Classes

Chelsea Dacey — Chelsea’s teaching experience ranges from: Director, Fairfield Summer Stage (Frozen Jr., Lion King Jr., Finding Nemo Jr., and Little Mermaid Jr.); Director, Independent Day School (Shrek, Singing in the Rain Jr.); and Music Teacher, Independent Day School and many more. At Legacy Theatre, Chelsea’s teaching experience has included teaching Toddler Time (theatre and music class for toddlers), Fairy Tale Musical (theatre class where students create their own musical), and an audition preparation class. Her Legacy Theatre performances include: Rapunzel/Book and Music (A Princess Tea), Piglet (The Tales of Christopher Robin and Winnie-the-Pooh), Choreographer (You’re a Good Man Charlie Brown), Silly Dilly: The Musical, and Belinda (The Tales of Custard the Dragon). Other experience includes Off Broadway (Piggy Nation) and regional theatre shows. She is also a narrator on Audible (Romany Romance). ChelseaDacey.com

Julie Fitzpatrick —Julie Fitzpatrick is delighted to be teaching Acting and Writing Your Solo Show with Legacy Theatre. Julie is a poet, playwright, performer and teacher who has worked locally with St. Martin de Porres Academy in New Haven, Madison Arts Barn, GreenStage Guilford Live Arts, Moses Gunn Theater Company, Drama Works, Shoreline Arts Alliance and Wheel Life Theatre Troupe. Her acting credits run the gamut from Off-Broadway to regional theater and her Film/TV work includes Law & Order and The OA. Julie is a member of the Guilford Poets’ Guild, The Playwrights Circle and Ensemble Studio Theatre in NYC. Her play 77 U-Turn is published by Next Stage Press and can be purchased here. More info can be found at juliefitzpatrick.com. Julie lives with her favorite guys: her husband Pete and her sons, Fitz, Gracen and Hudson.

Keely Baisden Knudsen — An award-winning director, Keely has performed, directed, and choreographed internationally in plays, musicals, operas, and dance companies in hundreds of theatrical productions and has performed in 48 of the United States and in the UK. Realizing her vision of a new theater company on the Connecticut Shoreline, Keely’s ideals of inspiring, inclusive work that uplifts the human spirit and connects communities formalized in the creation of the Legacy Theatre with Co-Founder Stephanie Stiefel Williams, a performing colleague and dear friend. Keely has directed, choreographed,  and taught a myriad of performing arts courses at such institutions as Quinnipiac University, Yale University, Fairfield University, Hartt School of Drama, Southern Connecticut State University, Westminster College, and was the Director of Education of New Haven's acclaimed Elm Shakespeare Company for several years. Additionally a composer/lyricist and playwright, she is currently collaborating on two musicals and is a member of ASCAP. Her directing has been heralded by the Arts Paper as “…visually striking, emotionally moving” and “captivating” and of her direction of Hamlet it was said, “Knudsen has made the notoriously difficult Shakespearean language accessible.” Her creation of the Wheel Life Theatre Troupe has been an especially rewarding program as she acts and directs with those who ambulate with crutches and wheelchairs. Her BFA is from New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts, at which she graduated first in the class, and she received her Masters Degree in Drama on full scholarship from The Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama in Glasgow. Keely, her husband Brian, and five children (Saviah, Liviana, Wynter, Emery, and Reeves) reside in Guilford, CT, where she thoroughly enjoys running the Legacy with a tremendous staff and community support.

Mary Lou Lauricella — Mary Lou Lauricella has worked as a professional actress in regional theatre before becoming a registered drama therapist. She holds a B.A. in Theater and English from Washington College and a Masters in drama therapy from NYU. She is trained in both Meisner (Neighborhood Playhouse) and Method acting techniques. She has been the director of the Veterans’ Homefront Theater at VA Connecticut, an outpatient PTSD theater group for over 20 years. The group was an improvisational theater group creating original works that were performed within the veteran and civilian communities. The group was the subject of a documentary film “No Unwounded Soldiers” created by award-winning filmmaker Rebecca Abbott. The film was screened at the Vail Colorado Film Festival, the Connecticut Film Festival and was aired on Connecticut Public Television. She has partnered with Quinnipiac University’s Theater for Community, the Clifford Beers Clinic and the Connecticut Coalition for End of Life Care facilitating theater workshops at the MacDougal maximum security prison and the prison Volunteer Bereavement and Hospice program. She has co-chaired the North American Drama Therapy Conference, presented at the Expressive Therapies Conference, NER-AMTA Music Therapy Conference.

Elizabeth Bolster — Elizabeth Bolster has been the Wardrobe Supervisor at the Yale Repertory Theatre since 2002 where she enjoys working backstage and training student work study crews. Outside of her job at Yale she is a Costume and Scenic designer whose work has been seen at Elm Shakespeare Company, Yale Baroque Opera Project, and Trinity College Hartford. Previous Legacy credits include costume designs for Deathtrap, Just Desserts, The Last Five Years, and You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown. Professional training: MFA in Costume Design from The Conservatory of Theatre Arts and Film at SUNY Purchase, and a BFA in Performance Production from Cornish College of the Arts in Seattle, WA.

Colleen Callahan — Colleen Callahan is thrilled to be returning to the Legacy Theatre Team! She is a recent graduate of Western Connecticut State University with a degree in Theatre Arts. Her previous performance experience includes WCSU’s Noises Off (Dotty Otley), WCSU’s The Resistible Rise Of Arturo Ui (Betty Dullfeet), and WCSU’s In the Open (Devon). Her previous backstage experience includes Legacy Theatre’s The Musical of Musicals (The Musical!) (Props Designer & Assistant Stage Manager), Legacy Theatre’s Beauty and the Beast (Assistant Props Designer & Wardrobe Supervisor), Yale Opera’s The Rape of Lucretia (Run Crew), Legacy Theatre’s A Christmas Carol (Assistant Stage Manager & Wardrobe Assistant), and WCSU’s Hand To God (Assistant Costume Designer).

T. Rick Jones — T. Rick has 35 years of theater experience and he graduated from London’s Mountview Theatre School in 1998. Although he is primarily a Stage Manager, he is also a Lighting Designer, writer, and journalist. He worked in the lighting department of Goodspeed Musicals for two years and also created designs for, among other things, English pub theater productions of Dear Willie, Dear Maude, Molière’s The Hypochondriac, Nantucket the MusACKal, and, most recently, Legacy’s productions of A Princess Tea and The Tales of Christopher Robin & Winnie-the-Pooh. He has worked as a Stage Manager all over Connecticut and in Massachusetts and New York and has been the Resident Stage Manager for White Heron Theatre Company in Nantucket for 6 years.

• Toddler Dance, Storytime, and Drama

• Emerging Actors Acting Class: Ages 7-9

• Young Apprentice Class: Acting (Ages 6-11)

• Young Professionals Acting Class: Ages 10-12

• Young Professionals Class: Acting (Ages 12-17)

• Acting for Teens

• Shakespeare for Teens

• Shakespeare Pops!

• Shakespeare and the Veteran’s Journey

• Adult Acting

• Adult Improv

• Intro to Improv

• Improv: Advanced Performance Workshop

• Cabaret Class for Adults

• Musical Theatre Performance