MEET YOUR INSTRUCTORS: Master Class Series

Build your professional skills and maintain your creative muscles this winter! This master class series is for young performers age 14-18 looking to enhance their performance skills and prepare for college and professional auditions. Students will be guided by professionals from across the nation covering the following topics: Audition and Casting Process, Monologue Preparation, Advance Acting Technique, and Business of the Business. *There are no prerequisites required, but we strongly recommend students to have taken Acting I and Acting II prior to this class.

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Meet your instructors:

KHALIA DAVIS

Khalia Davis (she/her) is a bicoastal multidisciplinary artist splitting her time between the San Francisco/Bay Area and New York. Recently named Artistic Director of Bay Area Children’s Theatre where she led the premiere of A Kids Play About Racism, based on A Kids Book About Racism by Jelani Memory, creating a new hybrid between live theatrical storytelling and film. This work brought together over 40 theater producing partners and was viewed on Broadway on Demand nearly 80,000 times during its limited run. Now it lives on as a free resource for educators and their students. Directed and devised other new works like the award-nominated world premiere, She Persisted the Musical, based on the popular children's book by Chelsea Clinton with Bay Area Children’s Theatre as well as other prominent theaters: Atlantic Theater Company’s Atlantic for Kids, New York City Children’s Theater, Disney Theatrical Group, Spellbound Theatre and more. As a producer, Ms. Davis has helped organizations reach hundreds of thousands of young people through, interactive “edu-tainment” with the nationally known Story Pirates, generating new digital pre-school content with Spellbound at Home, and a new children’s web series chronicling the experiences of a little black puppet girl named Nia living through the COVID-19 pandemic with her personal web-based company, Kids at Heart Productions. Before assuming her new role as Artistic Director, Ms. Davis served as the Director of Inclusion and Education with Brooklyn Children’s Theatre restructuring their children’s musical theater programming through an anti-racism lens. BA in Theater Arts from the University of Southern California www.khaliadavis.com!

RUDY RAMIREZ

Rudy Ramirez (they/them) is a Brooklyn-based multidisciplinary artist, director, deviser, and arts educator. An Arizona State University alumnus, Rudy's first artistic home was at Childsplay in Tempe, AZ, where they served as an ensemble member and teaching artist for a number of seasons. Some of their favorite Childsplay projects include The Yellow Boat, Tomas & the Library Lady (national tour), and The Smartest Girl in the World. Rudy then moved on to the east coast, where they began working as a teaching artist with a focus on devised work with young people that explores personal identity, origins, and worldview. To that end, they facilitated residencies through Ping Chong + Company's Secret Histories Education program in New Jersey and New York schools. Additionally, Rudy created and developed the Devised Theatre program, centering the same social justice themes and explorations, for the New Jersey Performing Arts Center's YASI: Young Artist Summer Intensive. Most recently, Rudy served as the Director of Education for The Magik Theatre in San Antonio, TX. Rudy firmly believes in the transformative power of storytelling, art-making, and theatre for all.

MELISA FIRLIT

Melissa Firlit (she/her) was nominated for 3 Henry Awards by the Colorado Theatre Guild for her 2019 production of Jekyll & Hyde at the Pagosa Springs Center for the Arts. Her theatre company, Resolve Productions, received the 2020 Open Space Grant at the Episcopal Actors Guild for Marrow by Brian Quirk, which also had a run at the 2019 Edinburgh Fringe Festival. Recently she directed Analyze Zoom by Nandita Shenoy at Mile Square Theatre’s online fall series, where prior to “pandemic pause” she directed 5 Times in One Night by Chiara Atik. She directed the Ireland National Tour of Misterman by Enda Walsh. Melissa’s work has been seen nationally at 59East59th, Denver Center for the Performing Arts, New Light Theatre Project, The Princeton Festival, Creede Repertory Theatre, Pagosa Springs Center for the Arts and more. As part of her personal commitment to collaboration with playwrights, Melissa is the Artistic Director for the Thingamajig Playwrights Festival which provides a hands on development opportunity over the course of a ten day residency to two playwrights. Her favorite part of that festival is the Youth Playwrights Festival which brings to life the plays of young artists in the community with a professional team. To provide up and coming thespians with the same passion she thrives on, Melissa helmed a Musical Theatre Bootcamp Program at The College of St. Rose for 8 years. She is currently on faculty at Molloy College/Cap 21 Theatre Arts Program and National Theater Institute (NTI) at the Eugene O’Neill Theater Center. Training: MFA, Rutgers University, BA, The University of Hartford and National Theater Institute. Member SDC. www.melissafirlit.com.

KRISTOPHER
​THOMPSON-BOLDEN

Kristopher Thompson-Bolden (he/his) has spent the last 2 and a half years performing in the Australian and New Zealand premier of the hit musical The Book of Mormon!! His other credits include: Mamma Mia at The Hollywood Bowl, Dear World starring Tyne Daly, Anything Goes Revival directed and choreographed by Tony Winner Kathleen Marshall, Billy Elliot, The Color Purple starring American Idol Winner-Fantasia, and he also played CJ in the World Premier of the musical The Nutty Professor directed by the late legendary comedian Jerry Lewis. In addition to performing he has taught for Joffrey Musical Theatre Intensive in NYC and South Africa.

MATI RAFAEL CARDINALE

Mati Rafael Cardinale (she/her, they/them, he/him) is an emerging teaching artist who feels incredibly blessed to be a part of the SCT family. A queer immigrant from Venezuela, they use their life experience to work with immigrants and members of the LGBT community, striving to use theatre to bolster and comfort these groups in a society that marginalizes them. 

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