Faculty and Staff
Rozie Curtis
Manager, Community Outreach
Rozie has been a Faculty member for 9 years. She is a Magna Cum Laude graduate of St. Edwards’ University and received a BA in Theatre. She is a professional actress, director, choreographer, and author. She is a highly sought after voice actress as well. Rozie has appeared in several films, commercials, and numerous stage productions in the Houston area and the United States. She just recently finished choreographing two major motions pictures, “Paradise, Texas” and “The Sabre”.
Shay Rodgers
Manager, Education
This marks Shay’s 19th year with Theatre Under The Stars in various roles: Student, Performer, Teacher, Kid Wrangler, Production Assistant, Choreographer, and Stage Manager. Shay has also choreographed for The Monomoy Theatre in Cape Cod, Ohio University, Sam Houston State University, The Great Caruso, and most recently Galas for SPA, SNAP, and Animals Across America. She is a graduate of Sam Houston State University with a BFA in Musical Theatre.
Brittany Ardoin (Outreach)
Brittany is currently a student at the University of Houston and Houston Community College studying Music Education. She has been in several musicals all around Texas and regional areas. Brittany has sung and recorded with several gospel artists, Gary Mayes and Nu Era, James Fortune and FIYA, Kurt Carr, Nakitta Clegg-Foxx, Dewayne Woods and Brent Jones. She currently sings in the Stellar-nominated group James Fortune and FIYA, whose single, I Trust You, has been number one on the Billboard Charts for 6 months and counting.
Alex Arizpe (Outreach)
Alex has been on the faculty of Houston's Ballet Academy's Summer Intensive, The Houston Met, Uptown Dance Company and Rodriguez Dance Academy. He teaches for Crowd Pleasers Dance Camps and Pure Dance Jams throughout Texas. His musical theatre credits include The King and I and Chess with Theatre Under The Stars. Alex has recieved numerous awards for competitions in jitterbug and disco as well as National Country and Western Dance Champion for three straight years. He and his wife Victoria, are the owners of Uptown Productions, Inc., a theatrical dance production company that has performed for the Super Bowl Commissionary Party, Nike, Ski Do, Verizon Wireless and numerous corporate events around Houston. Alex is also proud to be a retired Houston Fire Fighter.
Victoria Arizpe (Academy Dance)
Victoria has over 20 years teaching experience ranging from classical jazz and ballet to street jazz, swing, and musical theatre. She has performed extensively with Theater Under The Stars, Houston Grand Opera, Houston Metropolitan Dance Company, Uptown Street Dance Company, Texas Dance Theatre, and Delia Stewart Dance Company. Victoria teaches master classes and choreographs throughout Texas with Crowd Pleasers Dance Camps and Pure Dance Jams. She is also certified in Pilates and is a senior instructor at The Good Space Pilates and Yoga Studio.
Stephanie York Blue (Outreach)
Stephanie York Blue is a native Houstonian. She is a graduate of HSPVA and has a Bachelor of Music degree from Texas Southern University. She has been teaching in Houston ISD for 23 years and is currently teaching piano at MacGregor Music Academy. Stephanie is currently on staff at Windsor Village United Methodist Church where she accompanies several choirs. Stephanie’s love for all types of music has afforded her opportunities to be involved in many different genres of music. She has been involved in the musical theatre community through TUTS for 5 years. Stephanie has toured Canada with blues singer Ruthie Foster. She has worked with many gospel recording artist including Kathy Taylor, Lamar Campbell, and Dwayne Woods. She recently wrote and co-wrote the music for the musical, SUNDAY: THE MUSICAL, which is currently being turned into a major motion picture.
Khrystian Cunningham (Outreach)
Khrystian is a Prairie View A&M University graduate, where she received her Bachelor of Arts degree in Radio/Television and a minor in dance. Khrystian is an accomplished actress, dancer, choreographer, poet, author and teacher. Khrystian's dance credits include, but are not limited to; Prairie View A&M Marching Storm "Black Fox", Classic Dance Ensemble, Charles Gilpin Players, Texas Southern University Ocean of Soul "Motion of the Ocean". Stage performances include The Cotton Club Revue, A Tribute to Alvin Ailey, Shakespeare's Medea, A Midsummer's Nights Dream, Little Shop of Horrors, Noises Off, The Wiz (which she choreographed several numbers), and The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas, to name a few. Khrystian has choreographed the stage musicals My Fair Lady, South Pacific, and Little Shop of Horrors.
