Department of Theater: Visiting Artists

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Kevin David Thomas, Music Director, Pippin Kevin David Thomas is an actor, music director, Broadway coach, and arts educator from NYC. He performed on Broadway in the first revivals of A Little Night Music (cast recording) and Les Misèrables. As music director/supervisor: Little House on the Prairie the Musical (Nat'l Tour; Asst Music Sup), A Tale of Two Cities (Broadway; asst to MD), My 80-year-old Boyfriend (Merrimack Rep., World Premiere), It Happened in Key West (Fulton Theatre, World Premiere), Marvelous Wonderettes: Dream On (STAGES Rep; Cast recording). Kevin has taught musical theater at universities and conservatories all over the world (Moscow, Rio de Janeiro, Shanghai), and spent the last decade on faculty at the Professional Conservatory of Musical Theater at New York Film Academy. He is the co-host of the acclaimed podcast, Behind the Curtain: Broadway's Living Legends and a graduate of Baldwin Wallace University.

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Kat Yen: director, Ethically Ambiguous. Kat Yen is a Taiwanese-American theater artist who has directed at Ars Nova, Cherry Lane, Ensemble Studio Theater, Bushwick Starr, JACK, The Flea Theater, New Ohio, and Harvard/A.R.T., amongst others. Recent productions include Marisol by José Rivera, The Juniors by Noah Diaz, Two Mile Hollow by Leah Nanako Winkler, Mr. Burns A Post-Apocalyptic Play by Anne Washburn with music by Liam Bellman-Sharpe, and Othello. Upcoming productions include happy life by Kathy Ng and Fellowship by Sam Chanse. Kat is an alumnus of Lincoln Center Directors Lab, a former Resident Director at The Flea Theater, the 2016-2017 Van Lier Directing Fellow at Second Stage and the former Artistic Director of Spookfish Theatre Company. She is also a teaching artist at Stella Adler and LAByrinth Theater company and was recently an adjunct professor at Colgate University, Marymount Manhattan College, and University of Rochester. MFA Directing: Yale School of Drama. www.katyen.com / @katkoral

Sagan Chen

Sagan Chen '14: director, The Virtuous Fall of the Girls from Our Lady of Sorrows. Sagan (they/he/she) is an award-winning actor, filmmaker, and theatre artist. As a queer nonbinary Chinese-American artist they center their work on uplifting underrepresented narratives onstage, onscreen, and on the page. Onstage: Joy of Painting (Clubbed Thumb), Two Mile Hollow (Yale), Six Years Old, Stone, and delicacy of a puffin heart (Corkscrew Theater Festival), Something for the Fish (CPR), Exposed Bone (The PIT Loft). Onscreen: High Maintenance (HBO), Girl Talk, Here We Wait, and Sideways Smile. Directing: Dartmouth College, Samuel French OOB Festival, Frigid Festival, Corkscrew Festival, Women in Theatre Festival. Narrator of Ana On The Edge. IG: @sagan.chen

Dionne McClain-Freeney

Dionne McClain-Freeney: assistant musical director, Rent. Composer: The Movie Star & The Mammy (Joe's Pub), The Sugar Hill Sisters (NYMF). Composer & Lyricist: The Harriet Holland Social Club (Movement Theatre Company), Rice & Rocks (Brooklyn Children's Theatre), Going Home: Movement of Voices (N.Y. Philharmonic's New World Initiative), This One Girl's Story (NC A&T, NYMF, Gayfest, GLAAD Media Award nominee). Music direction: Brecht on Brecht (Off-Broadway) Spiritual Uprising (People's Light & Theatre), Black Queens Screen Test (The Tank), "Turn The Volume Up!- Amplifying Black Keys" (Ring of Keys), For Colored Girls (Public Theatre), We Got Beth, Billy Ragamatag and the Shadow Circus, Shrek, Beauty and The Beast (Piper Theatre), The Fourth Wall (Off-Broadway). Bring The Beat Back (Polyphone Theatre Festival). BMI Lehman Engel Musical Theatre Workshop. TGBTG!

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Kevin A. Smith: musical director, Rent. Kevin is native of Omaha, Nebraska and holds degrees from the University of Nebraska at Omaha and Southern Illinois University.  Musical Supervisor at McLeod Summer Playhouse, Carbondale, IL. New York City credits include: Amas Romeo & Bernadette; Theater 2020 A Little Night Music; Three Act Theater Next to Normal. National Tours: Miss Nelson is Missing, Miss Nelson Had a Field Day, Stinky Cheese Man, The Little Engine That Could.  Regional credits: Northern Stage The Sound of Music, Mamma Mia; McLeod Summer Playhouse Gypsy, The Drowsy Chaperone, 9 to 5, Into the Woods, Sister Act, Singin' in the Rain, Bring It On, Hairspray, Spamalot, The Sound of Music, Chicago and Annie. Dartmouth College: Into the Woods, Cabaret, Urinetown, Columbia University, Ragtime.

