Alley Theatre Staff and Instructor Biographies

EDUCATION AND COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT STAFF

Joe Angel Babb, Director of Education and Community Engagement
Joe Angel  brings to the Alley Theatre his experience and passion for developing the capacities of young artists, classroom teachers and teaching artists. He feels that this work has always focused on helping learners of all ages explore the collaborative theatrical process, grasp how artists interpret plays and appreciate the cultural value of theatre. Joe Angel was the Alley Theatre's Education & Community Outreach Manager from 2001 to 2004. Before returning to the Alley Theatre in 2008, he was most recently the Arts Education Coordinator for the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities, the city’s official arts agency that supports and promotes the stability, vitality, and diversity of artistic expression of the District of Columbia. As the Community Programs Manager at the Shakespeare Theatre Company, Babb supervised ShakesPEERS, the company’s community-based, after-school theatre program. ShakesPEERS offered students the resources to develop new skills and build self-esteem and confidence through the creation and performance of classic plays, poems and stories. In 2006, the program garnered a Coming Up Taller Award, a project of the President's Committee on the Arts and the Humanities, which recognizes and supports outstanding community arts and humanities programs that celebrate the creativity of America's young people. Joe Angel has over 12 years of experience in managing arts education programs and facilitating a variety of theatre workshops, residencies, professional development sessions and classes. He is an advocate for innovative school and community arts programs that promote positive youth development. Joe Angel has a MFA in Theatre from the University of Houston and a BA in Speech & Drama from Our Lady of the Lake University.  

Rochelle Sanders, Training Programs Manager
Rochelle has almost 15 years of experience as an arts administrator and theatre educator, the bulk of which was spent at the Studio Arena Theatre in Buffalo, N.Y. There, Rochelle was in charge of the Studio Arena Theatre School which was, until its closing last year, the oldest continually operated theatre school in the country. While at Studio Arena, Rochelle also directed and produced plays for the touring programs. Some favorites include: Christmas Carol for Two, Flowers for Algernon and The Bug Files. Rochelle is especially proud of the Education Department's work on the five-year Tennessee Williams Retrospective which included in-services, symposiums and over 5,000 students who attended student matinees. Other positions held  included: Executive Director of Historic Palace Theatre in Lockport, N.Y.; the Smithsonian Folk Life Festival in Washington D.C.; Adjunct Professor at Buffalo State College,  and most recently, owner of Intermission: The Performing Arts Store. Rochelle has a MFA in Directing from Virginia Commonwealth University and a BA from Niagara University.

Andrew Hager, School Programs Manager
Andrew holds a Masters of Fine Arts degree in Playwriting and Lyrics from New York University and a Bachelor of Arts in Drama/Literature from Bennington College of Vermont. Andrew has taught playwriting for High School for the Performing & Visual Arts as well as created and implemented a musical theatre performance program within that school's theatre department. Andrew has directed dozens of staged works and worked as a professional actor on stages throughout Houston. As a singer/songwriter, Hager recorded his debut album, Big Iron Skillet at Sony Music Stodios. Andrew is the author of nine published works on the history of popular music, including Song & Dance, a retrospective of Broadway musicals that was published by Barnes & Noble Press with Sony Music.

Briana J. Resa, Community Engagement Coordinator
Briana holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in Musical Theatre from Sam Houston State University. In her last semester at SHSU she was selected to participate in Theatre Under The Stars’ Professional Apprenticeship Program in Performance and Teaching where she performed in productions such as Dreamgirls, A Wonderful Life, and When You Wish.  Along with performance credits, Briana worked alongside teaching artists in the Humphrey’s School of Musical Theatre and helped to perform and produce productions in TUTS’ Musicals for Young Audiences Program. After her apprenticeship, Briana joined the TUTS faculty in their Education and Community Outreach Department. During her time there she led numerous workshops, tours, and collaborated both with HISD and YMCA staffs in TUTS’ Beyond the Stage program. Also a performer, Briana has been seen on stage at multiple venues in Houston such as: the Alley Theatre, Miller Outdoor Theatre, Stages Repertory Theatre, TUTS, and the University of Houston.

Instructor Biographies

THEATRE TEACHING ARTISTS

Jennifer Alger is a graduate of New York University with a Bachelors of Science in Educational Theatre. Her work at the university allowed her to get several experiences in urban classrooms and various private and public schools. Jennifer’s education also gave her the opportunity to study abroad in Ireland where she discovered new teaching and theatre techniques. She is currently teaching theatre and science in classrooms all around the Houston area. Jennifer has loved working with the Alley Theatre for the past year and is looking forward to another semester with students of all different ranges and experiences!

