Children's Center Faculty

David Bauman: (SAG, AFTRA, AEA) earned his MFA from UCLA. Originally from Wisconsin, David is an actor, director, and children’s book author now living in Los Angeles. He has written and directed several serials for Sacred Fool’s Theater’s late night Crime Scene. He has worked with the Blank Theater Company’s Young Playwrights’ Festival and directed for their Living Room Series. He has worked with The Blank, Sacred Fools, the Will Geer Theatricum Botanicum, Evidence Room Theater, and Buzzworks Theater companies in classic and contemporary productions. Bauman has taught acting at UCLA, for StageCoach Schools at CrossRoads in Santa Monica, and is currently teaching and directing at the Youth Academy of Dramatic Arts in Los Angeles. He has written interactive children’s books for Golden Books in Wisconsin and Meredith Publishing in Iowa, and hopes to publish his own collection of children’s poetry, Tales From Bedside Manor.

Laura Carson: (SAG, AFTRA, AEA) has been working as a professional actress for the past 20 years. She earned a BA in Theatre & Speech from the College of William and Mary. She was one of 18 out of thousands to be selected for the Acting Apprentice Program at Actors Theatre of Louisville under the direction of Jon Jory and Bob Krakower. She completed the 2 year Meisner program at Gately/Poole Acting Studio in NY. She performed in Off-Off Broadway and regional theatre productions and had two of her original plays produced there. She now calls Los Angeles her home where she currently pursues a film and television career, the highlights of which include working on Bruce Almighty, Grey’s Anatomy and most recently, Marshall Herskovitz’ internet series Quarterlife. She also volunteers recording textbooks at Recording for the Blind and Dyslexic in Hollywood. Over the years she has taught improv and sketch comedy and digital film-making for kids. She has recently begun teaching a business of acting seminar called “The Working Actor” for college students which helps young actors focus their post-college goals in the acting business.

Marie DelBagno has been teaching for nearly 20 years at schools and studios including Moro Landis/Millennium Dance Studio, Dance Arts Academy, FocusFish Performance Fitness Center and Studio A Dance. She founded a successful dance program for the Beverly Hills Playhouse for four years. She then went on to start her current company DanceCreate. Maria’s dance training is extensive having studied with Michael Owens, Michael Rooney, Doug Caldwell, Claude Thompson, Patrice McCoy, Fred Walton, Joe Tremaine and the father of modern jazz dance, Luigi. Her trained disciplines, include ballet, modern, lyrical and classical jazz, theater dance, salsa and swing. Maria choreographs for music video, commercials, film, theatre, variety shows, children shows, community outreach productions and enjoys teaching all levels of dance and movement. Her most current work includes a children’s TV Pilot called The Wiz Kidz, which she produced and choreographed.

Katherine England: is a muralist as well as an art teacher at the Muckenthaler Museum and several local schools and adult programs in Orange County, CA. She also has taught at workshops at art centers and retreats around the country. Her favorite medium right now is glass and she loves breaking, nipping, melting it and coaxing it into playful patterns and whimsical figures. Her largest mosaic piece is 40’ by 8’ but she also enjoys playing with tinier pieces. She lives with her four children in Fullerton, CA.

Linda Fuller: Otis Arts Institute; BA, Art, Antioch University, Los Angeles; Early Childhood Degree, Center for Early Education, Los Angeles. Linda has taught for several schools in the Los Angeles area, including the Midtown, Westland, and Los Encino schools, The Center for Early Education, and Crossroads Elementary School. As the Arts Specialist for Crossroads for fifteen years, Linda integrated art into the social studies curriculum and worked with both the theater and music programs, creating scene designs, masks, and murals. Linda also served as Arts Specialist and Consultant for the Melrose Avenue School and the Valley County School in the San Fernando Valley. Other teaching includes working as the Arts Specialist for the I. E. (Innovative Education) Program, associated with Hollywood High School, where she led field trips to Watts Towers and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, and then guided the students to create sculptures and drawings based upon their experience. She also gives workshops for CAIS (California Association for Independent Schools) and CAEA (California Art Education Association). Linda continues to work with museums in New York to enhance and develop their children’s art programs and exhibits her artwork in Los Angeles and New York. In addition to contributing to set designs in NY and San Francisco theatres, she worked with children to create art for the film I Am Sam. She teaches art to under privileged children in various schools in Los Angeles as well as private art classes at her home.

Stanley Goldstein: BA from UC Santa Barbara, College of Creative Studies; Fellowship Yale Summer School of Music and Art. Stanley has taught painting classes at the San Francisco Art Institute, UC Santa Barbara, San Francisco City College, the California Academy of Sciences in San Francisco, and the Central California Arts League in Modesto. Represented by George Billis Gallery in New York City and Los Angeles. He has had solo exhibitions in Los Angeles, New York and San Francisco. He had a solo exhibition at George Billis Gallery, LA, in September 2009 and at George Billis Gallery, NY in March 2010. His work is in the permanent collection of the San Francisco Fine Arts Museum.

Valerie Ann Gordon: MA, Art Education, Cal State, Northridge. She currently teaches as an Art Specialist, K-6th grade, at Los Encinos Elementary School in Encino, CA, where she works closely with classroom teachers integrating social studies and class themes into art projects. In the summer of 2004, she was the summer art and music camp director for the Los Encinos Elementary School. In 2001 she was nominated for the BRAVO Award for Excellence in art education. She is also a past presenter for the California Association of Independent Schools, Los Angeles.