Kemati Porter

Kemati Janice Porter: director, Saturday Night/Sunday Morning. Kemati Porter is an eminent theater director, producer, performer, and administrator whose tremendous career has centered on a 40+ year relationship with Chicago's eta Creative Arts Foundation, where she has contributed to and supported over 500 productions, workshops, conferences, and programs.

Porter received her terminal degree in Directing from The Theatre School of DePaul University. She was one of the organizers of the first African American Women in the Arts Festival (1991-94) and has served as an administrator with The Martin Luther King Jr. Arts Complex and The Columbus Urban League. From 2003-2007 she was a TCG Fellow at the McCarter Theatre in Princeton, New Jersey. In 2007, she became the first Producing Artistic Director for eta Creative Arts Foundation in Chicago; she subsequently served as both the Executive Director and Producing Artistic Director until resigning in 2019 to prepare the groundwork for her company, FirstVoiceWorks, LLC.

Kareem Fahmy

Kareem Fahmy: director, Ridgway.  Kareem Fahmy is a Canadian-born director and playwright of Egyptian descent. He has directed a number of world premiere productions including James Scruggs's 3/Fifths (3LD, New York Times Top 5 Must-See Shows), Sevan K. Greene's This Time (Sheen Center, New York Times Critics' Pick), Bess Welden's Refuge*Malja (Portland Stage), Adam Kraar's Alternating Currents (Working Theater), Nikkole Salter's Indian Head (Luna Stage), and Victor Lesniewski's Couriers and Contrabands (TBG Theatre, also co-creator).

His plays, which include American Fast, A Distinct Society, The Triumphant, Pareidolia, The In-Between, and an adaptation of the acclaimed Egyptian novel The Yacoubian Building, have been developed or presented at The Atlantic Theater Company, TheatreWorks Silicon Valley, Northlight Theatre, New York Stage & Film, Target Margin Theater, The Lark, Capital Repertory Theatre, Fault Line Theater, and Noor Theater. Kareem has been a fellow or resident artist at the Sundance Theatre Lab, Oregon Shakespeare Festival (Phil Killian Directing Fellow), Eugene O'Neill Theatre Center (National Directors Fellow), TCG (Rising Leaders of Color), Second Stage (Van Lier Directing Fellow), Soho Rep (Writer/Director Lab), Lincoln Center (Directors Lab), The New Museum (Artist-in-Residence), and New York Theater Workshop (Emerging Artist Fellow & Usual Suspect). He has developed new plays at theaters around the country, including MCC, The Atlantic, The New Group, Ensemble Studio Theatre, New Dramatists, The Civilians, Geva Theatre, Pioneer Theatre, Silk Road Rising, and Berkeley Rep. He is a founder of Maia Directors, a consulting group for organizations and artists engaging with stories from the Middle East and beyond. MFA: Columbia University. www.kareemfahmy.com

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Fabian Obispo: sound designer, Fall Play Reading Series. Fabian Obispo returns to Dartmouth's Theater Department where he designed Big Love and Intimate Apparel. His recent theatre credits include Public Theater's Sea Wall/ A Life starring Jake Gyllenhaal and Tom Sturridge, Oedipus El Rey, and MaYi Theatre's Teenage Dick also at the Public. He has designed extensively for off-Broadway and regional theatre including Manhattan Theatre Club, Manhattan Class Company, Atlantic Theatre Company, Vineyard Theatre, The New Group, Classic Stage Company, New York Theatre Workshop, Arena Stage, Goodman Theatre, Guthrie Theater, American Conservatory Theater, The Shakespeare Theatre Company DC, Kennedy Center, Oregon Shakespeare Festival, Seattle Repertory Theatre, Cleveland Playhouse and Huntington Theatre Company among others. His musical Felix Starro recently received its world premiere off-Broadway and is the first  musical created by Filipino-Americans. He was an artist-in-residence at the prestigious Rockefeller Foundation Bellagio Center in Italy, Ohio State University, New Harmony Project in Indiana and Sundance Theatre Lab. He is a recipient of numerous awards including the Barrymore and the Berkshire Theatre Critics Award.