Sara Strehle Duke, Executive Director
Sara Strehle Duke was recently named as the new Executive Director for Encore Stage and Studio.

Before joining Encore full time Sara became involved through directing for The Children's Theatre (The Princess and the Magic Pea and The Little Mermaid) and choreographing for the Act III Theatre Company (Anything Goes and Disney's Beauty and the Beast). Sara said she is "looking forward to sharing her administrative talents with the passionate staff and dedicated volunteers of this outstanding organization."

Previously Sara has worked professionally with the Arden Theatre Company in Philadelphia and Round House Theatre in Bethesda. She is a Phi Beta Kappa graduate of the College of William & Mary where she directed and performed in many productions, as well as studying scenic design. She is most proud of her direction of Sinfonicron Light Opera Company's production of Ragtime.

A native Arlingtonian, Sara continues to reside in the county with her husband, Kevin, and her black lab, Lily.

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.

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 over 4 years. She serves as administrative assistant and is the registrar for classes and summer programs.

Aileen Pangan, Marketing and Education Services Coordinator
Aileen Pangan is a recent graduate of Christopher Newport University, with a Bachelor of Arts in Communication Studies. During her undergraduate career, Aileen also double minored in Leadership Studies and Dance, while staying very involved with the CNU Annual Spring Dance Concert and many other campus organization performances. In addition, Aileen was introduced to the marketing world as an intern for CNU's Office of Communications and Public Relations.

In the past year, she has enjoyed working as a dance instructor for the Downing-Gross Cultural Arts Center in Newport News, Virginia, interning at BalletNova Center for Dance, and volunteering as a school representative for KODACHROME, a dance workshop series.

Aside from dance, Aileen enjoys arts and crafts, reading, watching movies, and traveling. Aileen has returned to her hometown Arlington with great enthusiasm and passion as she joins Encore Stage & Studio's positive environment and wonderful staff.

Thembi Duncan
Thembi Duncan is an actress, teaching artist, and playwright with over a decade of experience performing in the Washington area. She serves as Lead Teaching Artist at the historic Ford's Theatre, teaching oratory to young people f rom all over the region. She is a proud recipient of an Artists in Schools grant from the D.C. Commission on the Arts and Humanities. Currently, she is in the early stages of writing her first children's play.

Christina Marie Frank
Christina Marie Frank holds a masters of Fine Arts in Theatre degree from the University of Iowa. She has taught kids acting classes through Stepping Stone Theatre, Exposed Brick Theatre, and In the Company of Kids Creative Center in Minnesota. Christina has done programming and teaching for Encore throughout the school year and is the director of the Tweens and Teens program during the summer. In addition she has worked recently as an actress with Maryland Shakespeare Festival, Spotlight Communicaciones, Inkwell, Faction of Fools, Pinky Swear Production, and Push/Pull Theatre.

Kelsey Meiklejohn
Kelsey Meiklejohn is an actor, dancer, and choreographer in the D.C. area. Choreography credits include 25th Annual. . . Spelling Bee at Episcopal High School; Secret Garden and The Pirates of Penzance with the Sinfonicron Light Opera Company. She is a graduate of William & Mary and the Duke Ellington School of the Arts.

Victoria Reinsel
Victoria Reinsel is a professional actor, director, and teaching artist, and a co-founder of Brave Spirits Theatre in Washington D.C. She holds a MFA and M.Lit in Shakespeare and Renaissance Literature in Performance with a concentration in Acting from Mary Baldwin College in partnership with the American Shakespeare Center, and a BA in theatre/Literature from Marlboro College. Victoria loves teaching Shakespeare to middle and high school students. Visit her web site at www.victoriareinsel.com.

Johnny Shryock
Johnny Shryock is a local theater technician and headshot photographer. He teaches photography and technical theater at Bishop McNamara High School and had a blast working the show for the 2011 Stage Door summer camp. His web site is www.johnnyshryock.com

Ben Kingsland
Ben Kingsland is a professional playwright, actor, and teaching artist. His plays are published by Playscripts.com and Heuer Publishing. He graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Johns Hopkins with a BA in Writing.

Mary Sugar
Mary Sugar is a recent transplant to D.C. after spending 11 years as a musical director, pianist, and teacher in New York City, where she worked on and off-Broadway at at the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts. She has toured the world as a conductor/pianist working with artists such as Leslie Uggams, Vanessa Williams, and Clay Aiken, and has played keyboards for the national tours of Disney's Beauty and the Beast, Hairspray, Momma Mia, and many others. She has taught musical theatre performance, scene study, and audition technique at a multitude of universities and conservatories including NYU, SUNY Cortland, and Circle in the Square. Mary's local credits include The Kennedy Center, Arena Stage, Signature Theatre, Ford's Theatre, Studio Theatre, and many others. Visit her web site at www.MarySugarMusic.com.

Amy Thompson
Amy Thompson loves theatre and working with children. She has run the Shakespeare program at Nottingham Elementary School in Arlington for the last five years, where she has directed productions of As You Like It, Richard III, and A Midsummer Night's Dream, which were also presented at the Folger Shakespeare Library's Children's Festival. She is an affiliated teaching artist with the Folger Shakespeare Library Education Department, and she has been an Odyssey of the Mind Coach five times (her 2008 team became Virginia State Champions in the Classics Problem). She also acts in local theatre productions and festivals. At Encore Stage & Studio, Amy has taught afterschool and weekend drama classes, summer camp, and worked on last season's winter musical, A Night at the Wax Museum. She holds a B.A. in English literature from the University of Virginia.

Vince Eisenson
Vince Eisenson has worked as an actor and teacher in the Washington area since 2007. He has had the privilege of performing with Synetic Theatre, The Shakespeare Theatre Company, WSC Avant Bard, the Capitol Fringe Festival, and the Chesapeake Shakespeare Company, where he is a Resident Actor. Vince has enjoyed working with students in public schools through programs with the Folger Shakespeare Library, Imagination Stage, and Montgomery County's "Trax." He has directed several student productions at the Theatre Lab in Washington, and coached actors at Northern Virginia's Traveling Players Ensemble. Vince has also performed as a juggler at carnivals, parties, events, and schools along the east coast.