PRODUCTION EXPERIENCE & PORTFOLIO
Artistic Resume
Directing
Digging Up Dessa
ASSISTANT DIRECTOR
EMERSON STAGE
By Laura Schellhardt
Directed by Jonathan Kitt
Photos by Roman Iwasiwka
45 Ballerina
DIRECTOR
+ ACTOR, COSTUMES, & PROPS
EMERSON STAGE - NEW FEST SHORT WORKS
Written By Bethany Rose Trimble
Sound by Maddie Wright
Lighting by Uli Kohrt
Minnie: Ella Barret (Performed by Madeline Niles)
Angel: Toby Loeb Roberts (Performed by Maggie Stewart)
A Personal Reflection:
This show has taught me A LOT about the magic of live theatre!
Originally, I had two actors who auditioned and rehearsed for this show. But as life usually goes, anything that can go wrong WILL go wrong. During the week of my show, not just one but BOTH of my actors were out with serious medical emergencies. At first, I could only laugh because what are the odds of something like this happening? I even considered taking the show out of the lineup. But I realized that this play will probably never get the audience it deserves if it is cut from this festival. Producing new works is what keeps theatre alive and current. If we strive for only perfection, so many amazing ideas end up abandoned for something more polished.
So I called up my friend Madeline and asked her if she would perform the scene with me for our weekend of shows. She had barely skimmed the script and was acting in another scene for this New Works festival, but being the amazing collaborator that she is, she enthusiastically agreed to lend me a hand. Together, we were able to put together something amazing. Maybe not as polished or as professional as my original vision, but that didn’t matter anymore because our playwright was able to see her world come to life and reach an audience full of people. If that isn’t a satisfying ending to a chaotic week, I don’t know what else would be.
Pandora’s Box of Doughnuts
DIRECTOR
EMERSON COLLEGE
By: Aly Kantor
Directorsfest - Fundamentals of Directing Class
Bridget O'Leary
Actors: Avery Stallings & Zola Lopes
Fight Direction/ Stage Combat
Broadsword Performace
STAGE COMBAT: HISTORICAL WEAPONRY CLASS
EMERSON COLLEGE
Ted Hewlett
Peter Pan
FIGHT DIRECTOR
SUMMER FENN DRAMA CAMP
Directed by Sam Meyers
Intimacy Direction
Hedwig and the Angry Inch
Intimacy Director
Emerson College: Musical Theatre Society
Directed by Bethany Trimble
Last Year
Intimacy Director
Emerson College: Rareworks
Directed by Cate Purvis
School of Rock
Intimacy Director
Emerson College: Kidding Around
Directed by Nathan Horowitz
Dear Morgan Le Faye,
Intimacy Director
Emerson College: Rareworks
Directed by Cate Purvis
Props
Food Prop Project
PROPS CONSTRUCTION CLASS
Ryan Bates
I made this fake fried chicken by sculpting clay into a chicken shape, coating it in Jaxan, sawdust, and bead foam, and painting the surface.
Dramaturgy
Songs for a New World
Dramaturg
Emerson College: Musical Theatre Against the Grain
Directed by Kiana McCully
My Dramaturgy Note:
What is a “new world”?
Growing up in school, I was taught that Christopher Columbus discovered a new world when he came across the Americas on his voyage across the Atlantic Ocean. Playwright and composer Jason Robert Brown likely had a similar association to mine, as shown in the second song of the show On the Deck of a Spanish Sailing Ship, 1492 which was the year that Columbus made his voyage.
But history is much more complicated than one simple story. The land that Columbus found when he reached the Americas was not exactly “new.” It had been inhabited for thousands of years prior to his “discovery.” The ship Columbus sailed was not the only ship in search of a new world in the year 1942. That was the year King Ferdinand II and Queen Isabella issued the Alhambra Decree, expelling all Sephardic (Spanish/Portuguese) Jews from their kingdoms if they did not convert to Catholicism. This forced 300,000 people to either convert or sail to a new world.
I say all of this to show you the amorphous history that is at the core of this show. Songs for a New World is a song cycle, meaning all of the stories told in the songs stand alone. But they all fit into this central theme, outlined beautifully by Jason Robert Brown in his statement to Masterworks Broadway: “It’s about one moment. It’s about hitting the wall and having to make a choice, or take a stand, or turn around and go back. The moment you think you know where you stand, the things that you’re sure of slip from your hand, and you’re suddenly a stranger in some completely different land.” Brown was twenty when he arrived in NYC and began his career in musical theatre. Nowadays, it’s impossible to be in the theatre world and not know his work. Parade, 13: The Musical, The Last 5 Years, and Songs for a New World have made him a household name. But that twenty-year-old who was finding his way in his new world was able to let go of everything he knew, and with the help of director Daisy Prince, made a piece of work in which a bunch of seemingly random pieces fit together in their own unique amalgamation.
As a college student living in 2026 America, every day feels like a new world. I turn on the news, and there is a new headline that literally alters the way I see life. The war with Iran, the ongoing genocide in Palestine, gun violence, the unethical usage of AI, LGBTQ rights being threatened in the US, government shutdowns, banning women’s reproductive rights, and literally so much more. I could be here listing things for another 20 pages. Like the characters in this show, all of us here at Emerson come with unique backgrounds and stories, but we are all united by the current events affecting our country. The work Jason Robert Brown has created fits together so beautifully because we are all united by the broader world that connects us all.