Katherine Kaszas
Artistic Director, Performing Arts Programmes
Ms. Kaszas has served as the Artistic Director of the Blyth Festival, the Associate Artistic Director of Canadian Stage in Toronto, Interim Artistic Director of Factory Theatre, Dramaturge of the Banff Centre for the Arts with freelance directing credits in professional theatres from coast to coast. Her particular passion is the development of new Canadian plays and musicals, and she has had the fortune to work with some of Canada's most renowned actors, playwrights, musicians and designers on many a premier. She has taught at both University of Toronto and Sheridan Music Theatre. Since arriving at St. Clair College in 2004, she has launched two programmes including Music Theatre Performance and Entertainment Technology. For the College she has directed a number of productions, including her personal favourite, A St. Clair Christmas, now an annual Windsor tradition. Katherine is a member of the Canadian Actors' Equity Association and holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Theatre and Film from York University.
Melissa Williams
Dance Faculty
Melissa Williams is one of the most innovative choreographers working in the entertainment industry today. Recently you have seen Melissa's work on the acclaimed first, second and third seasons of So You Think You Can Dance Canada. Seasoned in creating and staging dance sequences in many genres, Melissa has worked with some of the most established artists, actors and directors in the industry including Prince, George Michael, Bryan Adams, The Smashing Pumpkins, Michael Caine, Randy Quaid, Carmen Electra, David LaChapelle, McG, Paul Verhoeven and Joseph Kahn. Melissa found her love for live theatre after spending months at Paisley Park studios choreographing, rehearsing and helping to develop the New Power Generation Dance Company. Her company DM Creative has choreographed and musically staged live productions around the world including Grease - The Musical, HAIR - The Musical, STORM, Generations, Bon Voyage, Piano Man and Undercover. Ms. Williams has choreographed and performed in television and feature films including Hairspray, American Pie, Batman & Robin, That Thing You Do, Showgirls, Farmclub.com, and The Tonight Show.
John Karr
Voice and Music Faculty
Mr. Karr was the Music Director for 15 seasons at the Huron Country Playhouse. Other credits include conducting, music direction and accompaniment at Persephone Theatre, Muskoka Festival, Smile Company, Solar Stage, Expo 86 Ontario Pavilion, Gilbert and Sullivan Societies of Kitchener/Waterloo and Toronto, Shaw Festival, Leah Posluns Theatre, Theatre Collingwood, Drayton Festival Theatre and Rainbow Theatre. He began teaching in 1981 while continuing his professional engagements, and is formerly a faculty member at Sheridan College (Music Theatre Performance), University of Toronto (Theatre and Drama Studies, Erindale) and St. Clair College (Music Theatre Performance). Other teaching credits include the Royal Conservatory of Music, Humber College, York University, Equity Showcase, Leah Posluns Theatre School and the Third Street Music School Settlement in New York City. Mr. Karr holds a Bachelor of Music in Choral Conducting from the University of Western Ontario with post graduate studies in Paris at Cours de Perfectionnement et Interpretation with Denise Riviere and at the Manhattan School of Music, where he earned a Masters of Music, Vocal and Instrumental Accompaniment.
Kristyn Wiklanski
Dance Faculty
Kristyn is a dancer, actor and choreographer who has toured the US and Europe with many musical productions (Cats, Grease). While residing in New York she performed as a Radio City Rockette for three seasons at the iconic Radio City Christmas Spectacular. Her original training took her to Los Angeles where she danced on several popular television series including Ali McBeal. In addition to cruise ship experience, Kristyn also danced with the Mark Goodman Tap Company. She is now back in her home town of Windsor, Ontario and has been active within the city, most recently directing and choreographing The Nutcracker Ballet for Edmunds Towers School of Dance.
