People

Stan Kang

Executive Director and Board Member
A native of Washington, DC, Stan Kang is a professional actor, director and drama teacher. Most recently, he worked as a day player on the new Touchstone TV pilot 20 Questions. Other film and TV credits include: Fallen, 12 Monkeys, Murderous Intent, Homicide: Life in the Streets, The District and Undefeatable. He has worked as a stage actor with many local DC theatres, such as Washington Shakespeare Company, Studio Theater, Horizons Theatre, Washington Stage Guild, Scena Theater, and the Kennedy Center. He worked as a director with Asian Stories in America (ASIA), a theatre company that was committed to producing, performing and promoting works by Asian American playwrights. He directed the inaugural production of ASIA, Big Hunk of Burning Love and The Theory of Everything. He is a founding member and executive director of the Educational Theater Company. Stan was born in Washington, D.C. and trained locally at the Studio Theater Acting Conservatory.

Elizabeth Kitsos-Kang

Managing Director
Elizabeth Kitsos-Kang is a founding member and the Managing Director Of Educational Theatre Company. She earned her Master of Fine Arts in acting from the University of Virginia in 1991. Since then she has worked in the Washington area as a professional actor, teacher and director. An adjunct professor of acting at George Washington University since 1996, she has taught and directed at several local arts organizations including the George Washington University, Georgetown University, Bethesda Academy of Performing Arts, The Holton Arms School, Round House Theatre and The Educational Theatre Company (ETC). Elizabeth's involvement for ETC has included directing, acting, coaching and working as an ensemble leader on several productions. She continues to work on outreach projects in several Arlington Public Schools, including directing a number of long term-residencies, such as A Midsummer Night's Dream at Wakefield High School, Rainbow Fish at McKinley Elementary, and the Arlington Mill Improv Troup at Arlington Mill High School Continuation Program.

Since 1994, Elizabeth has also worked as a scriptwriter and director of issue-oriented theater (for adults and students) at George Washington and Georgetown Universities. In addition, Elizabeth adapts children's stories for the stage. Elizabeth is a proud member of the Actors Equity Association. Her professional acting credits include Tomorrowland (Theatre J), In Good Company: the Power Edition (Horizons Theater), The Invisible Room (the Kennedy Center), Escape from Happiness and Better Living (Roundhouse), and many other roles at Source, Horizons, Studio, Arena Stage and Washington Jewish Theater. Elizabeth won the Outstanding Lead Actress award at the Source Theatre Festival for her performance in Amstel in Tel-Aviv in 1996.

Sasha Olinick

Director of Education and Teacher Training
Sasha is a Washington DC based actor/ educator. Most recently he appeared as Arkady in the US premier of Brian Friel's adaptation of Turgenev's Fathers and Sons at the Stanislavsky Theatre Studio, and served as an adjunct professor of Theater Arts at Montgomery College in Rockville, Maryland. Before settling in DC, Sasha spent two years on the road touring the country with Shenandoah Shakespeare. While on tour he performed in Romeo & Juliet, As you Like It, The Winter's Tale, Coriolanus, The Taming of the Shrew and The Tempest, and designed and facilitated accompanying workshops on acting, directing and Elizabethan staging conditions for high school and college age audiences.

Sasha has taught acting workshops and classes for the Geva Theatre Summer Academy (Rochester, NY), Merry Go Round Playhouse (Auburn, NY), Shakesperience Productions (Waterbury, CT), The Educational Theater Company (Washington DC)and All Children's Theater, (Providence, RI); He has appeared in productions at several regional theaters including, Trinity Rep (Providence, RI), Vermont Stage Company (Burlington, VT), Ocean State Lyric Opera (Providence, RI), and the New Century Theater, (North Hampton, MA). This fall Sasha will appear as Chapayev in the US premier of The Russian National Postal Service by Oleg Bogayev, at The Studio Theatre in Washington DC. Sasha holds a BA in American Civilization from Brown University and an MFA in acting from the Trinity Rep Conservatory.

Elena Velasco

Director of Shakespeare in Schools (SIS)
Elena is a well-known artist in the Washington theater community. A member of both Actor's Equity and Screen Actor's Guild, she has been performing in the metropolitan area for nearly ten years, having appeared at the Kennedy Center, Theater of the First Amendment, Arena Stage's YPT programs, Imagination Stage, and with her own youth theater company, 5 foot 2 productions. As a playwright, her work has been featured at the Smithsonian's Discovery Theater, Hirschhorn Museum, the Newseum, and festivals for the National Zoo.

