NPTC STAFF

MELODY BROOKS (Artistic Director)

CATHARINE GUIHER (General Manager) is a life-long New Yorker and a graduate of the Nightingale-Bamford School and Vassar College.  She spent 17 years at the Roundabout Theatre Company with her final project there as the Project Coordinator for the renovation of the new Laura Pels Theatre/Harold and Miriam Steinberg Center for Theatre, Roundabout’s Off-Broadway venue for new plays.  Prior to the Roundabout, Catharine worked for four years at RKO Pictures and RKO Videogroup, primarily in Business Affairs.  Catharine was the Company Manager for “Broadway on Broadway 2004”, spent a year sailing around the world on a tall ship, and plays competitive volleyball.  In addition to serving as General Manager with NPT, Catharine is also working with Second Stage Theatre and the Museum of Television and Radio.  She is currently on the Board of Confluence Theatre Company and is a past Board member of the Gallery Players.  She has been a member of the Association of Theatrical Press Agents and Managers since 2000. 

C. AMANDA MAUD (Associate Artistic Director) has more than 30 years experience performing, teaching and developing workshops for all ages in both the United States and England, dividing her time between New York City and England. She has been a core NPTC Companie member and teaching artist since 1995 and has served as associate artistic director since 2002. For NPTC, Ms. Maud has assistant-directed a number of Shakespeare productions (Othello, Macbeth, Romeo & Juliet), both for general and school audiences, and provides ongoing support in text work and Elizabethan performance styles (including deportment and choreography.) She is also a regular performer in NPTC’s Shakespeare Made Simple and World Voices programs for public school students, and assists with the creation of supplemental educational materials and conducting workshops of all kinds. Her professional performing credits are numerous, including appearances as Friar Laurence (Romeo & Juliet), Lady Macbeth (Macbeth), Titania (A Midsummer Night’s Dream) and Emelia (Othello) for NPTC as well as roles in Blood Wedding (George Washington University Artist-in-Residence) and The Persians (Wells College Artist-in-Residence). Roles in the England include the UK premiere of The Evidence at New Perspectives Theatre Company/UK; The Belle of Bonavista Bay (lead) for Forest Forge, the UK premiere of Taking a Liberty at The Contact Theatre in Manchester, Macbeth at the Chester Gateway, Midas at Shakespeare’s Globe Education Centre, The Natural Theatre Company at the Millenium Dome and new works at the Soho Theatre studio, the Chelsea Centre and the Albany Theatre. In England she as performed with a number of educational theatre companies including the Apothecary Theatre Company, Mu-Lan Arts, and most recently with Theatre Adad.  She also worked for many years with Twisting Yarn Theatre in such productions as The Crow Scarers, a national tour comissioned by the United Cooperatives, Entrenched, a devised physical theatre piece for High School and College students and Trail of Tears, the premiere of an original play.  All three productions included drama and history workshops along with the performances.  Ms. Maud works regularly with the Saint John on Bethnal Green Arts and Music Festival in London, developing programming and producing events each year, including directing The Blind Beggar of Bethnal Green and last year's Panto.

CELIA BRAXTON (Program Manager, Women's Work Project) was Manager of The Women’s Work Project at New Perspectives from 1998 to 2000, and is happy to be returning after receiving her Ph.D. in Theatre History from the CUNY Graduate Center. Her article, “Play Text and Directorial Decisions in Calderón’s Céfalo y Pocris: A Case Study in Textual Analysis for Production,” co-authored with Dr. Kerry Wilks (Comedia Performance 5:1 [2008]) drew upon her many years as a director in the Off-Off Broadway theatre, and her knowledge of 17th century theatre practices in both England and Spain. She entered the doctoral program with an MFA in Dramaturgy from Brooklyn College, and was dramaturg for Movin’ Macbeth at HERE, as well as numerous shows at Brooklyn. As a director, she has worked on new plays such as Christy and the Playboys, a rock musical adaptation of Playboy of the Western World, Tracey Scott Wilson’s Exhibit #9 for NPTC, and Angelo Parra’s Casino. She has also dramaturged and directed numerous one-woman shows, and worked for many years with Blackberry Productions.

