Teaching Artists

Allison Reed

Allison Reed (she/her) is a theatre actor, facilitator, creator, and mother who lives in Queens, NY. Born and raised in New Hampshire, Allison has called New York home for almost twenty years. Working as a theatre teaching artist provides the perfect opportunity to combine her passion for art with her commitment to making the world better, one interaction at a time.

 

Briget Villanueva

Briget is a Filipina Queens, NY-based painter and teaching artist. She received her BFA from the Fashion Institute of Technology (FIT) in 2017. She creates heavily with graphite, acrylic, and watercolor paints. Being a visceral creator, the core of her work often seeks to portray moments that evoke nostalgia, identity, and our essence. Landscapes serve as a vehicle for her wanderlust, while portraiture is where her hand feels most at home.

As an educator, Briget has worked with the Children’s Museum of the Arts, ArtsConnection, Marquis Studios, various schools, and programs to provide a creative outlet for young artists of all backgrounds. Encouraging collaborative thinking and fostering a safe space for students to learn how to express themselves is essential. The experiences and skills developed would be nurtured to thrive beyond the arts, which is needed now more than ever. Their voice is the center of the narrative.

Brynne O’Rourke

Brynne O’Rourke (they/them) is a white, Transfemme director, multidisciplinary artist, teaching artist and poet dedicated to anti-oppressive practices and imaginings for a more just world. As a theatre practitioner, Brynne commits themself to stories that challenge and expand definitions of performance in ways that uplift the project of liberation. They are a member of the F.U.N. (FiercedUntamedNiñes) Collective, Pride Youth Theatre Alliance, Trans Asylum Seeker Support Network and Trans Writers Union. They co-founded and co-produced the first ever Gallatin Mental Health Arts Festival.  In 2023, they are a recipient of a teaching artist mentorship through NYC Arts in Education Roundtable, an Artist Residency with Motive Brooklyn, and an Artist-Activist fellowship with EmergeNYC. They recently finished a micro-residency working on their project, Stitching Grief, with Loisaida Inc. Center. Their work as a director, playwright and performer has been showcased at Fiasco Theater Company, Dixon Place, WOW Cafe Theater, The Tank, The Brick, The Flea, The Kraine Theater, usagi gallery, Skidmore College, among others.

As a teaching artist, Brynne has worked with Brooklyn Arts Council, Arts For All, Franklin Furnace Fund, PRY SAFE, WSR Signature Theatre, Elmwood Day Camp, and IlluminArt. They also co-teach an MSW course on Applied Theatre and Social Work at Hunter’s Silberman School of Social Work. Brynne has produced and co-created many Applied Theatre projects. Brynne holds an MA in Applied Theatre from CUNY School of Professional Studies. www.brynneorourke.com IG: @ksbrennan1

Hilda Abla

Lebanese-Armenian multidisciplinary artist and body image activist Hildos, was born Hilda Abla in Beirut and lived during the 15 years of war that Lebanon went through. She started her artistic venture when she was 5 at the children art program at the Lebanese American University, through which she pursued her Art studies and graduated in 1996. In 2009, she received her Masters degree in Marketing and Communications at L’Ecole Supérieure des Affaires (ESCP-EAP). Since 1996, she has worked in different art and design fields from which she got an extensive experience in visual and digital arts, such as graphic design, illustration, animation, photography and conceptualizing and managing digital marketing campaigns over social media and other mediums. In 2011, she was selected to participate in the exclusive Milton Glaser (the creator of I ❤️ NY logo) program at the School of Visual Arts, and again in 2012, she was selected to participate in the Summer Painting Residency at the same university. Hildos participated in many solo and group exhibitions in both Beirut and New York City.  She also created the Comic strip “Hildos in the City” which she uses to share her ideas and experiences in the city. Hildos believes that all art forms and teaching arts comes with a responsibility; it’s a message catalyst; a tool for inclusion, healing, sharing ideas, collaboration, personal and professional self-growth, and addressing any social issue. Her latest commitment is directed to changing the way people view their bodies and themselves on different levels and facets such as abilities, gender identity, ageism, physical looks, etc. … She conveyed her idea about this challenge that she faced most of her life and how she used her art to heal herself in her TEDTALK in September 2013. From Beirut to New York City, the city she considers her muse where she moved permanently in 2013, she started a new venture by working as a Teaching Visual and Digital Artist in low-income schools, community centers, and shelters in all the 5 boroughs. She is committed to help students of all ages and backgrounds, adults with disabilities and seniors to explore and enhance their personal and collaboration skills, improve self-expression through sharing ideas, learn inclusion and embrace other cultures in the melting pot that is NYC.

