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Melissa Bernstein, Artistic DirectorMelissa Bernstein holds a BA in Theatre from SUNY-Binghamton, an MFA in Playwriting/Theatre Education from Emerson College and a Ph.D. in Theatre from the University of Colorado at Boulder. She founded the Newton Youth Players in 2006 and since then has directed over fifty productions involving close to one thousand youth actors. She is the Artistic Director of The Newton Theatre Company, and has directed all shows to date. Melissa directs the Wednesday and Thursday afternoon Kids! productions. Her favorite part of Kids! is hearing her young casts sing the scores to all the musicals she loved as a child.
Abby Lass, Director of EducationAbby Lass is a Newton native and recent graduate of Vassar College where she received a double major in Drama and Psychology with a minor in Greek and Roman Studies. Abby has an extensive theatrical background-- over the past decade, she has been involved in over 50 productions as an actor, director, designer, choreographer, intimacy coordinator, dramaturg, and producer. She has taken classes in dance, movement, musical theater, story-sharing, viewpoints, and Shakespearean verse at Walnut Hill School for the Arts, Boston Children’s Theater, and Vassar College. She worked as an Assistant Director at Newton Youth Players for four summers and served as a Facilitator with Poughkeepsie Youth Theater. She has also conducted research into the psychological benefits of theater education for adolescents. Abby loves working with young artists of all experience levels and firmly believes in the importance of cultivating confidence and community through theater.
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Neil Miller, Music DirectorNeil Miller received a Bachelor of Science degree from MIT, where he followed a double major in music and electrical engineering. After college, he spent the next twelve years recording with several bands, touring the Eastern US and Canada. He now has a dual career as musician and electrical engineer. He has performed with numerous national artists including Lesley Gore, Tiny Tim, Bo Diddley and the Boston Symphony Orchestra. He currently appears regularly at local venues. For the last ten years, he provided the live musical accompaniment for Newton Youth Players productions, and looks forward to working with Newton Theatre Company Kids! His greatest pleasure in working with children is seeing young performers learn how much fun it is to entertain an audience.
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Sarah Robinson Seeber, Music DirectorA true “Jill of all trades” in the musical world, Sarah’s performance experiences include everything from Mahler’s 2nd Symphony to “Sweet Child O’ Mine”. In 2015, she began pursuing a longtime goal of learning to conduct, and subsequently became Assistant Conductor of the Arlington-Belmont Chorale. In 2008, Sarah co-founded Opera51 in Concord, where she sang and directed several operettas, and served as Chorus Master for the company in productions of Fledermaus, Faust (Gounod), and Carmen. A soprano in the Tanglewood Festival Chorus, Sarah performs regularly with the Boston Symphony Orchestra. Sarah fronted her dance band Firefly for twelve years as lead singer, keyboardist, and emcee. No stranger to the rigors of close-harmony singing, Sarah sang with the award-winning a cappella group Serious Fun throughout the 90s. Sarah is also a Gilbert & Sullivan aficionado and has joined the Sudbury Savoyards onstage and as rehearsal accompanist.
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Margaret Remensnyder, Scenery DirectorMargaret Remensnyder earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from The School of the Art Institute of Chicago and a Master of Fine Arts degree in graphic design from Boston University School for the Arts. She has many years of experience teaching art to children in a variety of settings from after school programs, to art centers, schools and museums. She loves working with Newton Theatre Company Kids! as Set Designer because it's so much fun to make two and three dimensional set pieces for the plays with the kids! She is a painter who works in watercolor and gouache.
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