Teaching Artists

Rose Bedard

Rose Bedard, affectionately known as “Rosie B.” is a freelance artist, choreographer, and teacher under her LLC 2INSPIRE Dance. She can be found inspiring, teaching, and choreographing at local studios and universities in and outside of Vermont. She is the creator/director of her own adult dance company, SynRgy Dance Company. Rose has the pleasure to work with many dance studios around the state on a recreational and competitive level as well as continuing her own training in NYC, Boston, and beyond. She has been coach of the Mt. Mansfield Union dance team for 16 years.

Tom Cleary

Pianist/keyboardist/composer Tom Cleary teaches in the jazz studies program at UVM, coordinates the Flynn jazz program, and teaches private lessons in his home studio. He co-leads the jazz quartet Birdcode with vocalist Amber deLaurentis, and has performed and recorded with Mike Gordon, Ray Vega, Ellen Powell, Brian McCarthy, Patricia Julien, and Jamie Masefield. His work in musical theater includes music direction for shows at Northern Stage, Saint Michael's Playhouse, and UVM Theater. Visit his website and blog.

Rob Crites

Rob Crites is a professional entertainer, circus performer and instructor. His performances include stilt-dancing: in Paul McCartney's European tour, with Jennifer Lopez on the American Music awards, and juggling on stilts in Aerosmith's "Jaded" music video. Movie performances include "Water for Elephants", "OZ: The Great and Powerful", and "Beauty and the Beast: 30th anniversary".  TV performances include Dancing with the Stars, GLEE, Celebrity Circus and General Hospital. In addition to performing, Rob Co-coordinated Cirque du Soleil's "Cirque du Monde" program in Los Angeles for 12 years teaching social circus to at-risk youth and now teaches several programs for Circus Smirkus here in Vermont. 

Amber deLaurentis

Amber oversees the vocal jazz program at University of Vermont, where she teaches voice and co-directs the UVM Jazz Vocal Ensemble with husband Tom Cleary. Amber regularly performs alongside Tom as a member of jazz quartet Birdcode, which recently released its first recording, You Are Here. As a songwriter, Amber released her second full-length record, Innocent Road, in 2019. She has performed with Marcus Roberts, Judi Silvano, and Ben Folds.

Rhonda Doonan

Rhonda Doonan (she/her) has been exploring dance and movement practices since her first Irish step dancing lesson as a child. Rhonda enjoys studying somatics and expressive movement as pathways to wellness, self-discovery, creativity, joy and healing. She enjoyed a long career as a speech-language pathologist and brings her passion for inclusivity and accessibility to her work at the Flynn. Rhonda is a nationally certified Pilates instructor, Shake Your Soul®-Yoga of Dance certified instructor, and is currently enrolled in the Dance for PD® dance teacher course.

Sarah Frechette

Sarah Frechette is an award winning puppetry artist, teaching artist and stop-motion animation fabricator with a BFA from the University of Connecticut’s Puppetry Arts Program. As a co-founding member of the shadow clique Night Shade she innovates contemporary hand-held cinematic shadow techniques. Sarah is also art director for PuppetKabob, where she produces original programs, tours internationally and received the prestigious UNIMA-USA citation of excellence for her Vermont based solo show “The Snowflake Man”. Sarah exhibited at the Shelburne Museum and is a Vermont Arts Council Teaching Artist creating unique theater experience for all ages. All this while honing her skills by working in stop-motion animation fabricating for such films as LAIKA’s “ParaNorman”, and Netflix’s “Wendell & Wild”.

Mikayla Kelemen is a Vermont-based singer-songwriter who has been playing and writing music by ear since childhood. A multi-instrumentalist, she taught herself piano, guitar, and several other instruments. She studied music education at The Crane School of Music and is currently completing her master's in education. For the past two years, she has been fortunate to work closely with the Vermont All State Music Festival Modern Band Ensemble and is passionate about engaging students through popular music education. Mikayla shares her love of music as a teacher at Winooski School District, where she teaches piano, chorus, and digital music. Learn more at www.mikayla.us

Kristin Marchilena is a musician and educator based in Essex, Vermont. Kristin’s specialties include vocal coaching, curriculum design, classroom music instruction, music direction, songwriting, arrangement, and choral conducting. Kristin grew up just outside Milwaukee. At the age of 18, she moved to New York to attend NYU for an undergraduate degree in Music Education. As a classically-trained, contemporarily-influenced vocalist and educator, Kristin offers a versatile training experience for students of all ages.