Leraldo Anzaldua was an Adjunct Professor for Movement and Stage Combat at the University of Houston School of Theatre & Dance. At the Alley Theatre – Fight Director: Hitchcock Blonde, Subject to Fits, Wait Until Dark, Black Comedy. Stages: Mr. Marmalade; Ensemble Theatre: Gem of the Ocean and Seven Guitars; Houston Grand Opera’s Rigoletto, Aida; Lake Tahoe Shakespeare Festival/ Foothill Theatre Company – Romeo and Juliet and Taming of the Shrew; Houston Shakespeare Festival: Cymbeline, Julius Caesar. Motion Capture Fight Director/ Talent: Vivendi Universal/ Starbreeze Studio’s The Chronicles of Riddick: Escape from Butcher Bay, Cor: Assault on Dark Athena; Eidos Interactive/ Avalanche Studio’s Just Cause (all male), TDK Mediactive/Starbreeze Studio’s Knights of the Temple: The Infernal Crusade. Guest instructor for staged violence: North Carolina School of the Arts, Alabama Shakespeare Festival, The National Stage Combat Workshop at UNLV and the Royal Academy for Dramatic Arts.

Marcy Bannor is a graduate of the Goodman School of Drama in Chicago. In Houston, Marcy has performed for the Houston Shakespeare Festival, The Children’s Theater Festival at the University of Houston, Stages, Theatre Under The Stars, Main Street Theater, Theater Lab Houston, Masquerade Theater, and, for Pace Productions, she performed the role of Mrs. Shubert in Shear Madness at the Tower Theater in 1989. Marcy served as Artistic Director for The Little Room Downstairs Theater, directing many of their productions; her favorite being the critically acclaimed Visiting Mr. Green. Marcy has taught creative dramatics at Main Street Theater, The Country Playhouse, Arts a la Carte, The Post Oak School, Travis Elementary School, and Houston Community College’s Summer Institute. For six years Marcy taught acting classes at The River Performing and Visual Arts Center, a program for children with special needs and, for two years, she served as The River’s Artistic Director. During the school year, Marcy is the Theater Arts Teacher at Edgewood Elementary School in Spring Branch ISD where she teaches Kindergarten through 5^th grade. Marcy has a son, Jason, and a daughter, Elizabeth, and is the proud grandmother of James Lynn Mozola and Michael Allen Scott.

Matt Hune has taught theatrical workshops in Houston and Chicago including Houston’s High School for the Performing and Visual Arts (HSPVA). As an actor Matt has been seen in the Alley’s regional premier of Edward Albee’s The Goat or Who is Sylvia, Pinocchio 3.5 at Stages Repertory, and Ivan the Fool at Bobbindoctrin. Matt is a founding member and co-artistic director of The Back Porch Players where he has performed in Moonchildren, Balm in Gilead, Waiting for Lefty and Brighton Beach Memoirs. His Chicago acting credits include the title role in Hamlet, Good Worker (premiere), Locomotive Shark (premiere), A Number, Two Gentleman of Verona, Living Out, Picasso at the Lapin Agile and Iphigenia in Taurus. He received the 2003 Award for Acting from the National Foundation for Advancement in the Arts. Matt holds a BFA in Acting from The Theatre School at DePaul.   

Elizabeth A. M. Keel is a native Houston writer. Her plays have been produced by Mildred's Umbrella, the Nova Arts Project, Scriptwriters/Houston, Bootown, and the University of Houston, and her novel was recently published by CreateSpace. She has studied with Edward Albee, Mark Bly, Mark Medoff, Lanford Wilson, and Stuart Ostrow at UH as well. Please visit her writing website at www.quillstar.com.

Rob Kimbro is a graduate of Rice University. He has been working with young playwrights and actors for the last decade. Rob was a founder of the Madison Young Playwrights Festival in Madison, Wisc., and helped to start McCarter Theatre’s YouthInk program. Rob was a directing/producing intern at McCarter, where he worked with Emily Mann, Regina Taylor, and Michael Unger. He has directed productions for both children and adults. Some of his favorites include A Year with Frog and Toad, Much Ado About Nothing, Nova Arts’ War of the Roses project and the upcoming Odd and the Frost Giants.

