About Us

Julie Lyn Barber, D.A. (she/her/hers)

Co-Founder

is a versatile director, choreographer, music director, singer, actor and educator, whose original musicals have been produced at theatres across the U.S. and Canada. She has had the privilege of working with Portland Center Stage (Gypsy), triangle productions! (Falsettos), Actors Theatre of Indiana (Whodunit...The Musical, Titanic), Round Barn Theatre (The Baker’s Wife)), Richmond Shakespeare Festival (As You Like It), Phoenix Theatre Indianapolis (Cabaret Poe), and TUTS Vancouver (West Side Story). She has also directed outreach productions for Marjorie Lawrence Opera Theatre, and the Bloomington Early Music Festival. She is Assistant Professor of Acting and Musical Theatre and Head of Musical Theatre at Purdue University Fort Wayne, and formerly Associate Professor and BFA Coordinator at Western Kentucky University’s Department of Theatre & Dance. She regularly teaches master classes in Spolin improvisation, musical theatre techniques, and singing, and has given presentations on the importance of providing failure-training opportunities for students, the integration of singing and dancing techniques, training transgender singers, and challenging gender bias in entertainment. She holds a Doctor of Arts in Music from Ball State University and a Master of Music degree in Opera/Music Theatre from Southern Illinois University Carbondale

Michelle Dvoskin, PhD (she/her/hers)

Co-Founder

is an educator, director, intimacy choreographer, new works dramaturg, writer, performer, and scholar. She is currently an associate professor in the Department of Theatre and Dance at Western Kentucky University, where she spearheaded the development of a BFA concentration in multi-disciplinary theatre. One of the things that she finds most rewarding about her work as a professor has always been the opportunity to serve as a mentor for younger artists, encouraging and supporting them in discovering their own artistic voice, developing the tools that will help them not only succeed in college but in whatever comes after, and beginning to determine what they want that after to look like. Inside the classroom, she teaches a range of courses in areas like play analysis, dramatic literature (particularly queer and feminist theatre), and theatre history. Her love of new work has also led her to develop and teach courses in solo performance, adaptation, collaboration, and dramatic writing, including an Advanced Solo Performance practicum in which she serves as the dramaturg for students as they create and perform a full-length solo piece. She also founded and serves as the Producing Artistic Director for the department’s biennial New Works Festival.

Some of her directing highlights include Stop Kiss, Crimes of the Heart, Into the Woods, These Shining Lives, Hair, and The Revolutionists. As an intimacy choreographer, she’s worked on productions including John Proctor is the Villain, Eurydice, Something Rotten, and Little Women: The Broadway Musical. She’s also been lucky enough to work as director and dramaturg for Julie Lyn Barber’s solo performance piece Turbulent Architect, which recently premiered at the Guelph Fringe Festival in Ontario, Canada. Michelle is also a published scholar whose primary research interests lie at the intersections of musical theatre, queer theory and performance, and feminist theatre and performance. She has a BA in Theatre and Women’s and Gender Studies from Amherst College and an MA and PhD in Performance as Public Practice from the University of Texas at Austin.

Fun Fact!

A love of making personalized gifts for friends and family, combined with an unexpected need for someone to make the programs for her Department's theatre prodcutions, led Michelle to discover that she really loves playing around with graphic design! If you want to see some of her designs (and maybe buy something fun for you or a loved one!) check out her Zazzle Store!