Tracy Martin

Tracy Martin teaches young children around the state as well as through the Flynn’s signature Words Come Alive school program. She studied dance at NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts and received her MFA in dance from UWM. She is the artistic director of Phantom Theater, a venue that produces original works in dance, theater, and music.

photo credit: Emily Boedecker

“Professor” Ben t. Matchstick is the founder of the Montpelier-based Cardboard Teck Institute. He is the co-creator of the PinBox 3000 cardboard tabletop pinball machine kit (with Pete Talbot). He co-conceived the original Hadestown (with Anaïs Mitchell), now on Broadway. He has worked as a youth advocate, librarian, café owner, educator, puppeteer, artist, game master, and entrepreneur in Vermont for 20+ years. He has a BA in Theater from Northwestern University and an MFA in Interdisciplinary Art from Goddard College.

Sara McMahon

Sara has been involved in the research, teaching, performing of movement as a form of artistic and personal development for the past 40 years. Her teaching approach draws from elements of Bartenieff Fundamentals, Body-Mind Centering, basic principles of anatomy and kinesiology, and improvisational and modern dance techniques. She has extensive training in Modern Dance, Body Mind Dancing, and is a Dance for PD® certified teacher.

Deb Margolin

Deb Margolin is a playwright, actor, and founding member of Split Britches Theater Company. She is the author of numerous plays, including Imagining Madoff, Turquoise, and Bringing the Fishermen Home, as well as 10 solo performance plays which she has toured throughout the US, the most recent of which is 8 STOPS, a comedy concerning the grief of endless compassion! 8 STOPS takes a long, humorous, tender look at motherhood, the suburbs, the fear of death, and the inheritability of ideas.

Hanna Satterlee creates performance experiences, and conceptual artworks for stage, site, and film. Hanna holds degrees and certifications in dance therapy, psychology, performance, choreography, vinyassa/yin/restorative yoga, non-profit management, and arts integration. Hanna has been a dancer in many US companies and collaborative performance groups, and has worked internationally as an independent artist, choreographer, and movement and mindfulness teacher. Hanna launched ANIMAL Dance in 2022, a performance and production company based in Burlington. 

Gina Stevensen is an award-winning playwright, performer, and teaching artist with an MFA in Playwriting from Columbia University and a BFA in Drama from NYU Tisch. Before moving to Burlington, they spent 13 years in New York City, where they taught theater and creative writing at Tribeca Performing Arts Center, The Brooklyn College Community Partnership, Leave Out Violence, The Writer’s Rock, Writopia Lab, and more. They are a 2023 Vermont Arts Council/NEA Creation Grant recipient. Their plays have been developed in NYC, London, and across the country. Since moving to Vermont, they have worked as a performer and dramaturg with Vermont Stage, Middlebury Acting Company, and Vermont Shakespeare Festival, and are the co-creator of the Front Porch Follies. 

Stefanie Weigand (she/her) enjoys working as a presenter, clinician, and guest conductor across the region. She currently serves as the Chair of the NAfME Council for Choral Education, and she directs the Catamount Singers at the University of Vermont, where she is also on the voice faculty. Stefanie is the executive director of the non-profit organization Music-COMP. After completing her BFA in Musical Theatre from Ithaca College, Stefanie toured nationally with a Children’s Theatre Company. Since moving to Vermont, she has appeared as a vocalist, pianist, and music director for TURNmusic, the Vermont Philharmonic, Lyric Theatre, and more. Stefanie’s work as a studio vocalist can be heard on a number of albums, including the recent self-titled album by The Saturn People’s Sound Collective.