Pierre-Jacques Brault is a graduate of Baldwin-Wallace College's Music Theatre Dept. and is the co-founder of Mercury Summer Stock, which enters its fourteenth season this summer in its new permanent home with Notre Dame College. During the day, he is an agent at The Talent Group, Cleveland's leading talent agency in Cleveland/Pittsburgh area (www.talentgroup.com). He has directed countless shows, ranging from full-scale musicals, such as Evita and Annie, to lesser-known plays, including Never the Sinner. His favorite directing credit was putting together the critically acclaimed musical Cinderella, Enchanted. As an actor, Pierre has worked with Broadway legends Donna McKechnie and Pamela Myers and has assisted some of today's top directors and choreographers, including Cleveland's own Victoria Bussert. Pierre’s work has been seen at Cain Park, Willoughby Fine Arts, Chagrin Valley Little Theatre, Geauga Lyric Theatre Guild, Great Lakes Theater Festival, Ensemble Theatre, Virginia Musical Theatre and Stagedoor Manor, a theatrical camp in upstate New York. Pierre wil be directing Annie this season at HYT.
Nathan Motta is a professional director, conductor, and composer/lyricist who has worked with Dobama Theatre, Cleveland Playhouse, Opera Cleveland, Ohio Light Opera, Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, Mercury Opera Rochester, and Civic Light Opera (Pittsburgh). Nathan is the Founding Artistic Director of the Dobama Emerging Actors Program and directs the Dobama Young Playwrights Competition. Nathan’s first original musical Little White Gloves was an adaptation of the movie All I Wanna Do and premiered in February 2010. His second original musical Midsummer (based on Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream) will premiere at HYT during the 2012-13 season. He holds a B.F.A. from Carnegie Mellon University and an M.M. from the Eastman School of Music. As a conductor, Nathan acted as assistant conductor to Robert Page and Marvin Hamlisch in a series of Pittsburgh Symphony Pops performances of “A Tribute to Richard Rodgers” and his recording of the operetta Der Vogelhändler with the Ohio Light Opera Company was released on the Albany Records label in 2008. This season Nathan will act as Assistant Director on Cleveland Playhouse’s production of Brecht’s Galilieo. Directing credits include Antigone; Blood Wedding; Our Town; Almost, Maine; Pippin, Into the Woods; A Funny Thing…Forum; Thoroughly Modern Millie, Chicago, Anything Goes, Damn Yankees, and Fiddler on the Roof. Nathan is currently the Director of Music and Arts at University Circle United Methodist Church. He will be directing Chicago this season for HYT.
Treva Offutt is a singer-songwriter, actress, dancer, and visual artist who combines these forms through an improvisational performance base. She has taught visual and performance workshops in conjunction with performances all over the country and abroad. Over the years, Treva has had the honor of working with many dynamic dance/theater/music ensembles including: Roger Guenveur Smith’s Iceland, Fred Ho’s Big Red Media in the martial art opera, The Further Adventures of Monkey, Yoshiko Chuma’s School of Hard Knocks, and The Living Room Project, Patricia Parker Nelson’s PaNic with The William Parker Quartet, Belgium’s Remote Control Productions, Ireland’s Daghdha Dance Company, India’s Adishakti Theater Company, and New York based Urban Bush Women. She has also had the great fortune to work as a vocalist with: Jamaican sacred and folk music ensemble Ancient Vibrations (also vocal arranger), the African Pop group Afro-Blue, the South African ensembles-Shyingoma, Osha, and Lucky Ngema and Friends, Mexican vocal project Choro Tajin, Phillip Hamilton, the David Murray Big Band, Sabir Mateen and Jeff Shurdett, Hammiett Blueit, Craig Harris, Dan Zanes and Friends, and with her own 8 member ensemble, a duo with guitarist Barry Salmon, and her new trio Lulutoy with Andy Ezrin and Jean Baptiste Boclé. In addition, she has written three plays, is a member of SAG, and was a curator at The Kitchen for 7 years. Treva is a Performance and Language Arts teacher at Laurel School and will be directing this season's production of the King and I.
Sean Szaller has been involved in professional theater for the past 15 years. A Cleveland native, he is an award-winning actor, director, musical director, choreographer, musician, and educator. As an actor, he has been seen on almost every professional stage in NE Ohio including Great Lakes Theater Festival, Cain Park, The Cleveland Orchestra, and the Beck Center. He attended Wright State University for training in Musical Theater. During this time in Dayton, he performed at LaComedia Dinner Theater as well as the national collegiate premier of the acclaimed musical "Parade." Upon returning to Cleveland, he taught private voice and acting, and served on the faculty of the Fairmount Performing Arts Camp from its' inception. In 2008 Sean relocated to NYC to continue his career. He has had the privilege of performing in 2 off-Broadway productions since. In addition, he has served as the Production Stage Manager for several regional theater companies including Virginia Musical Theater, West Virginia Public Theater, Great Lakes Theater Festival, and Idaho Shakespeare Festival. As a youth theater director, he has worked with Heights Youth Theatre and the Fairmount Performing Arts Conservatory. Sean is a proud member of Actors' Equity Association as well as the National Association of Teachers of Singing. Recently, Sean directed the critically acclaimed Ohio premiere of "13, the musical" at FPAC. This season, Szaller will direct Beauty and the Beast at Heights Youth Theatre.