Jeremy Ryan Mossman
Voice and Dance Faculty
Jeremy is a graduate of the Musical Theatre Conservatory at the University of Miami and has performed across the U.S. in regional theatre and national tours, as well as internationally on cruise ships. Favorite shows include Singin' In The Rain (Cosmo), 42nd Street (Billy), Fiddler on the Roof (Perchik), Hello Dolly (Kemper), and Thoroughly Modern Millie (Jimmy). As director, Jeremy has spearheaded local productions of I Love You, You're Perfect, Now Change, Bat Boy, Suds: The Rocking 60s Musical Soap Opera, and How To Eat Like a Child. Jeremy also choreographed Honk, Footloose, and Thoroughly Modern Millie, has also musically directed and co-directed Hair at St. Clair College in 2008, and worked as musical director in Boulder, CO in the summers of 2007 and 2008. Jeremy is an adjunct professor in the theatre department at Wayne State University in Detroit. He is currently musically directing Ragtime at Wayne State, and conceiving and directing a unique piece based on the life and works of Edith Piaf at St. Clair College.
Steven Henrikson
Vocal Technique
Steven Henrikson is well known in Canada as a performer, teacher, clinician, and adjudicator in a career spanning more than four decades. He has performed opera with major companies such as the Vancouver Opera Association, the Canadian Opera Company, the Guelph Spring Festival, Toronto's Opera in Concert, Michigan Opera Theater, the Meadowbrook Summer Festival and has appeared in Concert and Oratorio performances with major orchestras such as the Detroit Symphony, Vancouver Symphony, Kitchener-Waterloo Symphony, held a soloist with the Bavarian State Opera and appeared as a soloist in the Richard Wagner Bayreuth Summer Opera Festival. Mr. Henrikson's interest in Music Theatre led to a two-year sojourn as an original Toronto cast member of Phantom of the Opera in the role of Joseph Buquet. His expertise solving problems in all types of singers in all areas of performance has led to his involvement in a multi-disciplinary voice therapy clinic in Toronto (VOX CURA).
Mr. Henrikson holds: B.Mus. and M.Mus. degrees (U.B.C.); Graduate studies at the University of Southern California (U.S.C.); a Konzert Diplom from the State Academy of Music (Munich); Master Classes and private study with many outstanding performers. He recently retired as Professor Emeritus after thirty-two years of teaching Opera, Music Theatre, and acting as Coordinator of Vocal Studies, University of Windsor.
Peggy Dwyer
Vocal Technique, Individual Vocal Coaching
Ms. Dwyer is a much in demand soprano, a frequent guest artist with the Juno award-winning Windsor Symphony Orchestra. She has performed with the Detroit Symphony Chamber Orchestra, the Niagara Symphony, and the Kitchener-Waterloo Symphony. She appeared as Marina in Toronto's Opera in Concert Canadian premiere of Marina (Arietta), as the Queen of the Night in Mozart's The Magic Flute with Opera Lyra, at the National Arts Centre in Ottawa, Ontario. Peggy is equally at home with Music Theatre repertoire, most notably as Lily, in The Secret Garden (Simon), and as Eliza Doolittle in My Fair Lady (Lerner and Loewe). Her performances include Handel's Messiah, various Mozart and Bach oratorio, Carl Orff's Carmina Burana, and she was featured in the documentary Cleary Symphony, performing Richard Strauss' "Vier Letze Lieder" with the WSO. Ms. Dwyer is featured on the Windsor Symphony's 1999 CD release performing Mozart's "Vorrei Spiegarvi".
Suzanne Turnbull
Acting Faculty
Suzanne spent ten seasons at the Stratford Shakespeare Festival as a Text and Understudy Coach and five seasons as a Text Researcher, experience which serves her acting students well. She was a Co-Director of Kam Theatre (Thunder Bay), Director of Kaleidoscope's (Victoria) theatre school and theatre-in-education programmes and Director-in Residence at the University of Western Ontario. She has taught at the University of Windsor, Lakehead University, Humber College, George Brown College, Queen's University, The Birmingham Conservatory for Classical Theatre Training at the Stratford Shakespeare Festival as well as most recently St. Clair College. She holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts Degree (Acting) from the University of Alberta and has performed in such plays as The Good Soldier Schweik, Alone, Filthy Rich, The Donnelly Trilogy, Hamlet, Marat//Sade, The Seventh Seal and Winners. Suzanne was Choral Director of James Reaney's Sticks and Stones and The St. Nicholas Hotel at the Banff Centre. Some of her more than 30 directing credits are Albertine in Five Times, Calk-Walk, Gyroscope, Henry IV, Macbeth, The Diary of Anne Frank, The Fighting Days, and most recently Les Belles Soeurs.
