Lead Artistic Staff
Michael Walling
Stage Director
Mr. Walling began teaching with TPAS in 1991 and soon became our resident stage director, as well as serving a two year position as TPAS Artistic Director. His Trollwood directing credits include Oklahoma, Anything Goes, Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, West Side Story, Guys and Dolls, Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, 42nd Street, Jesus Christ Superstar, Damn Yankees, Crazy for You, Footloose, Les Miserables, Kiss Me, Kate, Disney’s Beauty and the Beast, Fiddler on the Roof, and the regional premiere of Thoroughly Modern Millie.
For the past 23 years, Mr. Walling has maintained a highly successful stage directing career throughout the United States, receiving outstanding reviews for the quality of his productions. Many of his shows receive accolades and awards, including Trollwood’s own productions of Crazy for You, Footloose, Les Miserables, and Thoroughly Modern Millie, which each received the FM Favorites People’s Choice Award from FM Magazine and Red River Area Attractions.
On the university and college circuit, Mr. Walling has worked for the American College Theatre Festival as an adjudicator, and has traveled the country teaching master class workshops in audition technique for professional theatre. Mr. Walling is a founding member of the prestigious Professional Directors Company at New York University.
Joseph Dodd
Mainstage Musical Scenic Designer
Joseph Dodd (a.k.a. Dodzilla, Joe Dog, Joey Jet, Prof. Dude) is currently Professor, Resident Scenic Designer and Director of Design for the Department of Theatre and Dance at the University of Hawaii-Manoa Campus in Honolulu, where he has lived and worked since 1975. On the regional theatre circuit, he has designed for the Children’s Theatre Company (Minneapolis, MN), where his designs received a Tony Award, as well as the Syracuse Stage, Alliance Theatre, Berkeley Repertory Theatre, Seattle Children’s Theatre, Lincoln Center Institute, Colorado Shakespeare Festival, Denver Center Theatre Company, and the Fulton Opera House. Internationally, his designs have been seen at theatres in China, Russia, Scotland, Micronesia, and the Philippines. This will be Joe’s 18th year at Trollwood since 1986. Fiddler on the Roof marks his 21st production for TPAS, which includes Disney’s Beauty and the Beast from last summer, as well as 12 other Mainstage Musicals. Fiddler on the Roof was also the first production Joe designed for Trollwood, 20 years ago this summer. He recently designed the sets and props for Reeling for the Children’s Theatre Company, and is currently designing sets, props, and costumes for Go, Dog, Go! for the Honolulu Theatre for Youth.
Tom Giancursio
Mainstage Musical Choreographer
Tom Giancursio brings a wealth of musical theatre knowledge and experience to Trollwood Playhouse as this year’s Choreographer for Joseph. Tom has choreographed approximately 40 shows for various high schools and colleges throughout the United States. Tom has been an adjunct teacher in dance and musical theatre at the high school and college level and currently runs a private performance coaching business for aspiring musical theatre students.
Tom’s received a fine arts degree from SUNY Brockport and furthered his training at the Broadway Dance Center and American Dance Machine Academy in New York City, where he completed an intensive course in musical theatre choreography. Tom also studied voice at the prestigious Eastman School of Music in Rochester, New York.
Tom is also an accomplished performer with numerous regional theatre credits as well as work on cruise ships, cabaret clubs, industrials and voiceovers. Some favorite roles performed include Don Lockwood in Singin in the Rain, Molina in Kiss of the Spiderwoman, the title role in Jekyl and Hyde and the Narrator in Bloodbrothers, to name just a few.
Dan Italiano
Mainstage Musical Orchestra Conductor
While this is Dan’s 15th year as TPAS Mainstage Musical Orchestra Conductor, it is the 39th production he has conducted. During the school year, he teaches orchestra at Fargo North High School, a program recognized as one of the finest in the Midwest. Dan’s major instrument is violin, which he plays in the F-M Symphony and the F-M Silver Strings; however, he is also a percussionist. Dan has performed with many Midwest groups, including the Waukesha Symphony, Grand Forks Symphony, Milwaukee Civic Orchestra, and the F-M Civic Opera Company. Dan has continued his education in conducting studies with musicians such as Hugo Jan Huss, former conductor of the Rumanian Radio Orchestra, and the late John Paynter of Northwestern University. He is a past president of the ND Music Educators Association and the ND Chapter of the American String Teachers Association. In 1996 Dan was named NDMEA Music Educator of the Year.
