Susan Alison Keady, Artistic Director
Susan Keady has played a central role in advancing Encore's stage productions and educational programs. Under her leadership, the size of the audience and number of program participants have grown substantially. As a measure of Ms. Keady's success, The Children's Theatre held special performances at the National Theater, MCI Center and receives on-going media coverage.

Ms. Keady is currently an assistant professor at The George Washington University and a Wolf Trap Institute Teaching Artist, which places her in a national network of performing artists in the field of arts education, creating partnerships and continuing professional development for artists and teachers and designing classroom curricula.

Additionally, Ms. Keady directs The Kinetic City Supercrew, an award winning series of science adventure dramas that she developed for the American Association for the Advancement of Science and broadcast nationwide over National Public Radio. The Kinetic City won a George Foster Peabody Award for broadcast excellence in radio drama in 1996, as well as gold and silver medals for educational quality and best writing at the International Radio Festival of New York in 1998.

A drama educator with wide experience teaching children, teens and young adults, Ms. Keady has worked extensively in the Arlington County and Montgomery County public schools and with the National Park Service, through its Glen Echo Adventure Theatre. She has demonstrated a special ability to combine careful management and supervision with a surefooted sense of how to work with young performers. She creates an environment in which her performers and production crews feel comfortable, yet challenged to meet the highest standards within their reach.

On the stage, Ms. Keady has produced, directed and adapted Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night's Dream, The Comedy of Errors, Much Ado About Nothing, The Merry Wives of Windsor, and As You Like It. More modern productions include Alice in Wonderland, You’re a Good Man Charlie Brown, Anything Goes, The Musical Comedy Murders of 1940, Kiss Me Kate, My Fair Lady, and Bye Bye Birdie.

Ms. Keady performed in the Portraits in Motion program at the National Portrait Gallery, playing such historical American women as Elizabeth Custer, Charlotte Cushman and Zelda Fitzgerald. She has portrayed Pitti-sing in Gilbert and Sullivan's The Mikado, Titania in A Midsummer Night's Dream, and Beatrice in Much Ado About Nothing. She recently developed and performed the role of Stella Adler in the stage production Stella Adler that premiered at the National Women's Museum and moved to the Kennedy Center.

A native of the Washington area, she received an Associate of Arts degree from Montgomery College, a Bachelor of Arts degree from American University and a Master of Fine Arts degree from The George Washington University.

Marian DiJulio, Education Director
Marion Di Julio comes to us with 23 years of teaching experience in Arts and Education in virtually all grades from kindergarten to college. She has also conducted numerous in-services for teachers on the topic of integrating arts education into the basic curriculum, and has served as a consultant to several school systems on the same topic. Her teaching credentials include drama classes for Gifted/Talented Visual and Performing Arts students and middle school students. She has also developed curriculum material for both elementary and middle school programs. She has taught drama related courses and lectured at the Smithsonian Kennedy Center, and Howard University, just to name a few. She has a Bachelor of Arts in English and Drama from Cardinal Stritch College and a Master of Fine Arts in Dramatic Arts from George Washington University.

Sonia Justl, Assistant Education Director
Sonia Justl's interest in entertainment was first piqued while performing voice-overs for cartoon characters in Brazil, where she was born and raised. Since then, she has had the opportunity to perform at the National Theatre of Brasilia in Brazil, the O'Reilly Theatre in England, Discoveryland Theatre in Oklahoma, Texas Outdoor Drama and Theatricks Children's Theatre. She is holds a B.A. in Theatre (Summa Cum Laude with Honors) from Oklahoma Baptist University, where she was also an active member of Alpha Psi Omega National Theatre Honors Society. Sonia has also studied abroad at Oxford University in England, where her academic focus was Shakespeare and Critical Theory.

In 2005 Sonia joined Missoula Children's Theatre as the Tour Actor/Director for the nation-wide tour of Snow White, where she worked with a new cast of 60 children each week to build a full-scale musical from the ground up. In 2006, she moved to Nashville, TN, where she functioned as Education Coordinator for the Tennessee Women's Theatre Project, developing and implementing after-school drama classes for inner city kids. She also spent two summers in Wiesbaden, Germany, working as the director for a children's theatre camp and staging children shows to sold-out audiences. Sonia moved to the DC area in September of 2007.

Leigh Troutman, Registrar
Leigh Troutman has a degree in Psychology and a Masters in Special Education from American University. She taught learning disabled children at the Lab School of Washington for many years. The mother of two teenagers, she has worked for Children's Theatre for 2 years now. She serves as administrative assistant and is the registrar for classes and summer programs.