Laura Finger Duggan (Studio Dance)
Laura began her professional performing career at the age of sixteen at Astroworld. She went on to perform for Theatre Under the Stars, Stages, and in “Jubilee” in Las Vegas’ Bally’s Grand Hotel. Upon returning to Houston, Laura embarked upon a teaching career that started at Jackson Intermediate where she served as the head of the Fine Arts Department. She is currently the Drill/Dance Director for Pasadena Memorial High School. She loves teaching dance and musical theatre and watching as beginners discover their talents.
Jennifer Franco (Academy Acting)
Graduated from High School for the Performing and Visual Arts and UC, Santa Barbara. In Los Angeles she worked on HBO’s Tracey Takes On* and onstage in Chorus Line, Me and My Girl, Annie Get Your Gun, and Christmas Carol, among others. She also taught tap, gymnastics and acting. Recently, she was the program director for HITS Theatre and assistant director for Carnival and Seussical at Miller Outdoor Theatre. She also directed and choreographed for The Country Playhouse main stage show as well as choreographed for their children’s theatre program.
Ilich Guardiola (Academy Acting)
Brad Goertz (Outreach)
Brad is an actor, singer, composer and pianist who recently began working with TUTS as a musical director in the community Outreach program. He attended the University of Texas at Austin with a major in Theatre and Dance a minor in International Studies. Brad's acting credits include: Oliver! (as Fagin); Little Women (as Mr. Brooke and Braxton); Into the Woods (as Steward); Brigadoon (as Frank and Ensemble); Show Boat (as Ensemble); Sexual Perversity in Chicago (as Bernie); A Doll's House (as Torvald); Wild Honey(as Platonov); Pains of Youth (as Petrell); Winterset (as Garth); The Diviners (as Basil); The Little Foxes (as Cal); The Foreigner (as Charlie);A Piece of My Heart (as All Males). His dancing credits include: The Nutcracker (as Herr Drosselmeyer); Coppélia (as Doctor Coppélius).
Peggy Hinojosa (Academy Dance)
Peggy is an award winning choreographer and teacher. Her credits include the national broadcast of the Thanksgiving Day Parade in conjunction with Universal Studios, opening productions for Miss Texas pageants, full length ballet and musical productions, as well as award winning drill team and competition choreography. Her most recent projects include choreography for Steel Pier, Crazy for You, Honk! The Musical, Dear Edwina and writing the dance curriculum for area schools.
Jo Ellen Hubert (Academy & Studio Voice)
Jo Ellen’s background in theatre includes musical director, educator, producer, composer and administrator. An honors graduate of the University of Texas at Austin, Ms. Hubert pursued post graduate studies at the renowned Kodaly Pedagogical Institute in Hungary with a focus on piano performance and vocal coaching. Ms. Hubert has served as the Musical Director for 46 different Broadway Musicals. She was the founder of Applause Theatre Company and served there as Executive Artistic Director for 10 years. She most recently served as Musical Director for the TUTS-UH workshop of 110 in the Shade, working along with Tom Jones and Harvey Schmidt, creators of the show. Ms. Hubert has composed three musicals. She has taught piano and voice in the Houston area for 28 years. Jo Ellen was awarded the 2002 Woman of Achievement in the Arts by the Family Time Foundation in Houston.
Sandy Keslar (Outreach)
Sandy is a teacher and costume designer for the Academy, Studio and Community Outreach. Sandy has 25 years experience in early childhood development. She currently is owner/director of a daycare in Liberty., TX for over 20 years. She also works in wardrobe for Theatre Under the Stars, The Houston Ballet, The Broadway Series and Houston Grand Opera as a seamstress and dresser. She is a member of the Local Wardrobe Union. She has dressed over 30 shows including the ballet and the opera and of course, TUTS She began with 42nd Street to Wicked to Lion King to Rockettes to Aida to Dracula. She has been a volunteer TUTS parent for over 10 years and continues volunteering for the Tommy Tune Awards.
Cathy Marmolejo (Outreach and Academy Dance)
Cathy is a community outreach teacher as well as an instructor in the Academy. Cathy is an honors graduate from the University of Houston with a Bachelor of Music Education and a minor in theatre and dance. She is also a Humphrey’s School Alumni. She is a professional actress, singer, dancer, teacher, and choreographer, to professional freelance bassoonist, woodwind specialist, and reed maker. She has studied dance since she could walk, and added voice and acting in high school. She has appeared in films and commercials, as well as, many stage productions including Anything Goes; Guys and Dolls (Sarah); Hello Dolly (Irene Malloy); You Can't Take It With You (Essie); The Fiddler On The Roof (Chava); and Whoopee! (Harriet). She performed with Houston Grand Opera for the past eight seasons. She is also a sought after private woodwind coach for individuals and groups. And when she is not performing, she rounds out her all around theatre experience as a child wrangler for TUTS and HGO.