Jack Mehler
MM Lighting Designer
Jack is back for his ninth TPAS Mainstage Musical production as lighting/scenic designer. His design projects in the last year include Camelot and A Christmas Carol for North Shore Music Theatre; Recordare for Jose Limon Dance; Elemental Brubeck for the Lar Lubovitch Dance Company; Motown Suite for The Joffrey Ballet; Sleeping Beauty Notebook for Spectrum Dance; Five Guys Named Moe for Lyric Theatre of Oklahoma; A Very Merry Pops for the Oklahoma City Philharmonic; and The Orphan Singer for Making Books Sing. In previous seasons, Jack has also designed for Albuquerque Civic Light Opera/Musical Theatre Southwest, Capital Rep, Cleveland Play House, Crossroads, Freedom Theatre, Manhattan Theatre Club, Merrimack Rep, Paper Mill Playhouse, Seanachai, Seattle Rep, Syracuse Stage, Theatre by the Blind, Westport Country Playhouse, and the WPA Theatre, among others. Jack holds a BFA from University of Illinois and an MFA from New York University.
David Minkoff
Properties Designer
David Minkoff has designed professionally in Hawaii, California, the Netherlands and throughout the Midwest. He is delighted to make his debut with TPAS after hearing Trollwood stories throughout his graduate school years from his mentor, Joe “Dodzilla” Dodd. David has an MFA in Scenic Design from the University of Hawaii-Manoa, where his designs for the Kabuki play “Summer Festival: A Mirror of Osaka won a Hawaii State Theatre Council Award for “Excellence in Scenic Design”. He has also won design awards for The Love Suicides at Sonezaki in Nevada City, CA, as well as for creativity at the first US Red Bull Flugtag in San Francisco, where he realized his childhood ambition of wearing a bacon costume while jumping off a 30-foot-high platform into San Francisco Bay. David served as Technical Director for the Visual Arts Program at the University of Chicago from 2000-2005, and most recently was the Resident Scenic Designer and Visiting Professor of Theatre at Indiana University - South Bend. Recent set designs include Private Eyes, The Ugly Duckling, The Imaginary Invalid, Freedomland, Sideways Stories from Wayside School, Pacific Tales for Young People and Turandot.
Elizabeth VanDeusen
Makeup & Hair Director/Designer
Elizabeth (Betsy) VanDeusen, Makeup & Hair Director/Designer, will be joining the Trollwood team after a year of travel and freelance theatre work. In 2005, Betsy earned her BFA, with a minor in Art History, from The College of Art & Design at Alfred University. As an art major, she studied a little of everything, including (but not limited to): drawing, digital video editing, papermaking, printmaking, ceramic sculpture and photography.
As a Makeup & Hair and Costume Designer, Betsy has earned a bit of recognition: In 2003, her Makeup Design for The Inspector General earned her top honors at the Kennedy Center American College Theatre Festival Region Two Conference. This award allowed her to attend the national conference in Washington DC. There she work-shopped with Randy Huston Mercer, a renowned Makeup & Hair Designer for both film and theatre. In 2005, she attended the national conference again, for her successful design of Fiddler on the Roof.
Betsy has previously worked for: The Riverside Theatre, The Merry-Go-Round Playhouse, The Buck’s Rock Performing & Creative Arts Camp and The New York State Summer School of the Arts. She will be spending the next year working at The Hartford Stage and selling her handmade jewelry.
Robin Waytenick
Costume Designer
Robin is pleased to return to TPAS to design her seventh Mainstage Musical production. Currently, she is the resident Costume Designer at Whitman College where she is an instructor and costume designer for an extensive eight-show season. Her costuming experience includes two artistically acclaimed seasons as Resident Costume Designer for The Pit and Balcony Theatre Company. Her career has also taken her to theatres around the country, including the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, Western Stage, Eugene Festival of Musical Theatre, Ashlawn-Highland Summer Festival, and The Barn Theatre. In addition to her TPAS work, Robin’s costume design credits include Tommy, Company, Candide, Cinderella, Urinetown, The Cherry Orchard, Scapin, She Loves Me, The Heiress, Alice in Wonderland, You Can’t Take It With You, An Inspector Calls, A Little Night Music, Radio Gals, The Philadelphia Story, Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, Moon Over Buffalo, The School for Scandal, The Taming of the Shrew, Born Yesterday, Me and My Gal, The House of Blue Leaves, and The Good Doctor. Robin holds an MFA in Costume Design from the University of Arizona.