A committed artist educator, Ms. Velasco has taught for Classika Theater, Interact Story Theater, Mount Vernon Community Children's Theater, and is a member of the Bethesda Academy of Performing Arts' outreach education team, Imagination Quest. Her directing and choreography credits include The Wizard of Oz, Seussical, Joseph..., Anne of Green Gables, Into the Woods, Annie, and numerous original musical adaptations for ETC's partnership programs. She received her degree, Magna Cum Laude, from Catholic University's Drama Department.

Ashley Hammond

Director of Arts Partnerships and Teaching Associate
Ashley Hammond is a professional actress and acting teacher in the DC area.  She attended the University of Kentucky, in her hometown of Lexington, Kentucky, where she received a BFA in acting. After college she toured with various children’s theatres performing and teaching all over the eastern part of the country, as well as joining the Emerging Artists Ensemble for The Virginia Stage Company.  Some of her acting credits include Zoon Vader Productions: Laundry and Bourbon (Amy Lee); Capital Fringe Festival: The Object of My Obsession (Jessica); Virginia Stage Company: A Christmas Carol (Christmas Past), The Elephant Man (Pinhead); Cincinnati Children’s Theatre: Lyle, Lyle Crocodile (Mother, Susie, Dancer), The Emperor’s New Clothes (Empress); Lexington Shakespeare Festival: Robin Hood (Catherine), The Three Musketeers (Lady of the Night), Jesus Christ Superstar (Chorus); Lexington Studio Season: Proof  (Catherine), Les Liaisons Dangereuse (Merteuil), The Tempest (Prospera). Ashley also teaches for, The Little Theatre of Alexandria, Mount Vernon Community Children's Theatre,

Samantha Foti

Teaching Associate and Production Stage Manager
Samantha comes to ETC after a ten year journey through many local theatre companies in Washington, DC. Samantha began as a stage manager in such theatres as Arena Stage, The Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company and Imagination Stage then eventually moved into Production Management. She worked for almost five years at The Shakespeare Theatre Company as the Assistant and Associate Production Manager and eventually ended up as the Production Manager of Ford’s Theatre. Samantha later returned to Imagination Stage and worked as an assistant teacher in their satellite teaching program. Samantha is a graduate of Ohio Wesleyan University where she received her B.A. in Theatre and French. Samantha is thrilled to be given the opportunity to bring her production and teaching skills to ETC.

Tom Mallan

Director of Professional Developement and Teaching Associate
A DC native, Tom has taught and directed theater and opera across the Washington area and overseas for over fifteen years. Directing credits include Washington Shakespeare, ETC, Le Neon, Glamonstrosity, and the In Series, as well as many school productions from Arlington Public Schools, to Ecuador, Costa Rica and Spain. He has given theatre and arts integration workshops to students and teachers throughout the US for the Kennedy Center, Washington Opera, Imagination Stage, Wolf Trap and ETC. His uniquely accessible adaptations of the classics have earned critical acclaim at home and abroad, including an International Award for Innovative Educational Practices for his bilingual productions of La Vida es Sueno and A Midsummer Night's Dream in Ecuador. Tom recently moved back to the US after directing and teaching theater in Barcelona, Spain.

Rex Daugherty

Teaching Associate
Rex Daugherty is thrilled to join the staff of ETC after recently moving to the DC/Arlington area. He is currently an instructor of Acting at The National Conservatory of Dramatic Arts, where he teaches voice and movement and the Michael Chekhov technique. As an actor, Rex has been seen locally at The Shakespeare Theatre Company (Love's Labor's Lost, Hamlet) and at Charter Theatre as director of music for the children's company. His regional acting credits include - Wayside Theatre: Buddy: The Buddy Holly Story (Cricket, Murry Duetch), A Christmas Story (Ralph), Othello (Roderigo); Masterworks Theatre Festival: A Midsummer Night's Dream (Theseus/Oberon); Merry-Go-Round Playhouse: The Paper Bag Princess (Prince Ronald), The Fisherman and his wife (The Fisherman); The Actor's Speak Easy: Lonestar (Cletis T. Fullernoy); Oklahoma Shakespeare in the Park: A Midsummer Night's Dream (Lysander/Snug), Hamlet (Player Villain), Twelfth Night (Curio); Ohio Outdoor Historical Drama Association: Trumpet in the Land (Strong Rock), The White Savage (General Hand). Rex has also directed several plays, including The Beauty Queen of Leenane, Fat Pig, Waiting for Lefty (assistant director) and Stones In His Pockets (assistant director).

