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Hope Academy's Teaching ArtistsKaren Baum, Hope Academy Teaching Artist

Hope Academy enjoys working with some of the top musicians, actors, and performance artists in Western Pennsylvania and beyond. Our students benefit tremendously from these professionals. There's nothing like working and training with performers of this caliber.

Here is a partial list of our past and present teaching artists' bios. If you have questions, please contact Linda Addlespurger, director of Hope Academy, by or by phone, (412) 441-3800 x12.

Toeknee Bailey, African Drumming

Toeknee Bailey is an African drummer and director of the Renaissance Wimmins' Drumming Circle, Toeknee Bailey, graduated with her bachelor's degree from Point Park College in 1982 and received her Masters in psychology from Duquesne in 1984. She teaches traditional African drumbeats and rhythms, using djembe drums and other percussion instruments, to students of different backgrounds and abilities, encouraging them to have fun and feel proud of their own abilities and talents. She is passionate about using African drumming to help young people of all ages discover a sense of belonging and community as they learn to listen, concentrate, take risks and trust one another. Toeknee is a full-time legal assistant for Neighborhood Legal Services Association during the day and when she is not playing or teaching African drums, she is singing or writing. She has nearly completed her first anthology of poetry and is currently working on her first book, a personal memoir.

Karen Baum, Musical Theater Workshop (Acting), Shakespeare Workshop

Karen Baum, a member of the Actors' Equity Association, is a BFA graduate from the Conservatory of Performing Arts at Point Park University. She has acted with local and regional companies, including the Pittsburgh Playhouse REP, UnSeam'd Shakespeare Company, Pittsburgh Irish and Classical Theater, City Theatre, Public Theater of Kentucky, Bricolage, Starlight, Immersion, Little Lake Theater and the internationally acclaimed Squonk Opera. Currently, she is touring Rachel Carson Saves the Day! with Pitt's Shakespeare in the Schools program. This past year she played the role of Desdemona in UnSeam'd Shakespeare Company's Othello. The Pittsburgh Post Gazette selected her for Supporting actress of the year (2006) "mostly for her funny, not-quite-innocent young Irish maid, completing the strange triangle in Pittsburgh Irish and Classical Theater's Boston Marriage." In addition to stage work, she does local and national television and radio spots and is the virtual tour guide for medsmadesimple.com. She plays the title role in the independent film, Grace; and a principal in the pilot series, Ghosthunters PSI. Karen developed the successful Shakespeare Workshop program at Hope Academy and is proud of her students' accomplishments over the past several years.

David L. Early, Musical Theater Workshop (Acting) and Showcase Director for Brundibar and Once On This Island, Jr.

David has appeared in numerous stage productions in Pittsburgh including Gabe in the extended run of Fences at the Public Theater, Midge Carter in I'm Not Rappaport at Apple Hill, Malcolm X in The Meeting and Bro. Boxer in Amen Corner at Kuntu Repertory Theater. His television credits include The Young and the Restless, Quincy, Catercousins, and ABC/NBC movies of the week. David has also appeared in several feature films: The Silence of the Lambs, Passed Away, Monkey Shines and Creepshow. Besides being an accomplished actor, he uses his educational background to train teachers, counselors and corporate employees on methods of raising self-esteem, self-awareness and managing stress. David has worked with the Pittsburgh Public Theater's education outreach program for three years and the Allegheny Intermediate Unit for 14 years, offering drama workshops to students in the 42 school districts in Allegheny County.

Janet Madelle Feindel, Director, Carnegie Mellon/Hope Academy Shakespeare Coaching Outreach Program Associate Professor Voice/Speech/Text and the Alexander Technique at Carnegie Mellon University.

