Teaching Artists
Morgan Phillips-Spotts
Morgan Phillips-Spotts is an actor/improviser/writer who has lived in Chicago for the past 6 years. During her time in Chicago she has graduated from The Second City’s Music Conservatory, performed as a part of their music improv house ensemble Infinite Sundaes as well as with other house ensembles at iO and ComedySportz Chicago. Currently she is a member of Baby Wants Candy, ComedySportz’s Minor League, Storytown improv and is on of The Second City’s 2020 Bob Curry Fellow. She has written sketch, original musicals and is currently teaching improv online and working on her small business Momo’s Book Club.
Margaret Hunsicker
Margaret Hunsicker has been performing improv for the last 13 years, and teaching for the past 6. Originally from Orlando, FL and an alumni of the University of Central Florida, she spent several years in Austin, TX teaching, directing, and performing improv at the Hideout Theatre. She is now quarantining in Chicago, IL, studying at Second City, and looking forward to getting more involved when theatres open back up again. Besides improv, she enjoys drinking iced lattes and spending time with her extremely energetic cats.
Todd Flaherty
Todd Flaherty is an actor, writer, and filmmaker. Since earning his BFA in Drama from NYU/Tisch, Todd has been working as an actor in the indie and off-Broadway theatre community developing and performing in new plays that focus on untold multi-cultural queer experiences. In 2016, Todd premiered his work as a writer and filmmaker with his award winning web series Undetectable. His first feature film Chrissy Judy was slated for production in the spring of 2020, but put on hold because of the COVID pandemic. Currently, Todd is writing a bi-lingual feature with acclaimed Bolivian director Rodrigo Bellott.
Mike Magliocca
Mike Magliocca is an actor, fight director, and teaching artist based in NYC. With nearly 10 years choreographing violence for the stage, his work has been seen in dozens of Off-Broadway, Regional, University, and other professional theatre productions, most recently working with Steve Rankin on Coriolanus at The Public’s Shakespeare in the Park. Mike is an associate instructor at Neutral Chaos Combat, a private stage combat studio in Brooklyn, as well as teaching at several NY universities having just received his MFA in Acting from Brooklyn College. Mike also works and trains as a stunt coordinator and intimacy director, and you can find out more about him at mikemagliocca.com.
Joey Yow
Joey Yow is an educator, theatre practitioner, and filmmaker. A teacher at Newark Academy in Livingston, NJ, Joey leads the Technical Theatre and Film programs and is highly involved in community service and student leadership. An accomplished storyteller and filmmaker with over twenty years in the performing and visual arts, Joey is passionate about guiding teens to find their voice as artists, collaborators, and engaged citizens.
Amaia Arana
Amaia Arana is a bilingual [Spanish/English] actor, teaching artist, artist citizen, living in Brooklyn. She is a recent graduate of NYU Tisch Graduate Acting Program. Amaia is a classically trained actor whose work has been featured in the Cannes Film Festival Short Film Corner and Art Basel Miami. She is a five time company member at the Shakespeare Theatre of New Jersey. Amaia is excited by exploring how strength and vulnerability go hand in hand to bring nuance to every character she approaches. She believes actors are empathy machines who are called to tell whole hearted, nuanced, complicated stories that change the minds and hearts of those who hear and see them.
Will Nolan
Will Nolan hails from Atlanta, but has been in the New York City area since 1994. A performer, writer and director, Will spent several years as the male half of the sketch comedy duo Naked Dog Walking, performing all over NYC, where her first created his solo show persona, Leola.
Leola has performed to sold-out crowds in NYC, New Jersey, at the Greensboro Fringe Festival, and as part of the inaugural Atlanta Fringe Festival. Will has written numerous one-act plays and one full length play, When the Mayonnaise Goes Bad, with Stephen Kaplan. His plays have been produced throughout New York City as part of one act festivals. He is a husband and father living in Northern New Jersey, and is a proud member of the Dramatist Guild of America. To find out more about Will & Leola, visit www.leolasladyland.com or @leolasladyland on all social media.
Leola has performed to sold-out crowds in NYC, New Jersey, at the Greensboro Fringe Festival, and as part of the inaugural Atlanta Fringe Festival. Will has written numerous one-act plays and one full length play, When the Mayonnaise Goes Bad, with Stephen Kaplan. His plays have been produced throughout New York City as part of one act festivals. He is a husband and father living in Northern New Jersey, and is a proud member of the Dramatist Guild of America. To find out more about Will & Leola, visit www.leolasladyland.com or @leolasladyland on all social media.