Kimberly Schafer 

Kimberly Schafer is an Award Winning Director, Choreographer and Educator. She received her Bachelor of Performing Arts in Dance Performance from Oklahoma City University and her Masters in Theatre Education from Catholic University. Recently, she was selected to be a member of the International Dance Council CID. Currently, she is an Adjunct Professor of Dance for the musical theatre programs at Marymount Manhattan and CAP21 in New York City. In 2019, She was so honored to work and collaborate with the brilliant Tony Award Winner Andre de Shields on Sophisticated Ladies at the New Jersey Performing Arts Center. She was the Dance Assistant for Tommy Tune and Chita Rivera for their US tour Chita and Tune: Just in Time. Also, she assisted Tommy Tune and Randy Skinner on the production of Lady be Good at City Center Encores. She was the Associate Choreographer/Dance Captain for Broadway Backwards at the Al Hirschfeld Theatre and has been an associate choreographer for Broadway Bares 24-26. She is the creative director for Masq, a benefit show for The LGBTQIA Center in NY.  She also spends time as a Director for Celebrity Cruise Lines based in Miami. Some of her regional choreography credits include ON THE TOWN, CRAZY FOR YOU, and many more. She teaches at Broadway Dance Center, Radio City Music Hall, and various studios around the United States.  Featured performing credits include the National Tour of 42nd Street and a commercial for Skineez Skinwear featured on a Times Square Billboard.

Lina Montoya

Born and raised in Medellín, Colombia, Lina is Teaching Artist, Graphic Designer and Muralist, Based in New York City since 2010. Lina’s artistic practice is driven by her immigrant experience, her colorful work celebrates cultural diversity and multilingualism; it’s inspired by nature, music, literature and indigenous cultures from Latin America. More than 10 years of experience working as a creative, on visual and cultural projects, making public art for public agencies and a variety of industries in NYC and South America.

 

Marcela Artunduaga

Marcela is a Queens-based Theater Maker and Educator originally from Colombia. She holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Dramatic Arts from Universidad del Valle and a Master of Arts in Applied Theater from CUNY SPS. She has been involved in the theater field since 2010, first in Cali, her native town, and, recently, in New York City. Marcela is passionate about developing and implementing workshops with multilingual children and youth in pre-k, elementary, middle, and high school.

Her work is founded on the belief in community-based theater, where participants are the center of the encounters. She strongly aims for a creative process that allows space for critical thinking, imagination, movement, and aims for an ongoing reflection throughout the process.

Mélissa Smith

Mélissa has been teaching with Arts For All since the Fall of 2010. She has taught and facilitated workshops in improvisation, dance, creative writing and theatre techniques to a variety of ages. Mélissa earned her BA in Theatre with a minor in dance and creative writing in 2007 from Palm Beach Atlantic University. She is a multi-disciplinary Theater Maker and performer as well as an Author! Arts education was the saving grace of her grade school years, and she is passionately dedicated to giving similar opportunities to our future leaders and culture shapers.

Nicole Hogsett

Nicole Hogsett is a seasoned nonprofit marketing professional, teaching artist, and curriculum designer passionate about educating and engaging children through theater and visual arts. As a Teaching Artist, Nicole works with Arts For All, New York City Children’s Theater, and is a Supporting Artist with CO/LAB Theater Group. Nicole co-devised and facilitated the six-session theatre in education piece,  La Isla de ¡Yo No Se!/The Island of I Don’t Know!, implemented in a bilingual Pre-K classroom from January – March 2023. She also co-devised and facilitated The Difference Detectives, implemented in Kindergarten and 1st-grade classrooms in May 2022. Nicole holds an M.A. in Applied Theatre from the City University of New York and a Bachelor of Arts in Mass Communications and Media Studies with a Minor in Business and a concentration in Journalism from St. John’s University.

Rathi Varma

Rathi, born and raised in Mumbai, India, started dancing at the age of 15 alongside pursuing her Diploma in Visual Arts and working as an Illustrator. In 2018, she moved to New York to pursue her career in Dance professionally at Peridance Centre. Her work Table for Two, Imperfect, Dear Bread and What Will be, Will be was presented at Spoke The Hub, Flushing Town Hall, BAAD, Arts on Site, and Balance Arts Centre. Apart from being a company member with Time Lapse Dance, Matthew Westerby Company and Treehouse Shakers, Rathi is excited to join the Arts For All team as a teaching artist. Website: https://www.rathivarma.com

Sam Funk

Samantha (Sam) Funk (she/her) is a student of Applied Theatre at CUNY SPS. In addition to her master’s degree studies, Sam is a seasoned artist-educator. Her first teaching artist work began in Nicaragua and Argentina, wherein she partnered with two different organizations to create devised work relevant to each social context that was then shared with the local communities in open-invitation workshops. Following Sam’s experience in Nicaragua and Argentina, she brought her budding theatre pedagogy to teaching preschool and kindergarten full-time. Now, Sam is a dedicated teaching artist working in schools across New York City. Sam also holds a BA in Theatre Performance.

