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One of the reasons for PTW's fast-growing success as a leading performing arts school has much to do with its top notch faculty—hand-picked by the director with a keen eye toward individuals who may be entrusted with the ideals of the school. Those chosen are well-trained professionals who love to teach and are willing to share their expertise, experience, and love for the theatre with others. They are gifted artists who are currently active in their respective fields.
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PTW Director / Artistic & Music Director
Dean began his studies at age five on the violin and added piano at age seven. After his piano debut at Carnegie Recital Hall at age 11, Dean received the Van Cliburn award for piano performance at age 13. He studied violin, piano, composition, and scoring at the Eastman School of Music where he won the Duke Ellington Award for Outstanding Arranging and Composition. Dean also received the highest score in the BMI Musical Theatre Songwriting competition in 1986.
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Dean Kravitz |
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He graduated with honors from Yale University in 1987 where he received a BA in Composition. At Yale, Dean composed, orchestrated and musical directed the full length musical, "Experiments", which was performed at Yale commencement. Also at Yale, Dean studied orchestration with Jacob Druckman (from Julliard faculty) and composition with Maury Yeston (composer of "Nine"). Dean has also studied jazz improvisation with the legendary jazz alto saxophonist Phil Woods. He has studied vocal pedagogy and voice therapy at Westminster Choir College and choral conducting at University of the Arts in Philadelphia. Dean is a New Jersey Certified Teacher, received his Masters in Teaching in 2008, and is currently a Choral Director and Music Technology teacher at Chatham Middle School.
With his production companies, Dean Kravitz Music (DKM) and Elasticmusic, Dean has composed, orchestrated and sung/played for over 150 National and Regional TV/Radio commercials for major advertising agencies in NY, Boston, Dallas, and California for products such as Pepsi, Toys R Us, McDonalds, Reebock, Motorola, Lady Footlocker, Hefty, Blue Cross/Blue Shield & Clairol. Dean has composed, orchestrated and arranged music for several cartoons on Nickelodeon's "Nick Jr.", as well as the music that premiered the TV Land network. He currently still has music played frequently on the air.
As a keyboardist, Dean has played for Donna Summer, Cyndi Lauper, Debby Gibson and Marc Anthony. On piano, he has performed for Chevy Chase, Donald Trump, Regis Philbin and the New York Yankees.
Dean has been an active teacher, arranger, pianist and musical director with PTW since 1983, and is so happy to be able to share his love and knowledge of music with young students. Dean has a wonderful wife, Liz, and adorable twin 5-year-old boys, Sammy and Max.
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PTW Faculty: Acting / TV Commercials / TV Acting and Filmmaking
Tia is an award-winning actress, writer, director/producer and is owner/co-founder of Fulton Street Films, LLC. As an actress, she has appeared in numerous national and regional on-camera and voice-over/radio commercials, and has appeared on One Life To Live, Law & Order, Law & Order: Criminal Intent, Conviction, as well as the pilot The Third Degree for Fox. In 1998, she received a Best Actress nomination by the Independent Reviewers of New England for her performance as Veronica in the New Repertory Theatre’s production of Athol Fugard’s Valley Song.
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Tia Dionne Hodge |
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Ms. Hodge began her career behind the camera as Assistant Director to award-winning director/writer/playwright, Dave Cockley; founder of Captain Dave Productions (Cleveland, OH). Ms. Hodge went on to write--produced and directed two short films for the inaugural NYC Midnight Movie Madness Filmmaking Competition (2002), and was awarded the First Runner-up prize for Once Upon A Once Upon…; a film that was chronicled by filmmaker, Stuart Entner (Maysles Films) as part of his documentary, Midnight Madness (2003 premier). Ms. Hodge also directed and produced the pilot episode of UnCorked: A Slightly Irreverent Look at Wine for Wine Ventures, LLC, in association with Fulton Street Films. The project debuted at New Filmmakers Docs, Mocks & More in 2006, and was an Official Selection at MemFest (2006). UnCorked also garnered Ms. Hodge a Directors Citation from the Black Maria Film Festival in the spring of 2007. In 2003, Ms. Hodge associate produced “Crutch”; marking filmmaker Rob Moretti’s directorial debut in association with Illuminare Entertainment and Ardustry Entertainment.
