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 Ray Walker is Artistic Director for the NCT Conservatory for the Performing Arts
Ray Walker made his Broadway debut as "Marius" in the smash hit musical Les Miserables. Other Broadway credits include "Annas" in Jesus Christ Superstar, "Doody" in Grease! with Rosie O'Donnell and Brooke Shields and "Whizzer" in Falsettos. Ray appeared in the world premiere of Andrew Lloyd Webber's Whistle Down the Wind directed by Hal Prince and sang with Sarah Brightman and Michael Crawford at the London Palladium and on a North Amercian tour of The Music of Andrew Lloyd Webber. Ray received critical acclaim for his portrayal of "Freddie" in the off-Broadway revival of Chess. Other credits include understudying Donny Osmond in the national tour of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, co-starring with Melissa Manchester in The Music of the Night, appearances in The Radio City Music Hall Magnificent Christmas Spectacular and starring roles in numerous regional theatre productions. In concert, Ray has sung all over the world including a concert tour with Academy Award winning composer Marvin Hamlisch and in concert with the Bolshoi Symphony in Moscow. Ray began his career at North Carolina Theatre and throughout the years has thrilled audiences in NCT productions of Jesus Christ Superstar, Grease, Chess, Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, Children of Eden and Evita. |
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 Julie Bradley
Musical Theatre Instructor/Class Accompanist
Julie is a graduate of NC School of the Arts and UNC-CH. While still in school, she began working at Carolina Regional Theatre, which soon became North Carolina Theatre. To date, Julie has performed for over 80 main stage and 15 youth productions at NCT.
Over the years, Julie has been very involved with Raleigh’s opera, regional theatre, community theatre and youth education programs, including the Opera Company of North Carolina, Hot Summer Nights at the Kennedy, Wake County Public Schools, Longleaf Opera, Raleigh Little Theatre and Northbend Productions. Her work as orchestrator and arranger includes such clients as the Jimmy V Celebrity Classic, Going Barefoot, Inc., Communities in Schools and Embrace Uganda.
Currently, Julie is music director for North Carolina Arts in Action, a dance outreach program modeled after Jacques d’Amboise's National Dance Institute. She also serves as the orchestra contractor for Broadway Series South, a presenter of Broadway touring musicals. Julie resides in Raleigh with her wonderful husband, Tim. |
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 Christine Hunter Heneghan
Acting Instructor
A professional actress with over twenty years experience in Theatre (Off-Broadway/National Tours/Regional Theatre) Film, and Television, holds a BFA from Syracuse University and an MFA from the University of Illinois.
She has taught acting and voice/speech at Northwestern University, the University of Illinois and Prairie State College. In addition to appearing in numerous NCT main stage productions, she recently served as Dialect coach for the NCT KOB production of A Man of No Importance |
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 Danea Polise-Bickerstaffe
Dance Instructor
Danea joins the NCT Conservatory after performing professionally for the past 13 years. She has shared the stage with the legendary Chita Rivera in Anything Goes (Dance Captain/ Erma u/s), tapped side by side with Tony Award Winner and Dance icon Donna McKechnie in the final revision of
Mack Danea Polise and Mabel, performed with Broadway Star and Tony Award Winner Elaine Stritch at Carnegie Hall and has worked with Broadway musical legend Jerry Herman. She has traveled the US and Canada appearing in the First National Broadway Tour of Victor/Victoria with Grammy Award winner Toni Tennille (of Captain and Tennille fame), the National Tour of 42nd Street (Peggy u/s, perf) and the World Premiere production of Whatever Happened to Baby Jane? with FRASIER Television Star Millicent Martin. A proud member of Actor's Equity Association, she has danced at Carnegie Hall, performed six seasons with NYC Orchestra and appeared regionally at the Paper Mill Playhouse, Goodspeed Opera House, Theatre Under the Stars, North Shore Music Theatre, The Westchester Broadway Theatre, North Carolina Theatre, and the Majestic FOX Theatre in Detroit where she appeared in Beauty and the Beast. Danea spent three seasons dancing at HERSHEYPARK and then sailed the seas dancing aboard Royal Caribbean Cruise Lines M/S Sovereign of the Seas. She is a Magna Cum Laude graduate of Marymount Manhattan College in NYC where she earned a BFA Degree in Dance Performance and a double minor in Philosophy and Psychology and received her DMA Teachers Training Certification at Kent State University in Ohio. Danea recently relocated from NYC to Raleigh, NC and is represented by Talent One Agency. |
