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Meet Our Educators
Lecturer (Mainstage Lecture Series) – DEDEE ALECCIA - Professor Emerita Dedee Aleccia received her Bachelor’s degree in English from Rosary Hill College and her two Masters’ degrees (in English and Art History) from SUNY Binghamton. For her Master’s degree in Art History, Dedee conducted on-site research on the Thomas Becket window cycle at Canterbury Cathedral in England. Dedee has held professorships at Broome Community College and Montgomery College and has served as adjunct professor at SUNY Binghamton, the University of Baltimore, and Eckerd College. Among the many literature subjects she has taught are world literature, British literature, the Bible as Literature, 19th century literature, modern drama, and Shakespeare. In art history she has taught such subjects as world art, Greco-Roman art, medieval art, Renaissance art, and 19th century art. She has served as director of Montgomery College’s Honors Program and has taught several honors courses. Awarded the opportunity to serve as a Smithsonian Fellow, she researched images of labor in 19th century art.
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Director of Education – MEG HEIMSTEAD has been a professional actress and teacher for 14 years. Prior to becoming the Director of Education, Meg was a Teaching Artist with American Stage. She taught playwriting and acting to children and adults throughout Pinellas County, focusing on at risk/special needs populations. As an actress, she has worked with the California Shakespeare Festival in Berkley, CA, Summer Repertory Theatre in Santa Rosa, CA, PlayMakers Repertory Theatre in Chapel Hill, NC, The Gorilla Theatre and Jobsite Theater in Tampa, and The Backlot Theater in Sarasota. Most recently, Meg was seen as Jean in Jobsite Theatre’s production of Dead Man’s Cell Phone and she recently finished production on the independent film Past the Fields. Meg holds a B.F.A. in Theatre Performance from the University of Evansville in Evansville, IN. She also attended the Professional Actor Training Program at University of North Carolina – Chapel Hill. Meg is thrilled to be a part of the American Stage team! She is currently the American Stage Artist in Residence at the Pinellas Association of Retarded Citizens (PARC). 
Teaching Artist (Adult Acting) – ANGELA BOND spent sixteen years as a professional actress in New York City before relocating to St. Petersburg. She has been active in the professional theatre community on the West Coast of Florida as an actor and director, and has also taught private singing lessons. She won Sarasota Herald-Tribune’s Handy Award for Best Actress in a Musical two years in a row, in 2002 for her portrayal of Eva Peron in Evita and in 2003 for Lilli Vanessi/Kate in Kiss Me Kate. Other favorite local credits include the Narrator in Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat at The Golden Apple Dinner Theatre (2003) and Aldonza in Show Palace Dinner Theatre’s Man of La Mancha (2002). In 2001, she was nominated as Best Actress in a Musical by Sarasota Magazine and Best Supporting Actress in a Musical by the Sarasota Herald-Tribune for her work as Marie Fisher in Fiorello! at Theatre Works. In St. Petersburg, she originated the role of Aretta Webb in the premiere production of Webb’s City: The Musical, winning the Weekly Planet’s 2000 Best of the Bay (Readers’ Choice) award for Best Actress in a Musical. Also in St. Petersburg, for American Stage she played Hermione in The Winter’s Tale, and was a featured singer in It’s a Grand Night for Singing, My Way and Tapestry. Other acting credits include: Broadway and Goodspeed Opera House: Gentlemen Prefer Blondes. Europe: Ken Hill’s The Phantom of the Opera. New York: On the Verge, The Hot L Baltimore, Bus Stop, Julius Caesar. Regional: The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas (with Barbara Eden); Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (with Loni Anderson); The Student Prince (with Jerome Hines). Angela earned a theatre degree from Rollins College in Winter Park, Florida.
Teaching Artist (In Residence at Shorecrest, Madeira Beach Middle and Lakeview Elementary) – ANGEL BORTHS is an experienced theatre educator who has worked in various theatre outreach and education programs for the better part of the last 10 years. She holds a B.A. in Theatre from the Florida State University and a Master of Arts in Teaching Theatre from the University of South Carolina. She also holds a Florida Professional Educator's Certification for Drama 6-12, and English 6-12. Former positions have included: Artistic Coordinator, Sarasota Opera; Performing Arts Instructor, Sarasota School of Arts and Sciences, Grades 6-8; Summer Acting Faculty, Player's Theatre, Sarasota; Summer Acting Faculty, Education Intern, Florida Studio Theatre, Sarasota ; Project Playwright, FSU; CHOICE Company, FSU; Theatre Outreach After School Programs, FSU.
Teaching Artist (Teen Acting I and Teen Acting II) – JEAN E. CALANDRA started her professional career on stage as an Equity actor and singer with the St. Louis Municipal Opera Company. She received her BFA in Theatre and Music, and her MA in Theatre and Speech from the University of Nebraska. Her teaching experience includes assignments at the University of Regensburg in Germany; Middlesex University in London, where she taught the Drama Diploma Course offered jointly by Middlesex and the Royal Academy of Music and Drama; adjunct instructor at USF in the Communications Department and the School of Theatre and Dance; and drama/speech instruction in private and public schools in the Tampa Bay area. In addition to a long and diverse career as an Equity actor Jean has participated in professional workshops led by Robert Cole (Michael Chekov Technique), Augusto Boal (Forum Theatre), Peggy Loft (Voice for the Professional Actor), and Marge Barstow (Alexander Technique), which has enhanced her scope and practice as a performance teacher for students of all ages. 