Janet Madelle Feindel has an MFA from Carnegie Mellon, a BA from the University of Toronto and an Honors Diploma from George Brown College School of Theatre. She is a Designated Linklater Voice Teacher and certified as a Fitzmaurice Associate. She also completed a teacher training with David Smukler and has trained with Cicely Berry (Director of Voice, Royal Shakespeare Company), Andrew Wade (formerly Head of Voice, Royal Shakespeare Company); Francis Thomas (Bristol Old Vic); Richard Armstrong (Co-founder Roy Hart Company); and IPA/dialects/accents with Jeremy Dix-Hart, Bill Meilen and colleague Don Wadsworth. Janet also has had extensive training in movement. A graduate of the Alexander Alliance School in Philadelphia, she was certified with Alexander Technique International in July 2003 and with the International Somatic Movement Educators and Therapists Association in January 2004. She has taught voice for the Alexander Alliance in Germany, Philadelphia and in Toronto. Janet has coached many professional actors including Megan Follows (from Ann of Green Gables), Sean McCann (from Chicago) and Brian Bedford (for his dialect work in Nixon, directed by Oliver Stone). She was also dialect consultant Showtime's Queer as Folk. She has been dialect/voice coach for Ark Theatre (LA), the Stratford Festival (where she received two Tyrone Guthrie Awards); the Shaw Festival (where she was also Principal of the Academy); Canadian Stage Company Dream in High Park; New Jersey Shakespeare Festival; Cleveland Public Theatre, City Theatre, Starlight Theatre (Macbeth directed by colleague Scott Denier) and Pittsburgh Public Theatre (coaching Medea, with Lisa Harrow, directed by Ted Pappas; The Crucible, directed by Timothy Douglas, The Laramie Project directed by Jesse Berger and A Midsummer Night's Dream, directed by Eddie Gilbert). Janet Madelle's play A Particular Class of Women played in Rome in Italian at the Teatro Colesseo and the Teatro Della Bugia; in English, in Rome at the Teatro Inglese. Her play was featured at both the First and Second International Women Playwrights Conferences. It has played in theatres in Canada and the US, most notably the WOW CAFE and 29th Street Rep Theatre in NYC: Alleyway Theatre, Buffalo, NY; Great Canadian Theatre Company, Ottawa; Belfry Theatre, Victoria, BC; Alumnae Theater and the Poor Alex, Toronto; Cleveland Public Theatre; the Royal George (Shaw Festival); York University and the University of North Dakota. The play is published by Canadian Playwrights Press and distributed by Theatre Communications Group in the anthology Singular Voices.

Linda Haston, Musical Theater Workshop (Acting)

Linda Haston is a professional actress, singer, dancer and director who has lived in New York City for 10 years performing her own cabaret act and doing national and regional tours, from musicals to dinner theatre and outdoor drama. In Pittsburgh she has directed and performed for several seasons with New Horizon Theatre Company, has performed in the New Works Theatre Festival and with the Outreach Group for City Theatre, where she also understudied the roles of Bessie and Sadie in Having our Say. She debuted with the former Penn Avenue Theatre in Threepenny Opera as the Ballad Singer, and as Bee Rullo for the Pittsburgh premier of Small Town Near Pittsburgh . . . Too Many Bars. In the summer of 2000 she directed, choreographed and reprised her national tour role of Henry, in a production of The Club, to rave reviews. In February of 2002 she directed the successful production of for colored girls for the Penn Avenue Theatre. In June 2004 she performed as the Wicked Witch in Journey Back to Oz, an original production for Gemini Children's Theatre. As a director for South Park High School, her production of Into the Woods was nominated for Best Musical and won for Best Lighting Design at the 2004 Gene Kelly Awards. Other favorite roles include: Irene Page in Bubbling Brown Sugar, starring Vivian Reed; and Lily Ann Green in Lynn Nottage's Crumbs from the Table of Joy at New Horizon Theatre Company. This past year, she played Jeannette in Crowns at the City Theatre and multiple characters in Saffronia for Saints and Poets. This past summer, Linda made her debut as Tituba in Quantum Theatre's production of The Crucible.