Annie Belkin
Annie is a Rhode Island- based Theater Arts Educator specializing in Acting Performance and Directing for children’s shows.
Annie attended Drew University, where she received her BA in Theatre Arts. While studying at Drew, her primary focus was stage management and performing. But as time went on , she developed a growing interest in education after working in several theater summer camps. Over the past few years, she worked in the New York City area in multiple teaching positions with children. She particularly enjoyed being an Assistant Site Director and Teaching Artist for Wingspan Arts, an Arts Education company that provides after school arts enrichment classes in the New York City Public School System. Annie has since moved back to Rhode Island, and is very excited to be back in her home state continuing her work as a Theatre Educator.
Annie attended Drew University, where she received her BA in Theatre Arts. While studying at Drew, her primary focus was stage management and performing. But as time went on , she developed a growing interest in education after working in several theater summer camps. Over the past few years, she worked in the New York City area in multiple teaching positions with children. She particularly enjoyed being an Assistant Site Director and Teaching Artist for Wingspan Arts, an Arts Education company that provides after school arts enrichment classes in the New York City Public School System. Annie has since moved back to Rhode Island, and is very excited to be back in her home state continuing her work as a Theatre Educator.
Marlaina Powell
Marlaina Powell is a proud product of Howard University, The City College of New York and New York University’s Prestigious Steinhardt School where she received her Master of Music in May of 2016. She is a member of both Actors Equity Association and the Screen Actors Guild. Marlaina’s favorite stage credits include Disney’s The Lion King (Broadway), and Smokey Joe’s Café (Broadway ), The Civil War (National Tour), Ain’t Misbehavin’ (National Tour) NUNSENSE! Hair, Little Shop of Horrors, and A My Name Is Alice. Most recently, Marlaina was featured in Disenchanted! as The Princess Who Kissed The Frog at The Women’s Theater of New Jersey’s Parsippany Playhouse. Marlaina will begin her run in the Off-
Broadway musical Sistas, at the St. Lukes Theater on September 21, 2019. Proud wife and mother to Stephen, Sinclair Adina and Simone Alexandra.
Broadway musical Sistas, at the St. Lukes Theater on September 21, 2019. Proud wife and mother to Stephen, Sinclair Adina and Simone Alexandra.
Nandita Shenoy
Nandita Shenoy is a New York-based writer-actor. Her Rage Play was recently named to the Kilroys List 2020. HerWasher/Dryer has been produced multiple times nationally after its world premier at LA’s East West Players and an Off-Broadway production in which she also starred. Her first full-length, Lyme Park: An Austonian Romance of an Indian Nature, was produced by theHegira in Washington, DC. Her one-acts have been produced in New York City and regionally. Nandita won the 2014 Father Hamblin Award in Playwriting. Her acting credits range from dancing on national tours to Shakespeare festivals to world premieres of new plays by emerging playwrights. She is a proud member of the Ma-Yi Writers Lab, the dtfwaw, the Dramatists Guild, Actors Equity Association, and SAG/AFTRA. Nandita holds a BA in English literature from Yale University. www.nanditashenoy.com
Hannah Spacone
Hannah Spacone was born and raised in Providence, RI. She began her theatre career at the age of 7. Hannah attended The Hartt School of Music Dance and Theatre, at the University of Hartford, where she received her BFA in Music Theatre. Not only did her professional career begin during those four years of school, but her love of teaching began to grow. She firmly believes in the power of theatre education! Hannah is a proud member of Actors Equity Association. She spent a year in Los Angeles, which oddly enough took her to Alaska to perform “Beauty and the Beast”, where she was Dance Captain. Hannah was also fortunate enough to play Penny Pingleton in Hairspray with New Bedford Festival Theatre. Hannah has spent the last 2.5 years living in Reno, NV, teaching theatre with Reno Little Theater and the Boys and Girls Club of Truckee Meadows, and is thrilled to be joining the teaching staff at Luna Stage Theatre Company!
Christina Bixland
Christina Bixland is an arts educator, administrator, and director with a passion for making theater with youth. She is the current Education Director at renowned experimental theater group Ping Chong + Company in NYC, and she the former Director of Education at the Flynn Center for the Performing Arts where she founded the Flynn Youth Theater Company (high-caliber musical theater performed by and for young people) and ran the Vermont Young Playwrights Festival, elevating and celebrating student voice. Through schools and arts institutions around the northeast, she has taught acting, movement, and voice for theater and musical theater to youth ranging in age from 4-19.