Teaching Artist (In Residence at Lakewood High and Northeast High) – STEVE GARLAND is a professional actor with a Bachelor’s in English from UC Davis. He is pleased to rejoin the American Stage Education Department in his fourth year as an instructor. Regional appearances include work with Asolo Rep (The Life of Galileo), Gorilla Theatre (Bug, Bach at Leipzig), The Studio@620 (Just As I Am, Grace), Gypsy Productions (Sordid Lives, The Eight), Jobsite Theater (Creative Loafing’s Best of the Bay for his work in The Pillowman), and American Stage, where he appeared this past season in both Driving Miss Daisy and The Seafarer. Other credits include The Rover for Circle X in Los Angeles, as well as Waiting for Lefty, Trifles, and Key West, all in San Francisco. Steve is a proud member of the Equity Membership Candidate Program.
Teaching Artist (Acting Advantage) – KARI GOETZ has been scurrying about organizations that range from Fortune 500 companies to non-profit grass roots community groups using improvisation as a business communication tool for over a decade. She has worked with the Marshall Space Flight Institute, Cardinal Health, Price Waterhouse Coopers, Fifth Third Bank, Florida Healthcare News, The Greater Tampa Chamber of Commerce, IKEA, Leadership Tampa, Straz Center for the Performing Arts, Tampa Bay Rays, Bank of Tampa, University of South Florida, Ounce of Prevention, TECO Energy, Tampa Connection, Metropolitan Ministries, Public Defender's Office of Hillsborough County and many more. Kari trained, performed, taught and directed at The Second City in Los Angeles and currently teaches at the University of South Florida College of Business where she specialized in Business Improvisation for the MBA program. In 2012, if everything goes according to plan, Kari will graduate from USF with a Masters in Organizational Communication and Performance Studies. 
Teaching Artist (Advanced Teen Acting) – BECCA MCCOY is a native of St. Petersburg who has recently returned to the area to balance career with family. She has been working professionally for the last 10 years and has done everything from belt solos on the Mainstage of a Tony-award-winning regional theatre to stage manage a cast of 22 actors in a theatre below an underpass while 8 months pregnant. She is a graduate of Eckerd College with a BA in Theatre, where she was an Omicron Delta Kappa inductee for leadership in the arts, the Elmer R. Unruh Award winner for 1999, and a two-time Irene Ryan Award nominee. Becca also received a certificate of classical acting from the British American Drama Academy at Oxford University, where she was one of only 13 people selected to study directly with John Barton, Jane Lapotaire, Deborah Warner, and Bill Gaskill. Bay Area audiences have most recently seen Becca in Blithe Spirit at American Stage, in the critically-acclaimed freeFall Theatre debut production of The Wild Party, and in her solo cabaret Love with the Lights On. 
Teaching Artist (In Residence at Suncoast Hospice and the Juvenile Detention Center) – LOGAN MECKLENBURG has over two decades of experience in the arts. In 2002, she earned her BFA from University of the Arts. She has since performed on stage and television, directed theatrical events, and completed an internship with the prestigious Mike Lemon Casting company. 
Teaching Artist (The Play’s the Thing) – TODD OLSON is in his 7th season as Producing Artistic Director at American Stage Theatre Company. He has directed over 120 plays, musicals, and operas, including My Way, A Musical Tribute to Frank Sinatra, (which he co-created) at the Actor's Theatre of Louisville. For American Stage Todd has directed several plays which have been recognized by Creative Loafing as “Best of the Bay” Awards for “Top-10 Productions of the Year” and “Best Director,” including Stones in His Pockets, A Moon for the Misbegotten, Much Ado About Nothing, and Anna in the Tropics. Other American Stage credits include Suddenly Last Summer, Crowns, Three Days of Rain, The Exonerated, I Am My Own Wife, Coronado, The Pirates of Penzance, Betrayal, Dinner with Friends, This Wonderful Life, and The Seafarer. Recent guest directing credits include Mozart’s Cosi Fan Tutte for St. Petersburg Opera, The Mystery of Irma Vep at Wellfleet Harbor Actor’s Theatre on Cape Cod, and Dracula for Arkansas Shakespeare Festival. Todd received his M.F.A. from The University of North Carolina, and is a graduate from the Institute for Advanced Theatre Training at Harvard. He was a Teaching Fellow at Harvard, and has taught classes at Vanderbilt, Boston University, University of North Carolina, among others colleges. 
Teaching Artist (In Residence at PARC, Thurgood Marshall Middle, Madeira Beach Middle, YWCA’s Family Village, and Pinellas Park Middle) – BETTY-JANE PARKS is a professional actor in the Tampa Bay area. Favorite area productions include The Drunken Cityand Six Degrees of Separation (both with the GorillaTheatre),Embedded (Jobsite), Incorruptible (HatTrick), Battledrum (Eckerd Theater Company), and Another Evening Wasted with the Songs of Tom Lehrer (Economic Stimulus Productions). She also has road managed and performed in three consecutive American Stage Theatre Company’s educational tours. Betty-Jane will be seen at American Stage this season in Who’s Afraid of Virginia Wolf?. A graduate of Eckerd College, Betty-Jane has been working for American Stage’s Education department since 2006. 
Teaching Artist (In Residence at Madeira Beach Middle and Lakeview Elementary) – SOOLAF RASHEID is a graduate of the University of South Florida holding a Bachelor’s degree in Theatre Arts. She has served the theatre community as an actor, stage manager, touring artist and an educator. As a freelance artist, she was able to perform in several shows, conduct theatre outreaches in underserved communities and focus on her other passion; playwriting.