Samantha Hoe, Pittsburgh Ballet Theatre's Dance Teacher for HALO's Creative Movement and Pre-Ballet

Joe McGranaghan, Shakespeare Workshop Joe is a recent Theatre Arts graduate of the University of Pittsburgh. Roles at Pitt Rep include Dancing at Lughnasa (Michaell), Pericles (The Raven), Arms and the Man (Sergius), Twelfth Night, Much jAdo About Nothing, and numerous lab productions. In 2006, Joseph has been performing in Troy, NY with the 2006 Bakerloo Theatre Project in both Julius Caesar (Octavius/The Soothsayer) and Antigone (Messenger), in City Theatre's Young Playwrights Festival, and for Poets Corner, reading works by Ted Hughes. Joseph also trained for a semester at the Middlesex School of Drama in London where he appeared in their production of Trojan Women.

Cynthia Lynn (Cyd) Pennington, Pittsburgh Ballet Theatre's Percussion Accompanist for HALO's Creative Movement and Pre-Ballet

Cynthia Lynn (Cyd) Pennington is a percussion accompanist for Pittsburgh Ballet Theatre School, accompanying Community Schools (Hope Academy of Music and the Arts) and Pittsburgh Public Schools Creative Movement and Pre-Ballet classes; for Pittsburgh Dance Alloy, accompanying Modern Dance and Creative Movement classes, including outreach to public schools, Company Class, and summer day camps at Pittsburgh Center for the Arts and the Carnegie Museums of Art and Natural History; and for Point Park University, accompanying Modern Dance. She is also the Percussion accompanist for the Mary Miller Dance Company, accompanying Modern Dance and Children's Creative Movement classes, including classes with special populations, such as students at the Western Pennsylvania School for the Deaf and the Peebles Elementary School hearing-impaired program, and the clients of Transitional Services, Inc. She has accompanied Modern Dance master classes for LABCO, with guest artists such as Sean Curran, Kevin Wynn and Lisa Race; and for Point Park's International Summer Dance Institute, with teaching artists such as Judith Liefer-Bentz, Michele de la Reza, Peter Kope, Andre Koslowski, Mary Miller, Gillian Beauchamp, Staycee Walters-Pearl, Kristen McClintock, and Michele Dawson. She is currently a member of the Pittsburgh Savoyards Orchestra, performing the Gilbert & Sullivan comic operas in their original full-orchestra settings. She has also performed with the Allegheny Brass Band, the Edgewood Symphony Orchestra, the Pittsburgh Civic Orchestra, the North Pittsburgh Civic Symphony (now North Pittsburgh Philharmonic), the North Suburban Symphonic Band, the Jewish Community Center Orchestra (now Pittsburgh Philharmonia) in Squirrel Hill, the Washington (PA) Symphony Orchestra, the Washington & Jefferson College Wind Ensemble, and the Mary Miller Dance Company, most recently in collaboration with the African Drum & Dance group, Jambo, and also for a special audience-interactive performance at the Western Pennsylvania School for Blind Children. Cynthia holds a B.A. in Music Therapy and a Minor in Psychology from The College of St. Teresa, Winona, MN and served her MT internship at Central Wisconsin Center for the Developmentally Disabled, Madison, WI. She has worked as an RMT at The Cleveland (OH) Music School Settlement with child and adult DD, learning disabled/attention deficit disordered, geriatric, and child, adolescent and adult psychiatric populations. She studied Percussion with Linda Raymond of the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra while attending New Berlin (WI) High School, with Thomas Schneller while attending the College of St. Teresa, and with Pavel Burda at The University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee. In addition to performing with the CST/St. Mary's Orchestra, Teresan Concert Chorale, Winona State University Orchestra, St. Mary's College Jazz Band and the UW Milwaukee Symphony Band during her college years, she was also a frequent performer with the Winona Oratorio Chorus, Rochester (MN) Symphony Orchestra, and LaCrosse (WI) Symphony Orchestra. She is also a former member of the Madison (WI) Civic Orchestra and the Lorain (OH) Symphony Orchestra. Cynthia's dance training began at age 5 in her native Milwaukee. She studied Ballet with Esther Moody in Milwaukee and assisted with young children's classes. In addition to the B.A. degree in Music, Cynthia had an emphasis in Dance at The College of St. Teresa, studying Ballet, Modern, Choreography, and Dance History, performing in faculty and student choreography, as well as in opera corps de ballet. Continuing studies have included Modern (Graham Technique) at The Cleveland Music School Settlement and with Footpath Dance Company (eclectic styles), as well as Ballet with Marguerite Duncan in Cleveland, OH; and Modern with Dance Alloy, Jennifer L. Thomas, and Laurie Tarter in Pittsburgh. She studied Ballet with Dena Holland at Dancespace 304 for eight years and is currently studying Tap with Jillian Canastraro and at Point Park University.