Rex is a graduate of Oklahoma Baptist University, where he received his B.A. in Theatre. He has also studied the Michael Chekhov technique at the Moving Dock Theatre Company in Chicago. Rex is a proud member of the musical-comedy band Silly Songs with Silly Guys and the improv group, The Planeteers.

Ben Kingsland

Teaching Associate
Ben Kingsland is a proud employee of ETC. He was the workshop master for Olney Theatre Center's National Players, teaching workshops for children and adults everywhere from Georgia to South Dakota. He also toured and taught throughout Maryland with Maryland Shakespeare Festival. He is a teaching artist with Encore Stage & Studio and New Hope Academy, and as an actor has been seen at Theatre Alliance, Rep Stage, Blackfriars Playhouse, Everyman Theatre, and Baltimore Shakespeare Festival. Ben is a produced playwright whose comedy Whitehill was featured in the FORUM reading series at Playwrights' Theatre of New Jersey. He graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Johns Hopkins University.

Meg Maxwell

Teaching Associate
Meg is proud to be joining the accomplished staff of ETC. Meg is a recent addition to the DC community from living and acting in Australia, Hawaii, England and throughout the East Coast. She received her BFA from Boston University College of Fine Arts and focused on theatre with 'in-need' populations. Meg has worked, through theater education and drama therapy, with juvenile detention centers, juvenile parole, homeless shelters, inner-city schools and with chronically ill children. Meg is also a teaching artist with Adventure Theatre, Originact and the educational coordinator for Synetic Theater Classika Studio Classes.

Sarah Melinda Donnelly

Teaching Associate

Trudi Olivetti

Teaching Associate

Tom Mallan

Founding member, Director of ETCsc
A DC native, Tom has taught and directed theater and opera across the Washington area and overseas for over fifteen years. Directing credits include Washington Shakespeare, ETC, Le Neon, Glamonstrosity, and the In Series, as well as many school productions from Arlington Public Schools, to Ecuador, Costa Rica and Spain. He has given theatre and arts integration workshops to students and teachers throughout the US for the Kennedy Center, Washington Opera, Imagination Stage, Wolf Trap and ETC. His uniquely accessible adaptations of the classics have earned critical acclaim at home and abroad, including an International Award for Innovative Educational Practices for his bilingual productions of La Vida es Sueno and A Midsummer Night's Dream in Ecuador. Tom currently directs and teaches theater in Barcelona, Spain, but returns each summer to direct the company´s Shakespeare camp for ages 8-18, ETC summer classic.

Hope Lambert

Founding member and former Director of Partnership Programming
Hope has been an actor and teacher of acting for the past 10 years. She is a founding member of Educational Theatre Company. She has also worked in the education departments of the Smithsonian's National Portrait Gallery and in New York City's Lower East Side Tenement Museum. Additionally she led workshops in basic acting for the Kennedy Center while touring with their production of Little Women.

Hope has co-directed ETC Summer Classic at McKinley Elementary for the past 3 years. ETC Summer Classic is a two-week Shakespeare camp with over 40 participating campers per summer. As an actress, she has appeared in New York at the Cherry Lane Theatre Alternatives, Stage Door Acting Ensemble, Manhattan Theatre Source, and is an acting company member of NYU's Department of Dramatic Writing. Regionally, she has appeared at the Folger Shakespeare Library, Olney Theatre, The Kennedy Center, and Washington Shakespeare Company.

Jim Zidar

Jim is a member of the Actors' Equity Association who has worked at many of the professional theatres in the Washington area. He has taught drama and International Baccalaureate Theatre Arts, and directed, for the Washington International School for 13 years. He was listed in Who's Who in Education, a directory of "the top 5% of American secondary school teachers," in 1995. He graduated from the National Conservatory of Dramatic Arts in 1986, where he subsequently joined the faculty. He has also taught/directed for the Bethesda Academy of Performing Arts, Arlington Children's Theatre's "ACT - III" and "Stage Door" programs, and Arlington Public Schools.

Elizabeth Foley

Chair
Elizabeth consulting practice, EHF, has provided organizational development consulting, training, and technical assistance for a wide range of small and midsize not-for-profit organizations in Washington, DC since October 2000. Elizabeth also serves as a finance specialist consultant for clients of National Arts Strategies and de Barbieri & Associates. She has extensive experience working in the areas of finance and administration with arts/human service organizations in the Washington, DC area, including positions as managing director for the Eastern High School Choir/Eastern Choral Society, associate consultant/trainer for Innovation Network's Learning Circles project 2000, 2001, and 2003, director of finance for the Fairfax Symphony Orchestra, business manager for the Shakespeare Theatre and executive director for the Arlington Dance Theatre. Her accounting coursework was done at Northern Virginia Community College. As an Actors Equity Association stage manger, she has stage managed over 40 professional productions. She also served as production manager and production stage manager for the Shakespeare Theatre.