Ms. Hodge has written several screenplays, shorts, plays, monologues and essays. Her full-length plays, “Love… Like Lemonade” and “A Spider in Wine” both received workshops by New Jersey Dramatists & Waterfront Ensemble (Hoboken, NJ), as well as her play, Puddin. Puddin was accepted into the New Perspectives Theatre Company Voices From the Edge 6.0 & 7.0 Festivals (NY, NY), and was an alternate for the NYC Fringe Festival in 2003. Monologues from Ms. Hodge’s one-woman show, “Babygirl Blues & Other Colored Boys” have also been produced at different venues. Tigger—a monologue about Ms. Hodge’s childhood and her experience of being the only African-American girl in her class—has been produced by Theatre for the Future’s Women For Women Project (NY, NY), the Puffin Cultural Forum (Teaneck, NJ), and the Dobama Theatre (1995). Her other monologues, Invested, Procrastination and The Miracle, were all produced by the Monmouth County Arts Festival (2002). Ms. Hodge’s monologues, poems and essays have been published in Monologues for Women, by Women, Black Comedy; 9 Plays, and the Case Reserve Review, and Ms. Hodge was the director of the 2009 America Scores National Poetry Slam. She is the first recipient of the Adrienne Kennedy Society’s Louis Kent-Hope Award for Excellence in Creative Writing & Poetry (1995), is a former Findley Foster/Emily M. Hills Poetry Prize Winner (CWRU, 1992), and the first two-time winner of the Nemet Scholarship for Excellence in Creative Writing (CWRU, 1993 and 1994). She is a former National Poetry Slam Champion (1993), and a guest lecturer at New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts/Continued Education Program. She is a member of the Dramatists Guild of America, SAG, AFTRA and AEA. Ms. Hodge earned her M.A. and B.A. in English Literature from Case Western Reserve University in 1996.
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PTW Faculty: Voice Department Chair
Group Voice / Private Voice / Show Director
Heather made her operatic debut in 1987 in the role of Siebel in Gounod’s Faust as a resident artist with Tri Cities Opera Company in Binghamton, New York. Ms. Holcombe was heard the following seasons as Gretchen in The Student Prince, Zerlina in Don Giovanni and on tour as Hansel in Hansel and Gretel. Equally at home in musical theater, she sang the role of Nimue in the Walnut Street Theater’s production of Camelot, and has numerous orchestral appearances as a featured artist in the U.S. and Canada, with such prestigious orchestras as the Houston Symphony, the Vancouver Symphony
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Heather Holcombe
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and the Hamilton Philharmonic Orchestra. Ms. Holcombe has sung for two Presidential Administrations at the White House. Ms. Holcombe is a graduate of Temple University in Philadelphia where she received the Esther Boyer Award for Excellence in Opera.
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PTW Faculty: Show Director & Choreographer Song Interpretation / Musical Theatre Performance Classes / Acting
Brian's long list of credits include the New York production of Grease! on Broadway (starring Rosie O’Donnell), and national/international tours including Bye, Bye, Birdie (starring Tommy Tune and Ann Reinking), West Side Story (Riff) and Oklahoma! (Will Parker – 50th Anniversary Production). His regional directing and/or choreographing productions include Jerry Springer – The Opera, Urinetown: The Musical (Chicago’s Joseph Jefferson Award and After Dark Award for Choreography), Pirates of Penzance, Grease, Disney’s Aladdin, A Chorus Line, Joseph and
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Brian Loeffler
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the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, Anything Goes, Damn Yankees, The Wizard of Oz, You’re A Good Man Charlie Brown, The Wit and Wisdon of Will’s Women: A Shakespeare Celebration (which he conceived and co-created) and Big River at theaters which include the Mercury Theater in Chicago, Playhouse on the Square in Memphis, Carousel Dinner Theatre in Ohio, Seaside Shakespeare Festival in Nantucket and Milford Theatre in Pennsylvania. Brian has more than 15 years teaching experience. Former students include Michael Pitt (Henry Parker in Dawson’s Creek, also Murder by Numbers and Funny Games) and Patrick Wilson (Little Children, The Phantom of the Opera, Angels in America). He is a member of both The Actors’ Equity Association and The Screen Actors Guild and most recently in The Taming of the Shrew at the New York Fringe Festival. Brian is a graduate of the University of Notre Dame resides in New York City.
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PTW Faculty: Tap Dance Teacher and Guru
Olivia was born in France where she performed as a singer/actress from age 5. In New York City, she trained in modern dance with Murray Louis and Alvin Nikolais, tap with Savion Glover and Brenda Bufalino. Olivia was soloist tap dancer and vocalist for the American Tap Dance Orchestra, touring nationally and internationally under the artistic direction of mentor Brenda Bufalino. She choreographed and danced for Ka-Tap (North Indian music and dance crossing with tap and Jazz), toured with Heather Cornell’s Manhattan tap and with Mad Theatricals. Currently, Olivia is dance captain
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Olivia Rosenkrantz
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and dancer of Brenda Bufalino's New Tap Orchestra. With partner Mari Fujibayashi, she is artistic director, choreographer/dancer of the duo Tapage (www.tapage.org), performing internationally with classical orchestras, jazz trios and world music ensembles. Tapage currently collaborates with the Mexican string quartet “Cuarteto Latinoamericano” creating work to Latin American compositions.
