TADA! Youth Theater is excited to announce that Rod Christensen, Director of Education, is now becoming Executive Director. TADA! is also proud to welcome two new Board members, Darcy Volpe and Brian Burchfield.Janine Nina Trevens, TADA!'s co-founder and Artistic Director from the start acted as Executive Director since 2001. Ms. Trevens will continue developing artists and new works as TADA!'s Producing Artistic Director. Together, Ms. Trevens and Mr. Christensen will help TADA! grow and continue to touch the lives of thousands of children every year through original musicals, year-round classes/camps and, school residencies.
Rod Christensen is the Executive Director at TADA! Youth Theater. After seven successful years as TADA!'s Director of Education, Rod was appointed Executive Director in 2016. Since 2008, he has created and directed the content and design on a variety of educational guides through Southgate Education - a company dedicated to building audience enrichment guides for Broadway and national touring productions such as
Miss Saigon, LES MISERABLES, Kinky Boots, Lysistrata Jones,
Tuck Everlasting, and
Million Dollar Quartet.
Previous professional experience includes working at One on One NYC/LA (a studio for professional actors seeking to build their careers) where he was the Program Director responsible for all aspects of program development. Prior to this, Rod was the Senior Manager of Education at Canada's prestigious Shaw Festival (the second largest repertory theater company in North America) where he developed numerous arts education programs and theatre-related workshops for school groups and adult audiences. Other past positions include: elementary/high school teacher (music and drama); department head of a creative arts program for adults with developmental disabilities; and performer with the international, educational outreach program
Up With People! Rod holds a Master of Education, a Bachelor of Music in Education, and a diploma in business management and leadership skills.
Janine Nina Trevens, Producing Artistic Director, co-founded TADA! in 1984 with Linda Reiff. She has served as the Artistic Director for all of the works produced by TADA!, many of which she commissioned specifically for the company. For TADA!, she has written
Heroes, The Little House of Cookies, Sweet Sixteen, and
The History Mystery, as well as
Odd Day Rain and
The Perfect Monster with composer/Lyricist
Deirdre Broderick. She directs many of TADA!'s musicals, numerous staged readings, and Ensemble appearances at various locations and events in and around NYC. Nina was selected as one of 10 Parenting Leaders by Parenting Magazine, and she was one of only five women nationally to receive Family Circle's First Annual Halo Award for women who make a difference. She was chosen to be part of the #OneInspired World Observatory opening, featured as an artist that has made a NYC difference. She is proud to have served on funding panels for NYSCA, DCA, ART/NY and TCG. Nina is currently a member of the League of Professional Theatre Women.
TADA!'s Board of Directors: Chalmers Browne (President), Elana Weinstein (Vice President), Stephen T. Rodd (Treasurer),
Laura Esposito (Secretary), Adam Houhoulis, Deepak Nagpal, Alina Patton, Stephanie Tighe, Julie Turaj, and Rohit Verma are happy to welcome Darcy Volpe and Brian Burchfield.
Darcy Volpe is a Director and Head of US Corporate Access at Barclays which is based in New York. She joined Barclays in 2012 from Bank of America Merrill Lynch where she was Hong Kong-based and Head of Corporate Access, Asia Pacific. Prior to her time in Asia, she was the Global Head of Roadshows at Lehman Brothers for ten years. She was briefly the Head of Corporate Access at FBR before taking the opportunity to move overseas with Merrill Lynch Asia Pacific. Darcy is a graduate of the University of South Florida with a B.A. in Mass Communications. She is an active community volunteer with NY Cares and a member of NIRI, 85 Broads, Big Brothers Big Sisters of NYC and Barclays Equities Human Capital Program.
Brian Burchfield is an investment banker with Whitehall & Company, a boutique investment bank that was established in 2010 as an originator of energy and infrastructure financing transactions. Mr. Burchfield raises equity for new build power generation assets, places senior and subordinated project finance debt, and is a sell-side advisor for operating assets. He has raised over $6 billion in equity and debt financings for power generation companies since joining Whitehall in 2012. Mr. Burchfield has a breadth and depth of experience across all aspects of the energy and power industry: convention power and transmission, renewable energy projects, and oil & gas transaction. Prior to joining Whitehall, Mr. Burchfield was an originator in the Global Energy Group at WestLB AG, a large German Landesbank. Mr. Burchfield originated and executed debt transactions in power, utility, oil & gas and alternative energy industries as a lead bookrunner. Prior to joining WestLB AG, Mr. Burchfield was a Structured Finance Analyst for Moody's Investor's Service. Prior to working in the financial sector, Mr. Burchfield was a Captain in the U.S. Army Engineer Corps. Mr. Burchfield served in a variety of assignments while in the Army: Platoon Leader of a 40-person Combat Engineer platoon as well as several staff positions, including the Division level Engineer of the 13th Corps Support Command and the Army Forces Engineer for Joint Task Force 6 (Southern Command) in Honduras. Mr. Burchfield received a BS in Civil Engineering from the U.S. Military Academy at West Point and his MBA from the Johnson School at Cornell University. Additionally, he holds a PE license in Civil Engineering. Mr. Burchfield is also an avid snow boarder, SCUBA diver, golfer, and poker player.
Since 1984, TADA!'s mission is to provide young people from all different backgrounds with musical theater programs that inspire them to be creative, learn, and think differently. TADA! is an unique Drama Desk award-winning nonprofit youth theater that produces original musicals for children, teens, and family audiences. TADA! offers a free, year-round, pre-professional training & youth development program through the Resident Youth Ensemble (ages 8-18); musical theater classes/camps for the public; as well as musical theater residencies in NYC schools and community centers. Through TADA!'s high-quality work, young people develop advanced skills and attributes in leadership, self-confidence, communication, responsibility, creativity, collaboration, and problem-solving - skills that help with growing up and are essential to their success both in school and in life.
YEAR-TO-DATE STATS:
- 2,500 free or reduced price tickets
- Over 1,700 performances
- 37 original musicals and 7 original dance productions
- Over 150,000 Audience members with live theater enrichment
- 750,000 kids with arts education and theater programs
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