduct world premiere performances with the Erika Chong Shuch Performance Project in San Francisco's City Hall. During the summer months Moschler works as a principal conductor for the College Light Opera Company in Cape Cod, Massachusetts. Mr. Moschler joined YMTC for the first time in the summer of 2010 to direct the music for their premier of The Mothers of Ludlow and has been directing all of the YMTC productions ever since.
OPERATIONS MANAGER:
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KRISTEN JONES received a degree in Music Performance from UC Davis and has been an active Bay Area violinist and violist since the Fall of 2008. She performs regularly with such groups as the Berkeley Symphony, Bay Area Rainbow Symphony, and Passport Chamber Symphony, as well as numerous local theater groups. Favorite recent shows include The Last 5 Years and Songs for a New World. She is a longtime member of the Davis-based Dolanc String Quartet, with whom she continues to perform throughout Northern California. Kristen serves as Donor Stewardship and Communications Fellow for Cal Performances' 2012-2013 season, and she currently works as personal assistant to composer John Adams.
Kristen has been a member of the YMTC family since joining the orchestra for Parade in early 2011, followed by Ragtime and West Side Story. She joined the staff in April 2012 and thoroughly enjoys being able to serve the Bay Area's most talented young people.
CHOREOGRAPHER/PRODUCTION MANAGER:
Prior to joining YMTC, PAM CRANE worked for several years with other non-profit educational and performing arts groups. She served as Board President of both Windrush School and the Young People's Chamber Orchestra, seeing both organizations successfully through challenging transitions and expansions. She also implemented the WriterCoach Connection program at King Middle School, managing it for three years. A professional consultant for many years in the field of management development and training, Pam has a Masters in Business Administration, and has also held senior management positions in human resources at Fireman's Fund Insurance Companies and KPIX Television.
Pam has appeared in a number of shows in the East Bay, including productions with Berkeley Opera, Contra Costa Musical Theater and Diablo Light Opera. Pam's past choreography credits include Kiss Me, Kate, Anything Goes, Guys & Dolls, West Side Story and Jesus Christ Superstar, and she has co-directed YMTC workshops for the last four years.
MUSIC DIRECTOR/COMPOSER:
DAVE MALLOY has written music for seven full length musicals, including Natasha, Pierre & The Great Comet of 1812, an electro-pop opera based on War & Peace, for which he was also librettist, orchestrator and performer (2012 Richard Rodgers Award for Musical Theater; Best of 2012: NY Times, Time Out, NY Mag, NY Post). Other musicals include Beowulf - A Thousand Years of Baggage (2011 Edinburgh Herald Angel, 2008 Glickman Award, New Yorker Best of 2009); Beardo; Sandwich; and Clown Bible (“Best Play of the Year,” “Best Music,” East Bay Express 2007). He is also one of the co-creator/performers of Three Pianos, a drunken romp through Schubert’s Winterreise (Ontological-Hysteric Theater, New York Theater Workshop, American Repertory Theater; Special Citation OBIE Award), and the composer for the Brooklyn based ensemble Banana Bag & Bodice. Other notable shows include (The 99-cent) Miss Saigon, a shoe-string adaptation complete with a toy helicopter on a zip line, and pieces with Hoi Polloi, Witness Relocation, Clubbed Thumb, and Shotgun Players. Other awards include a 2009 Jonathan Larson Grant and the 2009-11 NEA/TCG Career Development Program for Theatre Designers. He was the 2011 composer-in-residence at Ars Nova, and has been a Guest Professor in devised music theater at Princeton and Vassar Universities. He lives in Brooklyn.
MUSIC DIRECTORS:
LISA QUORESIMO is a private vocal coach, composer, playwright and director. Her most recent works include Ciribiribin, Between Dirt and Sky, and Siddhartha: The Bright Path, which has been produced across the U.S. and India. Lisa was the Co-Founder and Artistic Director of Kairos Theatre Company in New York, where she produced and directed more than 30 productions, including Jimmy Tingle’s Uncommon Sense, which went on to a Broadway production. Her works: Not My Heart’s Desire and Antigone: a Fable Without Walls were produced off-off Broadway. Lisa holds an M.A. from Carnegie Mellon University and also received theatrical training at New York’s Circle in the Square. She has taught at N.Y.U.’s Tisch School of the Arts and the Manhattan School of Music.
BRIAN NIES received a Masters in Music in Orchestral Conducting from the Peabody Conservatory, and is currently Assistant Conductor with the Oakland East Bay Symphony, Principal Conductor of the Oakland Youth Orchestra. He has worked with Festival Opera, Opera San Jose, American Musical Theater of San Jose and Theatreworks in Palo Alto. Mr Nies was the Music Director and Conductor for YMTC's production of Once Upon a Mattress in the winter of 2010.
A native of Syracuse, New York, JOE SIMIELE holds a Bachelor of Music degree from the Ithaca College School of Music and a Masters from San Francisco State University. Joe is excited to be part of A Chorus Line, his first time musical directing at YMTC. In the past year, Joe has served as musical director for You're a Good Man Charlie Brown (St. Cecilia's School), NINE (CCCT), Bat Boy (Altarena), and 42nd Street (CCMT). He also played piano for Movin' On Out!, one of over 30 original musicals for young actors by his father, Richard J. Simiele. Mr. Simiele, served as Music Director for YMTC's fall 2009 production of A Chorus Line.