Patricia Fell
Theatre History and Stage Craft, Costume Designer
Patricia has been working as a professional artist since 1980 in various media including Installation and Performance Art as well as Theatre Design. Whether working on a piece which is scripted, collaborative, or collective, she is passionate about all aspects of theatre performance. Her involvement with professional companies has afforded her the opportunity to act, design, and produce a diversity of works. Her theatre design credits range from As You Like It to Good Night Desdemona, Good Morning Juliet, Carousel to Sweet Charity to The House of Bernarda Alba. She holds a Master's of Educational Psychology (design & integration, McGill University, Montreal), and a Bachelor of Fine Arts (theatre & design), Concordia University, Montreal.
Ann Marie Pilon-Gerdun
Ballet
Originally from Quebec, Mrs. Pilon-Gerdun has studied dance and drama in Montreal, Toronto and Paris. She graduated from Canada's National Ballet School Teacher's Training Program in 1985 and also studied acting at the Ryerson Theatre School in Toronto. She holds her Licentiate Teaching Certificate with the Cecchetti Society of Canada and the Imperial Society of Teachers of Dancing (London, England). She taught at various studios in Toronto and then re-located to Windsor in 1991 in order to teach at the Dance Studio of Academie Ste-Cecile and at the University of Windsor where she taught for the Musical Theatre and the Acting Program. She was appointed Supervisor of the Dance Studio of Academie Ste-Cecile in 1992, where she is the principal ballet teacher as well of being in charge of the Ballet Teacher's Training Program. She now teaches part-time for the St. Clair College Music Theatre department. On many occasions, she has collaborated with Susan Haig and other conductors of the Windsor Symphony Orchestra to produce special choreographies to be performed as part of the Windsor Symphony concerts.
Katie Mecher Williams
Modern Dance
Katie Mecher-Williams is currently the Artistic Associate Director and dancer for HNM Dance Company in Windsor. Katie graduated with a diploma in Theatre Dance from Ryerson University in Toronto. She has also studied at the Minsk Choreographic School in Russia; with Toronto Dance Theatre, with Ottawa's Le Groupe de la Place Royale, and with Dance Theatre David Earle. Katie has worked extensively with Windsor's Gina Lori Riley Dance Enterprises, both touring nationally and participating in educational programming. She has toured Michigan in the state funded performance, “Dance in America” and has performed with both Michigan based dance companies, Dance Nonce and Detroit Dance Collective. She has choreographed a number of works for the Windsor Light Opera Company and HNM Dance Company. Katie brings over 20 years of professional performing experience to the Performing Arts Program.
Brad Rudy
Mr. Rudy has been a professional actor for 30 years. Born and raised in Calgary, AB, Brad studied Theatre at Mount Royal College in Calgary and at the Banff Centre. He received a BFA (Honours) in Acting from the University of Alberta, and has acted in theatres across Canada from Victoria, B.C. to Ottawa, ON. In 1985, he came East to work at the Stratford Festival and was a member of the company for 22 seasons. His roles at the Festival have included Bill Sikes in Oliver!, the title role in The Count of Monte Cristo, The Common Man in A Man for All Seasons, Rochefort in The Three Musketeers, Mayor Shinn in The Music Man, Sergeant of Police in The Pirates of Penzance, and Laertes in Hamlet. He recently directed a production of Falling: A Wake for ATW, as well as Our Town for the Mercury Theatre, and has choreographed stage combat for several theatres. At St. Clair College, he directed a production of Girls in the Gang last fall. Brad has been involved in numerous film and TV productions, mostly as a stunt man or stunt double for a leading actor. He was a director for 3 years of the Shakespeare on Wheels program (an intensive classical scene study for high school students created by the Stratford Festival's Education Dept.), has taught in the Teaching Shakespeare Program for high school teachers and students, and is constantly involved in workshopping new plays and musicals. Brad has been a guest instructor at Michigan State and Wayne State universities and is currently a sessional acting instructor at Fanshawe College in London, in addition to teaching acting and voice & text at St. Clair College in Windsor.