Suzanne U. Polak, Musical Theater Workshop (Singing), Musical Director for "Voices of Hope" Vocal Ensemble

Suzanne Polak is a versatile artist working in many areas of the musical arts. She received both a Masters in Composition and Theory and a Bachelor's in Piano Performance from Duquesne University; and currently remains on Duquesne's accompanying staff. In addition, she has performed with members of the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra and is an adjunct faculty member at Pittsburgh's Creative and Performing Arts High School (CAPA). She plays various evenings at the Rivers Club, and has an organ position with St. Peter's E & R Church. As an actor, she has performed with Carlow College, the Summer Company, and the Duquesne University Contemporary Ensemble. She is happy to have written commissions for many friends, members of the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, Duquesne University Red Masquers, Duquesne University Medieval and Renaissance Players, and Carlow College, among others. She wrote, conducted and played a "neo-18th-century neo-score" for The Beggar's Opera, at Duquesne University, and was given mention for "Best Scores in 2001" in both the Pittsburgh Post Gazette and the City Paper. Suzanne wrote the music for Homeless: The Musical that premiered last fall at Duquesne University. She also teaches private piano and voice at Hope Academy.

Jeremy Sment, Young Creators' Workshop (music writing and recording)

Jeremy is a native of Santa Fe, New Mexico where he completed his undergraduate studies in music composition at New Mexico State University. He earned a Master's Degree in Music from Duquesne University in May of 2005. Jeremy has studied with David Stock of Duquesne University; Claude Baker of Indiana University, Bloomington; Narcis Bonet, and Michel Merlet of L'Ecole Normale de Musique in Paris along with Philip Lasser of the Juliard School at the European American Musical Alliance. In March of 2005, the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra read Jeremy's orchestral work entitled Moment 1. Earlier that same year he collaborated in forming One World Music Orchestra who premiered his orchestral tango, Pas. His work El Ciclo del Presentimiento was premiered by the Duquesne Contemporary Ensemble in 2003, and was incorporated into a visual display with the works of Luis Philipe Noe, the renowned Argentinean painter. Jeremy has also premiered a work for two pianos based on an earlier work for Native American flute. In the summer of 2004 he finished a commission for bassist Jeff Turner entitled Dialogue for Bass and Piano and Pittsburgh Live Music performed his composition, Step, featuring accordion player Henry Doktorski. Jeremy's music has also been used as soundtracks for several Pittsburgh-based films and plays including Tavia Lafollette's Faust and Gypsies and Crickets, and Christiane D Leach's Saffronia. Jeremy performs as a bassist in regional orchestras and jazz bands including the tango quintet Tangueros de Ley and teaches private upright double bass, electric bass guitar, piano and musicianship/composition at Hope Academy.