Olivia has performed in North and South America, Europe and Japan, appeared at the Joyce Theater, Alice Tully Hall at Lincoln Center and ballet Arts in NY) as well as internationally.
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PTW Faculty: Ballet and Modern Dance / Stage
Makeup
Alyson began dancing at age 3, studying ballet technique at her local New Jersey dance studio, where she was recently named as one of the top 20 most beloved dancers for the studio‘s 20th anniversary. Upon entering high school Alyson was accepted by audition into Somerset County’s Gifted and Talented Dance Program, where she would spend the next four years studying a variety of genres of dance such as ballet, modern, and jazz, as well as choreography, kinesiology and nutritional concepts. It was here that she discovered her love of modern/contemporary dance.
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Alyson Monaco
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She was chosen two years in a row to perform with The Moscow Ballet during their international tour stop in New Jersey. Alyson attended summer dance intensives with the American Academy of Ballet as well as the South Carolina Summer Dance Conservatory, where she was lucky enough to take master classes with her choreographic inspiration, Mia Michaels. She received a choreography award for her original piece “Any Last Words?” in 2004 and went on to become a dance performance major at The Boston Conservatory. As a freshman she was chosen to perform a solo in the re-staging of José Limón’s work Missa Brevis. Alyson has extensive training in classical flute/piccolo and is also a freelance model.
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PTW Faculty: Broadway Kids / Jr. Jr.
Group Acting / Private Acting
Julie has performed extensively throughout the country and New York. An actor, singer and dancer, she attended both Syracuse University and The University of Connecticut. Currently she teaches acting, singing and dance at PTW and, is a level one certified Music Together teacher. Julie has also taught for Papermill Playhouse, NJPAC and Luna Stage. She is also mom to Connor, Duncan and Hayley.
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Julie DiPietro-Renshaw
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PTW Faculty: Jazz and Tap Dance / Private Voice Show Director & Choreographer / Stage Combat
Stage Makeup
Jensyn is thrilled to be working at Performers Theare Workshop! She is an alumni of the program and is now teaching voice, acting, tap and advanced jazz . She recently graduated from The Boston Conservatory with a BFA in Musical Theatre. Along with teaching at PTW, Jensyn has also directed/choreographed for many public schools in the area. She recently finished directing/choreographing "High School Musical Jr." at Seth Boyden Elemenatry School in Maplewood, NJ. Her other school choreography credits include
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Jensyn Oertel-Modero
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"Thouroughly Modern Millie" at Mount St. Dominics Academy in Caldwell, "Fiddler Jr." at Lincoln School in Garwood, "Music Man Jr." at Sayerville Middle School and numerous show choirs throughout NJ. In the community theatre realm, Jensyn is one of the co-founders and resident choreographer for Just Off Broadway Productions. Her choreography credits include: "Seussical," "You're A Good Man Charlie Brown," and her most recent, "Bye Bye Birdie." Jensyn is also actively persuing a performing career. You can see her as Rosie in "Bye Bye Birdie" August 6, 7, 8, 2009 at Lincoln School in Garwood, NJ. Past credits include: Teresita in "West Side Story," Maureen Curtain in "A Man of No Importance," "Heaven and Hell," (World Premiere) Mayzie in "Seussical," Maisie in "The Boyfriend" and Peggy in "42nd Street". In her free time she is attending Kean University working towards her NJ Theatre Certification.
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PTW Faculty: Musical Director For Classes & Shows / Group Voice / Private Piano, Guitar, Voice & Composition
Harrison is a multi-instrumentalist, songwriter, and music educator based out of Mahwah, NJ. Over the years, he has musical directed dozens of shows and has helped countless young people realize their potential through music. He is also an experienced audio producer, having just finished a brand new album with his electronic rock band, Earth Minor, which can be heard and purchased at www.earthminor.com. What Harrison loves most about PTW is that it allows him to utilize all of his vast range of skills in one place. |

Harrison Young
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So, whether your child would like to write and record a song, learn piano or guitar, or study voice with the most modern techniques, Harrison will have it covered. |
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PTW Founder
Howard received his BS at the Juilliard School of Music and his MA and Six-year Level degrees from Columbia University. He was certified in the state of New Jersey in both Supervision and Administration. Howard was a teacher and Director of Music in New Jersey public schools for 35 years. He left the public school system in 1992 so he could devote full time to PTW, which continued to expand in both enrollment size and course offerings. Howard's musical compositions and arrangements have been performed worldwide
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Howard Kravitz
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by such notables as Dizzy Gillespie, Count Basie, Quincy Jones, and Phil Woods. He also wrote arrangements for WABC-TV and the Arlene Francis Show.
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