Crystal O'Brien (Academy Acting)
Dr. Jane Perkyns (Outreach)
Jane began working at Theatre Under The Stars in 2000 as a co-director of the then, newly launched Musicals for Me, Too outreach program designed to bring musical theatre to children with special needs. Dr. Perkyns is an Associate Professor on Music and has been a member of the faculty of Texas Southern University in Houston, TX since 1991 teaching applied piano, music history, theory, piano pedagogy and assisting in opera workshops and performance seminar classes, and served for three years as the Music Coordinator in the Dept. of Fine Arts. She received her graduate degrees from The Juilliard School (M.Mus) and the University of British Columbia (DMA).
Thao Pham (Outreach)
Thao began her musical endeavor in her community church where she spent four years directed a thirty-member choir. Before joining Texas Southern University as a piano major last spring, she was a member of The University of Houston Women Chorus while attending school there and later became a member of the Houston Symphony Chorus. As a freshman at Texas Southern University working under the direction of Dr. Jane Perkyns, Thao is enjoying her time there working as a cellist of the school’s chamber orchestra and having fun with the school’s jazz band playing piano. She recently joined the Outreach staff and was extremely excited with the experience. Thao also teaches piano privately, working with students from age five to eighteen.
Glenn Sharp (Outreach)
Glenn received his musical training at Houston Baptist University where he studied with well-known conductors Dr. David Wehr and Dr. Robert Linder. He has recorded three projects, most recently SONGS IN THE KEY OF ME, which targets the "pre-teen" age-group. He has toured extensively across the country and overseas in concerts, ministry work, and speaking. He has served as the Vocal/Music Director for the former Six Flags Astroworld and The Great Caruso Dinner Theater Currently working on his first book, Glenn also serves as the Associate Producer and Music Director for Round Rock Entertainment, Worship Minister at Bayshore Church in LaPorte, and as the Music Director and Composer for the DIONYSUS Theater Troupe - whose original work, which he wrote the music for, was performed by "invitation only" at the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington DC in 2003 to celebrate the 14th Anniversary of the ADA. Additionally, he is in demand as a Music Director for various school and community productions in the greater Houston area. Two notable productions in the recent past are CAROLINE, OR CHANGE, LIGHT IN THE PIAZZA, both at Main Street Theater, and Elton John's AIDA.
Kristen Warren (Academy Dance)
.
Mikeitta Williams (Outreach)
As an entrepreneur, youth programming and dance training is only a few of Mikeitta Williams’s strengths. Mikeitta, choreographer and artist in Houston, Texas, focuses solely on educating youth in the performing arts with concentration in dance. She is the Artistic Director and coordinator of Young II Praise, the youth dance ministry at New Mt. Calvary Baptist Church. Mikeitta has traveled to places such as Iowa where she has performed with Summer Stock and with local and regional productions to her credits are, Healthy Choices, The Watson’s Go to Birmingham, Cabaret and Seussical just to name a few. Currently Mikeitta is working on several youth projects for 2009.
Art Yelton (Academy Voice)
In a career spanning 35 years, Art has had the privilege of working with such artists as Gene Kelly, Ginger Rogers, Edie Adams, Tommy Tune and Maureen McGovern. Art has conducted National Tours of GYPSY, THE BEST LITTLE WHOREHOUSE IN TEXAS, THE MUSIC OF ANDEW LLOYD WEBER, JOLSON, ANYTHING GOES and THE MUSIC MAN as well as regional productions of THE KING AND I, JOSEPH AND THE AMAZING TECHNICOLOR DREAMCOAT, DAMN YANKEES, THE PAJAMA GAME, MAN OF LA MANCHA, SHOWBOAT and BRIGADOON. Art has directed productions of HELLO DOLLY, GREASE, HOW TO SUCCEED IN BUSINESS, FIDDLER ON THE ROOF, KISS ME KATE AND GUYS AND DOLLS. While living in Los Angeles, Art enjoyed six-year tenure as the Artistic Director for The Adderley School For The Performing Arts. Most recently, Art was Music Director for Arneson Productions’ SIDESHOW, Casa Manana’s MAN OF LA MANCHA and Theatre Under The Stars’ A WONDERFUL LIFE.
Krysti Wilson (Academy Acting)