Musical Theater Camp Faculty
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WT McRae (Director and Choreographer) disappointed all of his teachers and professors when at the end of his serious theater training he began to create a career centering around mime and clown. Growing up in Denver, CO and moving to New York in 1997, WT studied acting, scenic design, dance, and pre-med at Adelphi University. Since then he has made his living primarily touring with orchestras performing mime and clown based shows in Tri-State Schools. He spent 6 years teaching the arts in inner city schools, and funneled those two pursuits into the creation of his own clown based theater company Fool’s Academy. Fool’s Academy is now a running theater pursuit that blends education with clowning, bringing silly but educational performances to New York City schools. In addition to teaching, WT leads the SFAC Teacher Training Institute and is the Director for Musical Theater Camp.
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Michael Bizzaro (Music Director)
Michael Bizzaro is an educator, singer, conductor, and composer. Mr. Bizzaro is a choir director at Broomfield High School and sings with the Denver based choir “Kantorei” where he also serves on the board of directors. This is his 7th year teaching high school choir and his 2nd at Broomfield having previously taught at Fairview High School and Fountain-Fort Carson High School. Under his direction, his choirs have had 2 performances at the annual CMEA Conference. Additionally, a contemporary a cappella group he started at Fairview had a Main Stage performance at the National A Cappella Conference in 2017. While there, he was a judge for the National Championships of High School A Capella. Mr. Bizzaro was awarded the Bobby G Award for music direction from the Denver Center for the Performing Artsin 2016 for his work on “Guys and Dolls.” He received his Bachelor of Music degrees in Music Education and Music Composition from Ohio Northern University and his Master of Music degree in Choral Conducting from the University of Colorado at Boulder. This will be Mr. Bizzaro’s third year as the music director for the Sitka Fine Arts Musical Camp. |
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Melissa Hantke is a graduate of Marymount Manhattan College with a Bachelors of Arts degree in dance. She has performed in multiple community musicals and dance shows in the New York area culminating in the Off-Broadway original musical "Speakeasy." Melissa has lived and taught dance in Sitka for over 15 years having participated in numerous Nutcracker and Fireweed Dance Theater productions. Melissa's passion is tap dance and musical theater.
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Susan Wingrove-Reed (Pianist) enthusiastically embraces any and all opportunities to collaborate with singers and instrumentalists. She plays piano and harpsichord with the Anchorage Symphony, the Alaska All State Mixed Honor Choir and regularly works with the West High School and Romig Middle School choirs, the Hiland Women’s prison orchestra, countless solo and ensemble festivals/competitions and on occasion with the Alaska Chamber Singers. She has been the resident music educator (pre-concert lectures and program notes) for the Sitka Summer Music Festival and the Anchorage Symphony for over thirty years, sharing stories about composers, music and history. Reed is a passionate advocate for performances by women composers. She earned a Bachelor’s degree in Piano Performance and a Master of Arts in Teaching at Indiana University before returning home to Alaska to work with Anchorage Opera and the Alaska Repertory Theatre. She also taught choir and drama at Bartlett High School. She has played in or directed over thirty operas and musicals throughout Alaska and received an Alaska Governor’s Award for her contributions in arts education. Reed also does community outreach performances with cellist Zuill Bailey, Artistic Director of the Sitka Summer Music Festival. She performed in several works at the 2017 SSMF, including two works by iconic American composer Amy Beach and a collaboration with Zuill on his 2017 Grammy- award-winning “Tales of Hemingway” (by Michael Daugherty). She was the recipient of the 2016 Alaska Music Advocate of the Year award from the Alaska Music Educators Association.
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Known for “mesmerizing” and “commanding” playing (New York Times) Robert Fleitz (Pianist) has gained a reputation as a tirelessly prolific advocate and performer of new solo, chamber, and music-theatre works. He is a co-founder of new music violin and piano duo escapeVelocity, post-disciplinary performance-art collective PROMPTUS, and toy music-theatre band Wind-Up Elephant. He has performed as a soloist with the Juilliard Orchestra, the New Juilliard Ensemble, the Imperial Symphony Orchestra, and the Tampa Bay Symphony; and has also performed with Contemporaneous, Ensemble Échappé, The String Orchestra of Brooklyn, Tactus, AXIOM, Wordless Music Orchestra, the Irish National Symphony Orchestra, and with Placido Domingo at the Boch Center in Boston. He is a recipient of Juilliard’s Career Advancement Fellowship. As a composer, his “dreamy...ambrosial” music (Boston Music Intelligencer) is characterized by fragmented expressivity, exploration of the body, and archetypes of queer culture. Robert began studies with his father at age 4, and recently completed both graduate and undergraduate studies at The Juilliard School, studying with Julian Martin and Hung-Kuan Chen.
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Rhiannon Guevin (Vocal Coach) graduated summa cum laude from University of Puget Sound’s School of Music, where she received a BM in Vocal Performance with Honors in Music. During her time at Puget Sound she performed in opera scenes and full-scale productions, including the roles of Sophie in Der Rosenkavalier, Miss Titmouse in Too Many Sopranos!, and Mabel in The Pirates of Penzance. She was the fall 2011 winner of the University of Puget Sound’s Concerto/Aria Competition. Rhiannon played The Queen of the Night in Mozart’s Die Zauberflöte for the China Yunnan Opera Festival in Kunming, China. Recent roles include Zerlina in Juneau Lyric Opera’s production of Don Giovanni, Olive Ostrovsky in The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee, Wednesday Addams in The Addams Family, Cathy Hyatt in The Last Five Years, and Woman 1 in Songs for a New World. Rhiannon has studied voice with Dr. Dawn Padula and Joseph Evans. In addition to serving as Operations Director for the nationally acclaimed Sitka Fine Arts Camp, Rhiannon teaches opera at SFAC’s High School Camp and provides vocal coaching for SFAC’s Musical Theater Camp. During the year, Rhiannon serves as the Music Director for SFAC’s Young Performers Theater program and teaches private voice lessons. Rhiannon has served as an adjudicator for the classical voice sections at Alaska’s State Solo and Ensemble Music Festival.
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Zeke Blackwell (Assistant Director) has been involved in over 80 productions as a director, actor, writer, designer, and technician, and has had the joy of making theater in Sitka, Fort Worth, New Haven, New York, and Costa Rica, where he directed the world premiere of the Spanish-language version of Once on this Island! With over a decade of improv comedy experience, he’s performed/taught improv around the country, and most recently at Improvaganza in Honolulu, and the Boston Comedy Arts Festival. His original play, Still Life, was produced in the 2013 New York International Fringe Festival. He graduated from Yale University with a B.A. in Cognitive Science. He served two years on the board of directors for Far Corners Community Musical Theatre, a non-profit dedicated to providing arts opportunities for underserved youth in isolated regions of the world. Once, he beat-boxed for Lin-Manuel Miranda. This is his 5th season year-round at SFAC as the Young Performers Theater Director.
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