Stephanie Martinez

Stephanie Martinez (she/her) is a teaching artist, stage manager, and director from Long Island, New York. She holds a BFA in Stage Management from Hofstra University and an M.S.Ed in Educational Theatre from The City College of New York. Stephanie is the resident director of the Oceanside #9E Drama Club as well as a teaching artist at Usdan Summer Camp for the Arts, Tilles Center for the Performing Arts, Mainstages, Envision Theater, Queens Theatre, and the Hofstra University Continuing Education Program. Stephanie is particularly passionate about providing culturally responsive and trauma-informed theatrical education to New York students and schools. This is her second year as a teaching artist with Arts For All, and she’s so excited to dive into another incredible school year!

Vidho Lorville

Vidho is a professional visual artist who has been involved in Art-in-Education as a consultant and teaching artist for twelve years. In 2001, Lorville settled in New Orleans, Louisiana where he started teaching visual art as an extra-curricular activity for the New Orleans Public school board and pursued his career as an artist. His first two solo art shows: “Behind the Mask”, 2001 and “Allegory of Colors”, 2002 were subject of many reviews from the most known art critics in the city of New Orleans.

In 2002, Lorville was awarded a place at the Skowhegan Art School of Painting and Sculpture where he worked with a network of artists working in other visual art forms such as installation, video and performance. Lorville would not start exploring those mediums until the spring 2007 when he made an interactive video performance and found object installation around the issue of immigration during his residency at “Le Chateau de la Napoule” in south of France. The conceptual intent that he wrote about the piece was published as an article in NY Arts Magazine summer issue of 2008.

Vidho Lorville is currently living in New York where he continues his artistic career as a painter while experimenting with different types of visual art forms. Since relocating to the Big Apple, Lorville’s artwork and community involvement received the attention of numerous publications and media including the New York Times, Village Voice, NY1 News, and American Style Magazine.

He has been awarded many fellowship grants from institutions such as The New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Foundation (2011), the Wheeler Foundation (2007), the Adolph and Esther Gottlieb Foundation (2006); the Joan Mitchell Foundation (2006) and the Andy Warhol Foundation through the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council Artist in Residency Program (2005).

The article he wrote for the Washington Post editorial on January 17th, 2010 about the earthquake that destroyed the city of Port-au-Prince, Haiti on January 12th, 2010 is still a subject of reference in debates and discussions about the reconstruction process.

Lorville also teaches his art classes in French language upon request.

Virtual Classroom Teaching Artists

Ciara Ruddock, MFA

Ciara is a contemporary visual artist living and working in Brooklyn, New York. Her primary interest lies in abstraction and gestural expression working in the mediums of painting and drawing. Ciara is passionate about inclusive art education and has worked with museums, schools and private institutions throughout the United States to develop accessible arts programming for children and adults alike. Ruddock currently works with Marquis Studios, Arts For All, ArtStart, Columbia University and The Green Arts Initiative.

 

Darian Dauchan

Darian Dauchan is an award-winning actor, writer, poet, and musician who has appeared on both Broadway (Twentieth Century starring Alec Baldwin and Anne Heche) and Off Broadway theater (Classical Theatre of Harlem’s Cherry Orchard starring Wendell Pierce). TV and Film credits include Law and Order, Nickelodeon’s Bet the House as Darian the “SoundFX” Guy, and the Lionsgate feature film Things Never Said. Darian is most known for The Brobot Johnson Project, an Afrofuturism, Sci Fi Hip Hop transmedia piece which won for Outstanding Comedy Series at the LA Web Festival and BEST soundtrack at the Escape Velocity Festival sponsored by the Museum of Science Fiction. The show The Brobot Johnson Experience is a critically acclaimed Ben Brantley New York Times Critics’ Pick. In addition to Arts for All,  Darian’s also an educator for Urban Word NYC, Senior Advisor for The Climate Museum, and Teaching Artist for the Brooklyn Academy of Music and Get Lit Words Ignite in Los Angeles. More recently Darian was nominated for a Drama League award for Darian’s piece Brobot PSA in the AFO Solo Short series, a contributing voice-over actor for the short doc Lynching Postcards directed by Christine Turner, produced by Fireflight Films and MTV Studios which won the Image Award for Outstanding Short Form Special, and is a New Music USA grantee. Darian’s also the narrator for the recently released audiobook Master Class on Being Human published by Beacon Press. Darian’s music Doin’ it Live and Ohm can be found on all streaming platforms. www.dariandauchan.com  www.brobotjohnson.com 

Joseph Webb

Mr. Webb too is hard to categorize, but there is no doubt he’s a natural star: a fabulous tap dancer who also raps, sings and offers thoughtful, quirky reflections on life through spoken-word performance with music.” ~ New York Times by Roslyn Sulcas