JENNY GREEMAN (Managing Associate and Marketing Coordinator) is an actor, director & teaching artist who joined NPTC in January 2007 after having participated in the company's Shakespeare Bootcamp for Directors and Educators. Previously she was responsible for coordinating all activities for school-based programming at NPTC, and is now in her third year as Lead Teaching Artist for our Let’s Get Dramatic! residency program at PS/IS137 in Brownsville, Brooklyn.  In 2007 she was Lead Teaching Artist at The Muscota New School, co-teaching a playwriting residency for 2nd and 3rd graders; she also played the role of Juliet for 2 seasons in the company’s 90-minute production of Romeo & Juliet for schools.  She previously spent three seasons at the Theater at Ellis Island performing in educationally and historically-based plays, and developed the Drama Electives Program at the Bronx Lab School where she was the Drama Instructor for two years.   In Summer 2010 Jenny helmed the World Premiere production of Screenplay by Scott Brooks, which was awarded “Outstanding Production of a Play” at the 2010 Midtown International Theatre Festival and subsequently moved to an Off Broadway run at 59E59 Theatre this past January.  For the 2008 MITF, Ms. Greeman and her writing partner, Elliot Lanes, were awarded “Best Staged Reading” for their original children’s musical, The Raggedy Ann and Andy Musical.  Jenny is the Resident Director for Dark Lady Players, where her credits include As You Like It, Shakespeare’s Three Marys, and Hamlet’s Apocalypse.   Otehr directing credits include 365 Days/Plays; NPTC WORLD VOICES, APPRENTICE PROGRAM SERIES and WOMEN'S WORK LAB; and Blue Box Productions’ STICKY SERIES. 

For three years Ms. Greeman was the Administrative Director of the WorkShop Theater Co. facilitating its growth from an "actor's gym" to a New York Times-reviewed, two-theatre complex. She has a BA, Phi Beta Kappa, in Urban Studies from Connecticut College and was a Fellow at Barnard College’s Institute for Urban Education. She has toured the country as an actor and spent her semester abroad at the University of Dar es Salaam in Tanzania.

ARTISTIC ASSOCIATES

KERRY WATTERSON (Artistic Associate/Asst. Director, Apprentice Program) holds an M.F.A. in Acting and Directing from the University of Arizona and has an extensive and diverse career in the theatre. He has worked professionally with Casa Mañana, Actors Theatre of Louisville, Arizona Theatre Company, Theatre at Monmouth, Arizona Repertory Theatre, The Barn Theatre and many other regional houses as an actor and director.  With New Perspectives, Kerry performed the role of Capulet in 2005’s Romeo & Juliet and appeared in Shakespeare Made Simple as a variety of fools, both under the direction of Artistic Director Melody Brooks.  In 2006 he created the NPTC Apprentice Actor Training Program with Ms. Brooks and serves as its co-director.  He also directed the company’s production of The Cherry Orchard in 2008, using Commedia Dell Arte as a foundation for physical work with the actors to highlight the play’s comedic elements. While earning his M.F.A. at the University of Arizona, Mr. Watterson was the Acting Division’s Outstanding Teaching Assistant in the School of Theatre, honoring his commitment to education and the mentoring of young artists.  Mr. Watterson’s strengths as an educator have carried over into his teaching work with the Creative Arts Theatre and School, Casa Mañana Playhouse Theatre and School – and in New York City with Lynette Sheldon Actors Studio, Hunter College Continuing Education and at New Perspectives.  In June 2001, he co-developed and team-taught Acquiring English Skills Through Drama at various villages throughout Ghana, Africa with the help of Peace Corps Ghana volunteers. Previously Mr. Watterson served as the Director of Education and Volunteer Services with BODIES…The Exhibition in New York City, developing curriculum for all ages and working with the NYC Department of Education to ensure that academic standards are being met by visiting school groups.  Kerry was previously General Manager for The Barrow Group and is currently Development Director for The York Theater.

MEGANNE GEORGE (Resident Production Designer) Broadway: A Wonderful Life (Actor's Fund Benefit) Off-Broadway: For mabou mines: Dollhouse (international tour); Red Beads; Cara Lucia (American Theatre Wing Hewes Nomination), Two Little Indians, Superpowers, Orpheus and Eurydice; Hurray for Iceboy; International: Choeophorae (European Capital of Culture Festival 2006) Other NY: John Goldfarb Please Come Home (FringeNY Best Costume Design 2007) Seven seasons with Bronx Opera; Robin Becker Dance; Sal LaRussa Dance Theatre; Nicholas Andre Dance Theatre Film and Television: mabou mines' Dollhouse (producer, Arte, France); Don't Nobody Love the Game (PBS Independent Lens). Projects in Development: Everyday, Somewhere, Here: Letters From Palestine and Israel with New Perspectives Theatre Company; mabou mines' Finn (NYSCA commissioning grant recipient), Lee Breuer's The Crucifixion Project; mabou mines' Menagerie. Meganne was also a design professor for Hofstra University Department of Drama and Dance for 6 years. She has served as a teaching artist for Barnard College at Columbia University, the Mark Twain School of the Arts on Coney Island and is currently co-creating a comprehensive Theatre Program with NPTC in a long-term Residency at at School for Classics in East New York, Brooklyn.