Jasminne Mendez is a performance poet, actress, teacher and published writer. She has her BA in English Literatire and an M.Ed. from the University of Houston. Over the last 8 years she has performed in venues all around Houston including Rice, UH, the Hobby Center, Talento Bilingue de Houston, the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Silver House Theatre and the Holocaust Museum. She has also had the privilege of sharing the stage with respected writers and poets Sandra Cisneros, Taylor Mali and Amalia Ortiz. She has worked as a Theatre Arts teacher, director, and stage manager at KIPP Sharpstown, Lee High School, The Tenney School, and the Katy Visual and Performing Arts Center.

Anne Quackenbush for Stages Repertory Theatre: Searching for Eden; Orange Flower Water and The Pavilion(both by Craig Wright); Heart of a Woman; Anton in Show Business; The Maiden’s Prayer; Ascendancy. Alley Theatre: Amadeus; The Mousetrap; Our Town; Harvey; You Can’t Take It With You; And Then There Were None; The Thirteenth Chair; House & Garden; A Christmas Carol. Theater LaB: Hysteric Studs; Poor Super Man; Suburbia; Breaking the Code. San Francisco Shakespeare Festival: A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Ensemble Theatre of Santa Barbara: Shooting Stars; House of Blue Leaves; On the Verge; Or the Geography of Yearning. Film/Television: The Year without a Santa Claus; Laughing Boy; Rocket Man; Pascagoula; Dwelling. Education: BFA in Theatre Performance, Scripps College, California; Shakespeare Program, Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts, London; American Conservatory Theatre. Currently MA student, University of Houston School of Theatre and Dance where she played Linda Loman in Death of a Salesman.

Greg Ruhe is the creator of the unique entertainment company Puppet Pizzazz. This 47-year-old puppeteer has happily nested in Houston since coming to Houston to become an actor in the Alley Theatre’s Young Company for the 1984-1985 season. Since then he has been performing in Houston and around the world while sharing his unique style of puppetry. He co-founded the Children’s Theatre of Houston, a non-profit educational Children’s Theatre Company, twice awarded No. 1 in arts education by the Cultural Arts Counsel of Houston. Greg also worked for over 10 years with the Texas Institute for Arts in Education as a teaching artist and performer. Other educational clients are The Children’s Museum of Houston, The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Project GRAD and the River School for special needs children. Puppet Pizzazz was the No. 1 most booked performance for the Houston summer reading programs in 2008. Greg is a proud member of UNIMA, the world puppetry organization, Puppeteers of America, the Greater Houston Puppetry Guild, The Greater Houston Visitors and Convention Bureau, and the International Society of Event Professionals. Greg is also on staff for the 2009 National Puppetry Festival.

Traci Shannon is a graduate of Masters Program in Acting from the American Conservatory Theater in San Francisco and holds a Bachelors Degree from the University of Houston School of Theater (cum laude). As an actress, she has worked professionally in New York (New York Fringe Festival), California (American Conservatory Theater, Aurora Theater, Eugene O’Neill Playwrights Theatre), and locally with Main Street Theater, Early Stages, and Express Theater. Favorite roles include Stella in The Collection, Emma in Dif’rent, Antoinette in A Flea in Her Ear, Isabella in The Wonder: A Woman Keeps a Secret, Di Deacon in Miss Lulu Bett, Denise in The Heidi Chronicles, Felicity Cunningham in The Real Inspector Hound, Elmire in Tartuffe, and Maryann in Escape from Happiness. She has taught acting to young people for over 10 years including at the prestigious Young Conservatory at the American Conservatory Theater. Other teaching opportunities include the Marin Theatre Company, Marin Day School, the San Francisco School, Main Street Theater, and Express Theatre. She is currently in development on a modern Shakespeare in Schools program.

Nikki Travis Wuertz is thrilled to be working with the Alley Theatre. She spent three years as a member of the resident company at Swine Palace, Louisiana’s Premiere Professional Theatre, where she was last seen in the World Premiere of Cocktail, written and directed by Ping Chong and Vince LiCata. Other memorable performances include Portia in Merchant of Venice (which was also part of the 2007 SETC Fringe Festival in Atlanta, Ga.), Aphrodite in Metamorphoses, Myrtle in Tennesse Willams in Quarter Time, and Olympia in Big Love. She taught improvisational acting classes at Louisiana State University while studying for her MFA in Acting, which she received in 2007. She also holds a BA in Theatre Arts from Hendrix College and studied Elizabethan Theatre and English Literature at Birkbeck College, University of London.