Elizabeth was a member of the Performing Arts Review Panel for the Arlington (VA) Arts Commission. She was appointed to the Advisory Council on Instruction - Arts Education Committee by the Arlington County School Board, which presented her with an Honored Citizen award in 1998 for her service to the arts in Arlington's schools. She served on the Spanish Immersion Parents' Network for four years, one as chair. She previously served on the board of directors of United Arts Organization, and currently serves on the boards of Educational Theatre Company and Little Beginnings Child Development Center. She is a member of the Greater Washington Society of CPA's Non Profit Committee and serves on their Quality Reporting and Accountability task forces. An accomplished portrait artist, she studied at Virginia Commonwealth University School of Art in Richmond, VA and at the Corcoran School of Art in Washington, DC.

Carol Cadby

Carol has been teaching theatre for more than two decades at the college and high school level. She is currently an Adjunct Acting Instructor at George Mason University in Fairfax, VA and the Theatre Arts teacher at Yorktown High School in Arlington, Virginia. She has also taught acting at New World School of the Arts College and The Coconut Grove Children’s Theatre in Miami, Florida. She has conducted workshops for various programs and conferences including: Georgetown University's Law and Public Policy Fellowhip Program (2007) - Leadership Presence; Southeastern Theatre Conference (2007) & American Alliance for Theatre Educator's Conference (2006) - Self-Discovery Through Acting: Addressing Personal, Social & Developmental Issues in Actor Training; and The International Thespian Conference (2001) - Writing an Original Play - Subway Dreams. She received her Bachelor of Arts from Grinnell College in 1983 and Master of Arts in Interdisciplinary Studies: Arts-Based Self Development Education from George Mason University in 2001. She was a professional stage and film actor/director/producer for ten years based in Miami, Florida, and studied acting at the Minneapolis Children’s Theatre Company and School, Florida International University, and HB Studios in New York City where she studied with renowned teachers and actors, Uta Hagen and Herbert Berghof. She is also trained in Viewpoints, Laban and Meisner techniques.She has directed and produced over 60 plays.

Plays under her direction are highly conceptual and theatrical and have won eleven Virginia High School League district awards, four regional awards and one state championship and have recieved twenty-five, Cappies nominations, including best musical for Seussical. She has received numerous awards including: seventeen Virginia Governor’s School Presidential Citations for Outstanding Educator (1998-2007), two Arts Teacher Recognition Awards from the National Foundation for Advancement in the Arts (1993 & 2001), Outstanding School Award (2001) from the Educational Theatre Association, two Best Teacher of Year Awards (1999 & 2002), three times recognized in Who’s Who Among America’s Best Teachers publications (2000, 2002 & 2003), Tele Award (2001) Subway Dreams: the Process, a documentary on the Yorktown Theatre Arts program, Outstanding Masters Project Award (2001) and Graduate School Academic Excellence Award (2001), both from George Mason University, Fairfax, VA.

Julie Hohl

<Vice President
Julie is the mother of 4 sons - the oldest is in 7th grade. She and her husband, a partner at Ernst & Young, live in Arlington. She is a biologist, a self-described scientist with creative interests. She has worked for several pharmaceutical companies, specializing in regulatory affairs. She is active in the PTA, and skilled at planning, juggling many activities and keeping organized. She is an enthusiastic believer in the ETC approach and feels that her sons have benefited enormously from their involvement. ETC has become such a priority that the family makes their summer plans around ETC's camp schedule.

Susan Leighton

Andrea Moses

Secretary
Andrea Moses is a Manager at MorganFranklin Corporation. She is a program management and financial management expert with twelve years of progressive legal and business experience holding joint degrees for Master of Business Administration and Juris Doctorate. Ms. Moses is a barred Attorney and Certified Project Management Professional. Her work focuses on accounting and audit support, compliance and business processes.

Ms. Moses brings a lifetime of volunteer experience and veteran experience working with children. She participated in various mentoring and literacy programs in Maryland and Washington, DC, and is an active Project Coordinator for Greater DC Cares. While not a trained thespian, Ms. Moses has to her credit membership in her high school drama club and the honor of being chosen “Most Dramatic” for her Senior Class. Ms. Moses maintains an active love and appreciation for the arts having studied piano, dance and vocals and enjoying various venues to experience art culture.

Carolyn Marsh

Amy Westhoff

Daria Finley

Pradyot Behera