Terry Silver-Alford – Special Guest Instructor
Jordan Vera – Lighting Design
Marilyn Kallet – Special Guest Instructor
Michelle Fratus – Voice & Diction
Laura Beth Wells – Audition, Acting
Casey Maxwell – Musical Theatre
Geoffrey Scheer – Audition, Acting
Ashlee Latimer – Acting
Terry is a member of the UT Theatre Faculty and teaches Musical Theatre Performance, Introduction to the Theatre and Acting. He has worked professionally as a director, musical director, performer and composer at theaters across the country, including the California Theatre Center, Madison Repertory, Madison Children’s Theatre, University of Madison Theatre and Opera Programs, Omaha Playhouse, Nebraska Caravan, Augusta Barn-Michigan, Fireside Theatre-Wisconsin, Light Opera of Oklahoma and the Clarence Brown Theatre. Terry has directed or musically directed over 100 productions and has created the scores for four original musicals and a variety of chamber and vocal music pieces. CBT directing credits include A Shayna Maidel, CTRL+ALT+DELETE, The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee, The Little Shop of Horrors, Guys and Dolls, Assassins, Tick, Tick, Boom, Parade, Recent Tragic Events and Into the Woods. CBT musical direction credits include The Threepenny Opera (conductor), Monty Python’s Spamalot, Kiss Me, Kate, The Music Man, Man of La Mancha, The Who’s Tommy, A Christmas Carol, A Year with Frog and Toad and Big River.
Jordan Vera recently completed an MFA Lighting Design at The University of Tenness. Jordan designed Top Girls, Blue Window and Urinetown at the Clarence Brown Theatre. He has also designed for North Carolina Stage company’s production of Jeeves takes a Bow and Oakridge Playhouse’s production of The Marvelous Wonderettes. Before his time at the Clarence Brown, he has designed for The California State Summer Arts Festival, and the Miami Summer Opera Music Festival. More of his work can be found on his website www.JveraDesigns.com.
Michelle earned her Bachelor of Music degree from the University of Tennessee and has worked for the past 10 years in local theater, films, TV reality reenactment series, and commercials. Stage roles include Weyard Sister #1 in Macbeth and Vincentia in The Taming of the Shrew, both with Tennessee Stage Company’s Shakespeare on the Square; Madame Pernelle in Tartuffe and The Wife in The Music Man, both at Clarence Brown Theatre; Vicki Nichols in The Full Monty at Oak Ridge Playhouse; Peggy in Godspell and Mrs. Winthrop in The Secret Garden, both with The Wordplayers. Michelle performed for eight years with Knoxville Opera and U.T. Opera. She musically directed KCT’s Annie, Jr., and assisted with the musical direction of CBT’s A Christmas Carol. She has taught Voice & Diction at KCT since 2010. Michelle also maintains a private vocal teaching studio.
Laura Beth is extremely excited to be teaching at KCT. Laura Beth made her Broadway debut as Emily Osborn in the original company of Spiderman: Turn Off The Dark, directed by Julie Taymor and Philip McKinley. A classically trained actor known for her versatility and her quirky, yet human, characters (Julie Taymor once asked her “do all these people just live inside you?”), her acting credits include: Kafka/Waitress in All in the Timing (Hangar Theatre/Matt August, dir.), Gwendolyn Pigeon in The Odd Couple (Ivoryton Playhouse), Madeline True in LaChiusa’s The Wild Party (Columbia Stages/Saheem Ali, dir.), Mrs. Walker in The Who’s Tommy (CRT/Gabriel Barre, dir.), Rizzo in Grease (NCT/Matt Lenz, dir/Michele Lynch, chor.), Brenda/Babe and Mable u/s in The Pajama Game (David Ira Goldstein, dir./Patti Wilcox, chor.), and many others. She has also worked as a Producing Artist with Tennessee Stage Company, and appeared in The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (abridged) and Two Gentlemen of Verona this past summer in Market Square. Laura Beth holds a BA in Theatre from the University of Tennessee Knoxville and an MFA in Acting from Kent State University.
Her work as a teaching artist includes a year as a Resident Professional Teaching Artist at Cornell University, where she taught introductory acting classes, mentored students, and performed during the theatre department’s season, most notably as Mindy in Five Women Wearing the Same Dress and as Guildenstern in a student-directed production of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead, and a year as an adjunct acting professor at Syracuse University and SUNY Binghamton in upstate New York. She has also taught classes and workshops for students of all ages for the Hangar Theatre, San Francisco Shakespeare Festival, Syracuse University, SUNY Binghamton, and Calaveras Repertory Theatre.
Casey Maxwell has grown up loving all things Broadway and musical theatre and now works in BOTH arenas of the art form…both as a musician/music director, and onstage as a performer.
Geoffrey has worked as a professional actor, singer, playwright and director since 1998. He has performed Off-Broadway, on tour, in regional theatres around the country and even had the opportunity to travel the world as a singer with Royal Caribbean Cruise Lines. He is the author of numerous plays and musicals including The Ex (published by Samuel French), On the Eighth Day (notable review in the New York Times), Never Open the Mini-Bar (finalist at Manhattan Repertory Theatre’s Spring One-Act Play Festival), Accept and Follow (performed at the Kennedy Center in Washington, DC), and many others.
Geoffrey holds a degree in Musical Theatre from The Boston Conservatory and is a graduate of the New York Shakespeare Festival’s Shakespeare Lab, co-founded by Jed Diamond, Head of Acting at the University of Tennessee.
Ashlee Latimer is a producer, writer, teaching artist, and director. Co-producing projects include: The Inheritance (Broadway), Once On This Island (Tony Award), The Jungle (West End), and Be More Chill (Broadway, Off-Broadway). Ashlee has assisted artists such as Andy Blankenbuehler (Hamilton) and Tim Federle (High School Musical: The Musical: The Series); worked with major NYC theatre companies in various capacities, including Roundabout Theatre Company, Disney Theatrical Group, and Broadway Across America; and most recently, Ashlee handled creative development for Hunter Arnold’s company, TBD Theatricals and was the Brand Strategist for The Lightning Thief: The Percy Jackson Musical. She is a proud alum of the Knoxville Children’s Theatre, the University of Tennessee, and Bearden High School.