Holly Thuma, Creative Dramatics and Saturday Performing Arts Program Consultant

Actress, teaching artist, and director, Holly's performing credits include The Dallas Theater Center, Pittsburgh Public Theater, Jennerstown Mountain Playhouse, Quantum Theatre, Playhouse Repertory, and films by Tony Buba and Brady Lewis. A founding member of the City Theatre under Mark Masterson, she also performed regularly with Three Rivers Shakespeare Festival. She has appeared as a dramatic performer with the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, the International Poetry Forum, and in Pittsburgh Ballet Theater's world premiere of Juliet and Her Romeo at the Hollywood Bowl in Los Angeles. Outreach has been a vital part of her career, beginning as an Artist in Residence through the Pennsylvania State Council on the Arts. She helped create and develop Pittsburgh Public Theater's Creative Dramatics Program, which unites children from diverse public schools in and around the city of Pittsburgh. In 1998, she received mention in Pittsburgh Post Gazette's Top Ten Productions for her direction of Brian Friel's Translations for Pittsburgh Irish and Classical Theater. Most recently she directed and adapted Romeo and Juliet for Shakespeare in the Schools, and directed Dancing At Lughnasa for Pitt Repertory Theatre. She holds a BFA in acting from New York University and an MFA from the University of Pittsburgh, where she was the 2002 recipient of the MFA Teaching Award. She has served on the acting faculty at Carnegie Mellon University School of Drama, the University of Pittsburgh, and Point Park University, but most of all loves working at Hope Academy where the students ROCK and the teaching artists are the best. She loves telling stories on the Healy Heartwood Story Bus and lives in Squirrel Hill with her husband, actor Larry John Meyers, and their two children, Callie and Charlie.

Julieta Ugartemendia, Songs and Stories for HALOs (Hope Academy Little Ones)

Julieta has enjoyed a prolific career as a clarinetist performing in prestigious arenas from Carnegie Hall in New York City to the Carnegie Music Hall and Heinz Hall in Pittsburgh. She studied conducting at the School of Fine Arts in La Plata, Argentina, and received her Bachelors of Music and Music Education at the Beethoven Conservatory in Buenos Aires. Following graduation, she performed at the Teatro Argentino, Teatro Colon, and Salon Dorado de la Municipalidad de La Plata. Upon moving to the United States she completed the Performance Residency Program at Carnegie Mellon University, and an Artist Diploma at Duquesne University. She has studied with Thomas Thomson, Michael Rusinek and Ron Samuels. Today, she is the clarinetist/singer/musical director of the local band Tangueros de Ley and she performs with Cincopation Woodwind Quintet. Julieta also teaches private piano and clarinet at Hope Academy

Staycee R. Walters-Pearl, Musical Theater Workshop (dance), REMIX (formerly Hope-Xpress) Dance Company

Staycee began her formal dance training in high school, performing with Dance Dimension in her hometown of Columbia, Maryland. She received her most formative and diverse training at the College of the Arts of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and both the Dance Theatre of Harlem and Alvin Ailey American Dance Center of New York City. In the fall of 2001, Staycee began her tenure as Artistic Director of Xpressions Contemporary Dance Company (XCDC) where she premiered numerous original works including her five movement ode to Old School Hip/Hop, Thangs Vivrant, and Freedoms Fire, her inspirational "recipe" for peace. Staycee received an individual artist grant from the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts in 2001 to support her multidisciplinary performance piece, Heart Candy, that focused on her journey back to health after kidney failure and transplant. Her musical theater experience includes; choreography for Blues for Mr. Charlie, directed by Gene Nesbeth for the City College of New York's Drama department, Nathan Davis' jazz-opera, Just Above My Head, produced by Opera Theater of Pittsburgh, and A Thousand Cranes, Brundibar and Once on this Island for Hope Academy of Music and Arts. Staycee was one of three artists in August of 2004 to receive the honor of Choreographic Fellow at Summer Stages Dance in Concord, Massachusetts, under the tutelage of iconic dance legends Richard Colton, Gus Solomon, and Carmen DeLavallade. Staycee is currently collaborating with her husband, Herman ‘Soy Sos' Pearl, on an interdisciplinary performance work, Push Play, which premiered in January 2006 in its workshop phase at the Artist Upstairs Couples Exhibition, curated by LaFollette and Erin O'Neal.