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 Heather Patterson-King
Program Manager/Acting Department Head
HEATHER PATTERSON KING, Director of Acting, appeared most recently in Personals at Hot Summer Nights at the Kennedy, as Fruma Sarah in Fiddler on the Roof, (opposite Paul Sorvino,); and Glinda in The Wizard of Oz, (directed by Casey Hushion) at the North Carolina Theatre. She has appeared as Mrs. Potts in Disney’s Beauty and the Beast, Meg in Damn Yankees, and Vi Moore in Footloose at Beef and Boards Dinner Theatre, and as Lady Capulet in Romeo and Juliet, on the Indiana Repertory Theatre stage. Other regional theatre shows include Agave in The Bacchae, Lady Macbeth in Macbeth, Marlene in Top Girls, Eliza in My Fair Lady, and Maria in The Sound of Music. She is the former Director of the ACT Out Ensemble social issue theatre company of IUPUI, and a former instructor with the Indiana Repertory Theatre’s Summer Conservatory, Saturday School Programs and Artist in the Classroom programs. She has taught at colleges and universities throughout the country and her directing credits include The Laramie Project, Macbeth, Once Upon a Mattress, Fosse, and School for Husbands. She is a private actor coach whose students have attended theatre programs at Cincinnati Conservatory of Music, Boston Conservatory, Roosevelt, UNC Chapel Hill, Elon, and NYU. She holds a BA in Theatre and Music and an MFA in Acting. She has trained in Suzuki actor work and Linklater vocal work, and as a jazz, operatic and musical theatre vocalist. Along with teaching, directing and acting, she currently performs as a jazz vocalist throughout the Triangle. |
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 Tito Hernandez
Dance Department Head
Mr. Hernandez comes to the North Carolina Theatre Conservatory with more than 20 years of experience as a professional chore-ographer, actor, dancer and educator. He made his Broadway debut in the Tony award winning musical Jerome
Robbins' Broadway. Other credits include Bob Fosses' Dancin', Andrew Lloyd Webber's Cats, the national tour of Evita and The Gingerbread Lady starring Oscar winner Shelly Winters. As a choreographer, Tito has worked at Houston's Theatre Under the Stars, The Alley Theatre, Seattle's 5th Avenue Theatre and Disneyland. Mr. Hernandez has had a long history with NCT, including choreographing productions of Evita, (starring Ray Walker and Lauren Kennedy), The King and I, (starring Lou Diamond Phillips) and NCT's Summer Theatre Arts School (STAS). He is choreographer of NCT's and BSS's co-production of Disney's High School Musical and the STAS 2007 production. |
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 Mary Kathryn Walston
Music Instructor
Mary Kathryn Walston has been teaching private voice lessons at the NCT Conservatory since its opening and has been teaching privately in Raleigh since 1995. She earned a Bachelor of Music Degree with a major in vocal per- formance and a minor in
piano performancefrom Meredith College and earned a Master of Music Degree in vocal performance and pedagogy also from Meredith College. In addition to her private studio Ms. Walston regularly teaches group singing classes, auditioning workshops, and musical theatre classes and summer camps for kids and teens at various theatres in the area. Mary Kathryn also frequently uses her musical talents to musical direct and accompany musicals for the Raleigh Little Theatre Youth Series. Her performing credits include two years with Raleigh's Master Chorale and four years as the soprano soloist for the Hillyer Community Chorus. She has held lead opera and musical theatre roles with the Meredith Opera Theatre Brevard Music Center Summer Opera Workshop, National Opera Company Opera Scenes, Long Leaf Opera Company, Raleigh Little Theatre, and North Carolina Theatre. |
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 Eileen Juric
Ballet Instructor
Ms. Juric was a soloist with the Chicago Lyric Opera Ballet. Under the direction of former New York City Ballet prima ballerina Maria Tallchief, she performed Balanchine repertoire with such notable dancers as Jacques d’Amboise, former NYCB principal, Academy- and Emmy-Award winner, and founder of the National Dance Institute; Hinton Battle, three-time Tony Award winner, the original star of Broadway’s Miss Saigon, and the original “Lion” in The Wiz; Ronald Perry, formerly of American Ballet Theatre and the Dance Theatre of Harlem; and Daniel Baudendistel of the Joffrey Ballet Company. “Miss Eileen” trained on full scholarships at the Joffrey Ballet School and the School of American Ballet (school of the New York City Ballet). She also had the great honor of studying with prominent New York teachers David Howard, Robert Joffrey, Finis Jhung, Maggie Black, Zena Rommett, and Lawrence Rhodes.