Joseph Monroe Webb is an international award- winning dancer, choreographer, actor, director, educator and poet who has showcased his talents in a number of performances throughout the years, including the Tony Award winning Broadway production, Bring in ‘Da Noise Bring in ‘Da Funk. Following his Broadway debut, Webb secured acting roles on television and the silver screen, including Martin Scorsese’s film Bringing Out The Dead, Black Nativity starring Angela Basset and Forest Whitaker, Red Bull Music Academy’s short films, and most recently as a principal in Kellogg’s The Veg Effect. He has also performed on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno, The Oprah Winfrey Show, and Live with Regis and Kathy Lee. Joseph was nominated for Helen Hayes Best Supporting Actor and Best Ensemble for his performance in Tony Award winning Broadway musical Jelly’s Last Jam at the Signature Theater. Just recently Joseph was nominated for another Helen Hayes award as part of the Broadway show The Scottsboro Boys for best cast in a musical production at the Signature Theater.

Joseph has appeared as a feature and/or starring act in the cast of the Thank You Gregory, Tap Stars (Hamburg, Germany), Cotton Club Parade with Wynton Marsalis, and more. Joseph received rave reviews for his first major work at University Settlement, with the NY Times citing Joseph and his ability to blend various genres of art into one show as, “too hard to categorize, but there is no doubt he is a natural star.” In March 2016, Joseph returned to University Settlement (NYC) to debut the premiere of his latest work, Dancing Buddhas: The Three Jewels, to a sold-out audience. As artist-in-residence to American Tap Dance Foundation, Dancing Buddhas followed up with the debut of MONK, a vibrant and funky tribute to Thelonious Monk, Miles Davis, and Coltrane, as to roaring reviews at the Duke on 14th Street in New York City. Joseph also directed and debuted Lotus at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts for the grand re- opening of the Terrace Theater to critical acclaim. When he is not onstage, Joseph choreographs and teaches for various dance organizations, including a recent residency at Hinton Battle’s Hinton Battle Dance Academy in Japan and the Professional Division of The Ailey School. He is also a graduate student at CUNY/Graduate Center where he’s currently studying applied theater. Recently, Joseph premiered excerpts of his latest work, Messages from Umi, co-created with Barédu Ahmed, at Harlem Stage 20th Anniversary E-Moves Series and has just been awarded funding for further development of this project by Harlem Stage, who has received support from the Mertz Gilmore Foundation.

Leah Young

Leah is an Atlanta born singer/actor. She currently trains with the AMAW New York acting studio. When not performing, she is supporting others with bicultural and bilingual immersion. Leah is so honored to be a lifelong storyteller, holding reverence and compassion for the human experience.

 

MaryAnne Piccolo

MaryAnne is a New York City based multi-disciplinary artist and teaching artist. She holds an M.S. in Educational Theatre from The City College of New York. She is a recipient of the prestigious Bertram Epstein Award for excellence in educational research at CCNY. She is a New York State certified theatre teacher (K-12) and teaching artist for the New York City Department of Education. She has over fifteen years of experience as lead arts educator with the NYC DOE and non-profit arts organizations.

MaryAnne serves as adjunct faculty in the Theatre Arts Department at Marymount Manhattan College. She is the founder and curriculum designer for “Pop / Rock Performance.” She was recognized in 2020 for her virtual classroom work by C-TIE with an honorable mention for the Innovation Teaching Award at MMC. MaryAnne is a proud longtime member of the Actor’s Equity Association (AEA). For more info and latest project info please visit: https://linktr.ee/MaryAnnePiccolo

Ronald Chironna

Ronald, a native of Staten Island, New York, developed a love for the visual arts very early in his life, progressing from copying comic book illustrations as a youngster to creating acrylic paintings, silk screen prints, and pen and ink drawings in art classes in high school. Ron is a Pratt Institute summa cum laude graduate with a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree. At Pratt he majored in Communications Design and Illustration, learning the commercial art trade from some of the top professionals in the field. He’s worked as a freelance illustrator for clients from all areas of popular media since graduating in 1976.

After intensive arts education training with various teaching artist organizations, he’s been working as a teaching artist since 2008, currently on the rosters of Arts For All, Studio in a School, The Center for Arts Education, and Marquis Studios. He has residency experience with students of all ages and abilities and focuses on employing enjoyable visual arts projects and exercises with his students in a safe and creative environment. He always considers social justice, social emotional learning, and his students’ cultural backgrounds when conducting his classes. His goal is to help each student tell their own unique story, create art in their own distinct way, and draw knowledge from a school’s curriculum in their own singular fashion. He continues to learn a great deal from the students with whom he has the privilege to work and hopes to continue working with them for years to come.

ADDITIONAL TEACHING ARTIST BIOS COMING SOON.