Donna Johnson: (AEA, AGVA) is an actor and dancer from Los Angeles, CA. She has theatrically trained at California Institute for the Arts (CalArts), the New York Film Academy, and Vanguard University of Southern California. Dance training and company work includes the Debbie Allen Studio, the E.D.G.E. Performing Arts Center, Lula Washington Dance Theater, and work with the nationally acclaimed break dancing group: The Groovaloos. Commercial dance experience includes Gap commercials, Burger King, Adidas as well as background dancing for recording artist, Deitrick Haddon. She has received numerous awards, including the CA Arts Scholar Award and 3 NAACP ACT-SO awards for best acting, original choreography and dance ensemble. She currently works with DV8 Physical Theater in Los Angeles.

Tim Labor: Ph.D. in music composition, UCSD. Currently a faculty member in the UC Riverside Dept. of Music, and a member of the Circle X Theatre Company. He is a composer and sound designer whose recent projects include Laura Comstock’s Bag Punching Dog for Circle X Theatre Company, and The Laramie Project for Mira Costa High School. In 2002, Tim received an LA Weekly award nomination for best original score for Paul Mullin’s world premier play American Book of the Dead, The Game Show.

Johanna McKay (AEA, SAG, AFTRA) has directed and written adaptations of Shakespearean plays for young teens and has taught acting to children for over fourteen years. She teaches drama during the year for P.S. Arts in Los Angeles. Johanna has earned her BFA in acting from The Theatre School, DePaul University (Sarah Siddons Award), and her MFA from UCLA (Jack Nicholson Award). Johanna’s acting credits include work at the Steppenwolf, The Goodman, Dallas Theatre Center, San Jose Repertory Theatre and the Hollywood Bowl. She’s been nominated for and Ovation and Los Angeles Weekly Best Actress awards and won the Santa Barbara Independent Theatre Award for her performance as Gwendolyn in The Importance of Being Earnest (Rubicon Theatre) and a Dramaloque Award for Mary Barnes (The Odyssey). Film/TV credits include Grey’s Anatomy, Malcolm in the Middle, Mr. 3000, The Babe, and The Bernie Mac Show.

Bruce McMenamin: Director of Children’s Center. BA in Art: Sculpture, SDSU. Sculptor, Graphic Designer, Arts Administrator. He has held numerous positions during his 40 years at Idyllwild Arts, including student services, arts faculty and administration.

Ray Ben Moszkowicz: MA, Fine Art, Cal State, Northridge; Pilchuck Glass School, Seattle, WA, and Scholarship, Art Center School of Design, Pasadena, CA. Senior Designer for UltraGlas Studios, freelance artist, and Glass working instructor at the college level, Ray currently teaches both beginning and advanced level art classes at Palms Middle School, grades 7th and 8th, Los Angeles, CA. In the summers of 2004-07 he was the Ceramics instructor at Cal State, Northridge SAPEES program for elementary school aged students.

Paul Nickels: BA in Piano Performance from California State University, Hayward. Spent 20 years teaching piano full time in Las Vegas, independently and with Nevada School of the Arts. He continues to teach in Las Vegas while developing Suzuki Music Education in southern Utah. Currently, he is active in music production with St. George Musical Theater.

Laurel Ollstein: MFA, UCLA; has been involved in new play development as an actress and playwright for the past fifteen years. She has worked with the Eureka Theatre, One Act Theatre, Berkeley Shakespeare Festival, Main Playwrights Festival and Theatre Rhinocerous. In Minneapolis, she has worked at the Minneapolis Center and the Guthrie Theatre among others. Her one-woman show, Laughter, Hope and a Sock in the Eye, based on the life of Dorothy Parker, has been produced around the country and at the Burbage Theatre in Los Angeles. She has also worked with the critically acclaimed theatre company The Actor’s Gang for the past ten years. Her other plays that have been produced around the country are Prenupt, Pot Roast, Storage Room, Insomniac and Cheese. Laurel currently teaches Playwriting in Los Angeles at Loyola Marymount University and UCLA Extension. In the last ten years she has at least one new play produced per year. Her latest project is the book for the musical OPA! which premiered last summer in New York City at the Midtown Theatre Festival where it was nominated for fourteen awards, including best production and best ensemble.

Laura Spitzer: Associate Professor of Piano, New Mexico State University. Completed her undergraduate studies at the Mozarteum in Salzburg, Austria where she was awarded the Bösendorfer Stipend and graduated with distinction. She earned her Master’s Degree with Leon Fleisher at the Peabody Institute. The recipient of four touring grants from the Nevada State Council of the Arts and the Nevada Humanities Committee. She was honored with the 1986 Nevada Governor’s Arts Award. Her students have won competitions such as the state level MTNA (collegiate division), and the El Paso Symphony Guild Concerto Competition (high school division).

Janissa Tharp began piano instruction at age 2 with her father, Suzuki-trained instructor Paul Nickels, and later studied with Muriel Adler. Piano performance major at the Las Vegas Academy of International Studies, Performing and Visual Arts under Mary Straub, Participated in numerous competitions including the Clark County School District Solo and Ensemble Piano Festival and the Bolognini Scholarship Competition. Received training at several Suzuki Institute classes with Cleo Brimhall and Dr. Haruko Kataoka.