The People
Lisa Diana Shapiro
(book and lyrics)
Lisa’s first musical, Princess Phooey (music by Eric Rockwell) was produced at TADA! Youth Theater in 2008, selling out its run and garnering rave reviews. Other playwriting credits include the hit comedy Labor Pains, a Comedy in Nine Months, which played a sold-out premiere run at the Victory Theatre in Los Angeles and has been produced regionally. Labor Pains was a finalist in the New American Comedy Festival and a Backstage West/DramaLogue Garland Award nominee.
Aces Wild, Lisa’s first full-length play, premiered at Theatre Geo in Hollywood, winning awards in the FutureFest national play competition, the Jane Chambers Playwriting Competition and the Writer’s Digest Competition.
Lisa’s play . . . and Into the Fire has been workshopped Off-Broadway at Urban Stages and performed as a staged reading at Naked Angels in New York, and at the West Coast Ensemble and the Victory Theatre in Los Angeles. Her high-school tour show The End of the Story also received a workshop production Off-Broadway at TADA! Youth Theater.
Georgia Stitt
(music)
Georgia Stitt (composer/lyricist) wrote Big Red Sun (NAMT Festival winner in 2010, Arlen Award 2005 with John Jiler); The Water (with Jeff Hylton and Tim Werenko); The Danger Year (with Jamie Pachino); Mosaic (for Inner Voices with Cheri Steinkellner) and Samantha Spade, Ace Detective (for TADA! with Lisa Diana Shapiro). She has released three albums of her music: This Ordinary Thursday: The Songs of Georgia Stitt (2007), Alphabet City Cycle (2009) and My Lifelong Love (2011). Her songs and arrangements are represented on the solo albums of Susan Egan, Lauren Kennedy, Kate Baldwin, Robert Creighton, Stuart Matthew Price, Caroline Sheen, Daniel Boys, Kevin Odekirk and composer Sam Davis, as well as several Broadway Cares albums. Her choral piece With Hope and Virtue (using text from President Obama’s 2009 inauguration speech) was featured on NPR as part of Judith Clurman’s Dear Mr. President cycle, and her orchestral piece, Waiting for Wings, co-written with husband Jason Robert Brown, was commissioned by the Cincinnati Pops Orchestra and premiered there in 2013 with conductor John Morris Russell. Georgia has degrees from Vanderbilt University’s Blair School of Music and NYU’s Tisch School for the Arts. She is on the theater faculty at Pace University and is the composer-in-residence at Pasadena Presbyterian Church. www.georgiastitt.com
Joanna Greer
(director and choreographer of Samantha Spade, Ace Detective: The Case of the Maltball Falcon, TADA! Youth Theater).
Joanna is a Musical Theater Performance graduate from Columbia College Chicago. As a director-choreographer and teaching artist she has had the pleasure of working with numerous companies such as TADA! where she serves as Associate Artistic Director (Drama Desk Award), The American Ballroom Theater (featured in the award-winning documentary Mad Hot Ballroom), YANY, and The Steppenwolf Theatre Company. Joanna is also the co-founder of Kinetic Dance Theater, a NYC based dance theater collective. Currently, her choreography can be seen across North America in Fifty Shades! The Musical and The Gift of Winter at TADA!. She lives in Brooklyn with her husband, Ryan, and their two children, Miles and Liza.
Janine Nina Trevens
(Executive and Artistic Director, TADA! Youth Theater)
Janine Nina Trevens co-founded TADA! in 1984 with Linda Reiff. Since that time, she has served as Artistic Director for all works produced by the company. The has nearly 30 years experience in performing arts for family and teen audiences. Prior to TADA!, Nina was the Associate to the Producer and Production Stage Manager at the First All Children’s Theater, nationally and internationally respected family theater that developed original musicals performed by young people for family audiences.
For TADA!, she has commissioned over 25 musicals specifically for child and teen actors and family audiences. In addition, she has directed the Ensemble appearances at Central Park’s Easter Eggstravaganza, Salute to the Theater 2000 at Gracie Mansion, Circle Line’s 50th Anniversary, J.P. Morgan and The White House. She directed and adapted the company’s premiere musical, The Little House of Cookies and has also directed six staged readings and 20 mainstage productions for TADA!, including Princess Phooey, Everything About School (Almost), B.O.T.C.H., Maggie and the Pirate and Sleepover. She wrote and directed The History Mystery, Sweet Sixteen, The Perfect Monster and Odd Day Rain. She has also directed for the Woman’s Workshop, MCC and the Kennedy Center’s Educational Department’s New Vision/New Voices Program. In May 1997, Nina was selected as one of the 10 Parenting Leaders by Parenting Magazine. In 1999, she was one of only five women nationally to receive Family Circle‘s First Annual Halo Award for women who make a difference.
TADA! Youth Theater
Since 1984, TADA! has been providing young people of all different backgrounds, including a large number of disadvantaged children and families, the opportunity to explore and perform musical theater together in an educational, supportive, and professional environment. TADA!’s mission is two-fold: to provide high-quality original musical theater productions performed by talented kids for family audiences and to provide a safe, creative and nurturing place where kids can harness their inherent energy, build their self-assurance and realize their true potential through the unique collaborative art form that is musical theater. Through TADA!’s high-quality work, young people gain confidence and learn commitment, responsibility, communication and teamwork…skills that are critical to their success both in school and in life.
Every year, TADA! produces original musical theater productions with a discounted ticket program; free pre-professional training and youth development opportunities through the Resident Youth Ensemble Program composed of approximately 80 NYC kids ages 8-18; renowned Arts Education in-school residencies and after-school programs that are subsidized by our funders; and theater classes for kids of all ages taught by professional teaching artists and for which need-based scholarships are readily available. www.tadatheater.com
Myles Matsuno
(director, Slingin’ the Slang)
Internationally recognized director, editor and storyteller, Myles Matsuno serves as technical director at ABC West Coast, where he has worked on The Academy Awards, Dancing with the Stars, NBA Finals and more. He has produced, directed and edited a number of award-winning short films, including Under the Sun, which was presented at the Cannes Film Festival in 2011.
Since 2010, Myles has won awards at film festivals around the country for best directing, best editing, best cinematography, best film score, best sound design and best film. His more recent work includes directing episodes for Brooke Burke’s Modern Mom; a short film entitled Ella, which aired on prime time television in Chattanooga, TN on ABC, NBC and Fox; Truth or Dare, a short film shot in Atlanta, GA, and When Dreams Change, which recently premiered at the Atlanta Shorts Fest ’13. Myles is currently working on several feature films that are in progress.
John Todd
(choreographer, Slingin’ the Slang)
John had a great time working on Samantha Spade, Ace Detective. His recent choreography credits include: Sophia the First, Monsters University, Jake and the Neverland Pirates, and Mulan stage shows for Disney. Commercials: Rayban eyewear and Scope with Ryan Seacrest. Theatre: Kiss Me, Kate; Sunset Boulevard; Company; Leading Ladies; Bells Are Ringing; Anyone Can Whistle; Jasper in Deadland; Falsettos; The Full Monty; Gypsy; and Merrily We Roll Along. Film and television: The Office (assoc.), Saving Mr. Banks (assoc.), Step It Up and Dance (assoc.). John has also created three works for the Houston Ballet. As a performer, John’s Broadway credits include Movin’ Out (original cast) and The Phantom of the Opera. Film and television: Bourbon Street (series regular), As the World Turns, Sex and the City, Law and Order, Days of our Lives, Jack the Giant Slayer, Gnomeo and Juliet, Apha and Omega, Jackass Number Two, A Christmas Carol, Sironia and Spells (with John Lithgow).