TECHNICAL DIRECTOR:
GLEN EPPERSON has worked as a lighting technician and master electrician in professional theaters throughout the country, most recently at the American Conservatory Theater in San Francisco and at Berkeley Repertory Theater. Mr. Epperson has designed and built the sets for the past five productions at YMTC and has served as the company's Technical Director since 2008.
TEACHERS/CO-DIRECTORS:
DEREK LUSCUTOFF is a UC Berkeley student majoring in Political Science and minoring in Music and Dance/Performance Studies. Originally from the Sacramento area, he came to Berkeley in 2010 and dove back into the world of musical theatre after a brief hiatus. In addition to finessing his own dance technique in genres ranging from ballet to hip hop, Derek has taken on several leadership roles as a music director, rehearsal/pit pianist, and choreographer for various productions on the UC Berkeley campus. In his spare time, he coordinates and performs musical revues at retirement homes and assisted living facilities. Derek has enjoyed performing in several YMTC shows--Anything Goes, Ragtime, and West Side Story. He recently taught YMTC's first dance class, and taken the position of co-choreographer for Wonderful Town! alongside fellow choreographer Pam Crane.
RUSSELL WRIGHT is a native of Berkeley, and has been working with youth ages 5-18 in the San Francisco Bay Area for over 20 years, specializing in many facets of performing arts including directing, writing, improvisation, song writing, hip hop spoken word, costumes, scenery, choreography as well as dance instruction. As a dance teacher he is well versed in ballet, jazz dance, ballet, hip-hop and West African. He has worked in a variety of settings including the Berkeley-Albany YMCA as a summer program coordinator, dance teacher, site coordinator and drama instructor, Julia Morgan Center for the Performing Arts as a youth theatre director and as a board member. He was the lead choreographer and consultant on African-American themes for San Francisco Day School's Summer Center Stage production "There's Got To Be A Way" in 2004. He has also had a successful association with the Marsh Youth Theatre in San Francisco, starting with the summer program in 2006. In the spring of 2007 he was the contemporary choreographer for MYT's "Siddhartha," a production so successful that it was revived that winter as a family holiday attraction. Russell's choreography was reviewed in the San Francisco Bay Times as a show-stopping Bollywood hip-hop number that brings the house down every time. His most recent show "1968: Visions of Change" gave young actors a chance to explore the politics, culture and music of "The Summer of Love." Russell is the Drama and Movement teacher at Walden Center & School, where he mounts several performance there a year. Russell was voted "Best Teacher grades K-12" in the East Bay Express Readers Poll.
SUSANNAH MARTIN is an award-winning director, teacher, and theatremaker. Susannah has taught and directed for organizations throughout the Bay Area, and for five years was the Joint Artistic Director of Paducah Mining Co., a San Francisco-based theatre ensemble that produced acclaimed work by established playwrights and devised original pieces on complex material such as domestic terrorism, spousal abuse, and poverty in America. She has taught movement, voice, acting, and composition for California Shakespeare Theater for the past nine years and directed several Shakespeare productions for their 5-week summer conservatory. Susannah has also taught and/or directed for UC Davis, Los Medanos College, St. Mary's College, Shotgun Players (of which she is also a proud company member), A.C.T., Marin Theatre Company, Porchlight Theatre Company, Sonoma County Rep., TheatreFIRST, Town Hall Theatre Company, the New Conservatory Theatre, the Berkeley Playhouse, and a variety of high schools throughout San Francisco and the East Bay. Susannah received her BFA from NYU and her MFA from UC Davis.
Voice teacher BETTY SCHNEIDER's client roster includes Grammy and Tony award winning singers. She travels throughout the United States and Europe presenting workshops in musical theatre, pop, r&b and jazz. She has pursued a life-long career in the arts in such diverse fields as dance, choreography, directing, lighting, acting, singing and teaching. Since graduating from Oberlin College with a BA in Theatre Arts, she has worked with many institutions including American Conservatory Theatre, Berkeley Repertory Theatre, Theatreworks, Seth Rigg's Summer Institute in Los Angeles, and Green Voices Institut in Munich. Having trained in New York and Los Angeles, Betty now resides in Berkeley where she specializes in teaching seamless vocal technique and passionate performance.
RANA WEBER is an actor, singer/songwriter, musician, writer, director, teacher and acting coach in the Bay Area and is a graduate of NYU's Tisch School of the Arts where she earned the prestigious Founders Day Award for scholastic excellence and a BFA (with honors) in Acting. Rana specializes in preparing actors and singers for specific auditions and callbacks; she also enjoys working with people to enhance their performance in a role they've already landed. Rana's students have booked guest spots on TV and principal roles in film, theatre, voice-overs and commercials. As a teacher, she throughly enjoys working with students at all levels, and was most recently seen teaching YMTC’s Pocket Broadway with co-teachers Dave Moschler and Jennifer Boesing.
SKYE ATMAN performs regularly as pianist with many leading Bay Area soloists and ensembles and is a highly regarded vocal coach and accompanist. She is a versatile musician who enjoys working with theatrical companies such as Berkeley Repertory Theater, North Bay Opera, the Mendocino Music Festival, and the Marin Theater. She has been Assistant Music Director at Oakland Opera Theater for the past 7 years, and has particularly enjoyed working with YMTC since its early beginnings. Skye completed her graduate studies in accompanying with Jean Barr at the University of Southern California and worked as a free-lance musician in Los Angeles and London before moving to Berkeley in the '90s.