After her performing career, Miss Eileen returned to the Joffrey Ballet School to pursue a teaching career and train, assist, and substitute teach in the children’s program. She was a faculty member of the Princeton Ballet School (official school of the American Repertory Ballet), and she toured throughout the country on the convention and competition circuit. For fifteen years she owned and operated her own studio, Basically Ballet, in New Jersey. Her students from this school have received scholarships to the famed Joffrey Ballet School; attended the North Carolina School of the Arts; ranked among the top four finalists on an Emmy-nominated dance reality TV show; trained at the Debbie Allen Dance Academy in Los Angeles; served on the faculty of the Alvin Ailey School; and started their own companies. For the past several years Miss Eileen has been teaching in North Carolina, and she is enjoying her new-found home. |
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 Estes Tarver
Acting/Film Instructor
Estes Tarver is a native of Lexington, Kentucky and has an MFA from UNC Chapel Hill where he worked with PlayMakers Repertory. There he studied with Emmy winner Joan Darling and received enthusiastic reviews in her staging of "Tuesdays with Morrie" as Mitch Albom. Other PlayMakers credits include "Cyrano De Bergerac", "Front Page", and "Richard II". He also performed with Ms. Darling and David Strathairn in "Will The Circle Be Unbroken" at Memorial Hall (NC). Regional: Much Ado at New harmony Theatre in Indiana, Fiddler at Cumberland County Playhouse. Film/TV "Dawson's Creek", "The Guiding Light", "As the World Turns", several commercials/industrials, his award winning short "Mr. Moonlight", and many country music videos. He is also an acting teacher/coach and Tennis Pro. |
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 Gene Medler
Tap Instructor
Gene Medler (Tap Instructor) is founder and director of the highly acclaimed North Carolina Youth Tap Ensemble (NCYTE) founded in 1982 and director of the NC Rhythm Tap Festival.
His teaching credits include: Elon University (currently), Duke University, Meredith College, St Louis Tap Festival, ADF, Tap Encontro (Rio de Janeiro),The Hot Shoe Shoe (Austria), Feet Beat (Finland), Berlin Tap Festival, Saratov Music Conservatory (Russia), Heidelberger Steptanz Festival (Germany), NYC Tap Festival and Chicago Rhythm Project.
Selected performances include: Squirrel Nut Zippers (vintage jazz band), Duke Ellington’s Nutcracker, Ellington’s “David Danced” from his sacred music, Rising Stars of Tap (Colorado Dance Festival), Great Tap Reunion (Boston) and the World Dance Festival (duet with tap legend Brenda Bufalino, Town Hall Theater, NY)
Awards and honors include: Indy Award (contribution to the arts, Independent Magazine, 1998), Featured in Dance Teacher Now Magazine, 1998, Tar Heel of the Week (News and Observer, Raleigh, NC).
Can be seen in the PBS special JUBA, Master of Percussive Dance, 2000, Featured in Southern Living, 2001, NC Dance Alliance annual award, 2003, Legacy Award (Third Coast Rhythm Project, 2009), and JUBA Award (Chicago Human Rhythm Project, 2010) |
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 Mary Adamek
Conservatory Administrator
Mary is thrilled to be a member of the NC Theatre staff. Mary has been involved in theatre most of her life as a singer/actor. NCT credits include Oliver, Funny Girl, Evita, The Sound of Music (2003 and 2009), Ragtime and The Full Monty. Mary is also a member of the NC Master Chorale. She is now retired from American Airlines where she worked for 25 years and is married with three grown children. |
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North Carolina Theatre Conservatory
for the Performing Arts
919.855.0015
3043 Barrow Drive
Raleigh, NC 27616 |
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