OUR ARTISTIC STAFF

Robert Drake, Artistic Director
Robert has been working in the Atlanta Theater scene since 1993 as Production Manager for several improv troupes including Laughing Matters, The Blacktop Circus, and the Gorgeous Ladies of Comedy. He has served as the Artistic Director for Stage Door Players and is the Executive Producer for 'The Ira Glass Menagerie'. Robert is also the principal author of Bloglanta.com which won a Best of Atlanta Magazine award.

 

John Stephens, Director Theatre For Youth Program
John has been a teaching artist for over twenty-five years. He is the Artistic Director for the Academy Theatre for Youth and the Artistic Director of Atlanta’s Theatre Gael, the oldest Celtic American theatre company in the United States. He is a published poet and playwright whose plays for young people have been produced throughout the country. As a theatre director and teacher, he has worked at the Academy Theatre, Emory University, Agnes Scott College, University of Georgia, Center for Puppetry Arts and the Alliance Children’s Theatre. He is the recipient of Amnesty International’s Award for Arts and Human Rights. He is the founder and artistic director of WORLDSONG, an arts-in-education program that has reached over 300,000 Georgia school children over the past eighteen years.

Brenda Porter, Director of the Human Service Program
Brenda has over twenty years of experience teaching children and adults. She has worked with the Atlanta, New York, and Virginia School Systems and has taught workshops at Spelman College, Clark Atlanta University, Mercer College, and several professional theatres. Her expertise has been used in training teachers to use theatre in their classrooms to stimulate students' minds and encourage involvement. Ms. Porter also has twenty-three years of experience in acting and directing.

Mira Hirsch, Director of the Thoroughly Modern Senior Ensemble
Mira Hirsch info to come...

 

Lakisha Smith, Artistic Associate, Theatre For Youth Artists-in-Schools Tour Program
Lakisha has been working as a professional atress in Atlanta since 2000. She may be caught wearing many hats from performer to writer/producer. She currently sits on board of the Atlanta HipHop Film Festival, which is entering its third year. She has worked on a number of projects including theater, film, television, print and much community service. This past season she toured with the Academy Theatre's Theatre for Youth Artists-in-Schools Tour Program. She is currently pursuing a Bachelor of Science in Business at Georgia State University.

Jim Walsh, Technical Director
Jim Walsh, Info to come

 

Lainey Welsch, Technical Director
Jim Walsh, Info to come

 

Maggie McEnerny, Stage Manager in Residence
Jim Walsh, Info to come

 

Connie Melton, Consessions Manager
Jim Walsh, Info to come

Evan Guilford-Blake, Producer
Evan Guilford-Blake brings 50 years in theatre to producing the Academy's Late Night series. A published and frequently produced playwright (with 14 playwriting competition awards), journalist, poet, and children's and adults' short fiction writer, he has worked in every area of "The Business," including as an actor, director stage manager. He is the former managing director of Working Title Playwrights, which he helped grow into the Southeast's leading play development organization, and serves on the advisory board of Chicago Dramatists. In addition, he has taught theatre, playwriting and play marketing throughout the U.S, and has produced benefits for the Academy, Year of Beckett and other organizations. He is married to freelance writer and jewelry designer Roxanna Guilford-Blake.

Barbara Lebow, Playwriting and Human Service Program Consultant
Barbara was born in Brooklyn, NY, and has a degree in Early Childhood Education from Vassar College. She moved to Atlanta in 1962 and, soon after, joined the Academy Theatre's developmental workshop as playwright in residence. Along with the Academy, theaters producing her work include Arkansas Repertory Theatre, Alabama Shakespeare Festival, Hartford Stage Company, Jean Cocteau Repertory Theatre, Philadelphia Theatre Company and the Berkshire Theatre Festival. Among her recently produced plays are The Left Hand Singing, Lurleen, The Empress of Eden, Little Joe Monaghan, A Shayna Maidel, Trains, and Tiny Tim Is Dead. A Shayna Maidel, Off-Broadway 1987-'89, continues receiving numerous regional and international productions. In addition to her own writing, Barbara creates plays with disenfranchised segments of the population-- homeless and addicted individuals, youth at risk, and developmentally and physically disabled persons. Most recently, with two grants to the Academy Theatre West, she has been working with boys aged 13 - 15 who are incarcerated at Los Prietos Boys' Camp in Santa Barbara, California. Barbara is a recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship, a TCG/Pew Theatre Artists Residency, an NEA/TCG Residency, an Atlanta Mayor's Fellowship in the Arts, and a GA Governor's Award in the Arts. She is currently playwright in residence at the Professional Artists Lab at UC Santa Barbara, where she and the Lab have just received an NEA grant through a partnership of the Playwrights' Center (Minneapolis) New Plays on Campus program and the Kennedy Center American College Theater Festival. Her newest play, recently workshopped at the Playwrights' Center, where she is a core member, is The Phenom.

OUR ADMINISTRATIVE STAFF

Lorenne Fey, Managing Director
Lorenne has worked at the Academy Theatre for the past twenty years -- four years as the Theatre's Educational Outreach Director and the past sixteen as the Theatre's Managing Director. Previously she was the Assistant Artistic Director of the Lafayette Ballet Company where she was in charge of their Artists-in-Schools program. She danced professionally with the Atlanta Ballet and the Dallas Ballet. While dancing with the Atlanta Ballet, she was involved in their Artists-in-Schools Touring Program. She has a Business Management degree from Shorter College.