Michael E. McKelvey

Assistant Professor of Music Theater & Voice

Michael E. McKelvey comes to CMU from Colorado where he recently created the musical theatre program for Fort Lewis College and founded Durango Theatreworks. This is his second turn in Pittsburgh having previously supervised the voice program for COPA at Point Park University as an Associate Professor of Musical Theatre.

He began his academic career as an Associate Professor and Coordinator of the Music Department/Director of Musical Theatre at St. Edward’s University in Austin, TX. He also spent six years the Artistic Director of Summer Lyric Theatre in New Orleans, a professional theatre housed at Tulane University. While at Tulane, he also served as the interim director of the BFA musical theatre program.

Born and raised in Los Angeles, Michael’s career as a teacher, performer, stage and music director, and producer has taken him across the U.S. As a performer, Michael began his vocal studies as an aspiring rock singer, but pivoted to opera at the urging of his first voice teacher. He has gone on to perform opera, operetta, oratorio, musical theatre, cabaret, plays, as well as returning to rock and blues on occasion. Some of the companies he has performed with include Pittsburgh Musical Theatre, Stage Right, Dallas Opera, Austin Lyric Opera, Dallas Lyric Opera, Opera in the Ozarks, Shreveport Opera, Austin Playhouse, Austin Shakespeare Festival, Theatre Three, Deep Ellum Opera Theatre, and the San Antonio Symphony.

About twenty years ago, he transitioned out of performing to concentrate on pursuits as a stage director, music director, producer, and arts administrator. During this period, he started his own production company, Doctuh Mistuh Productions, which specializes in lesser-performed and fringe musical theatre. He also co-founded Summer Stock Austin, an award-winning theatre company/educational program, which provides tuition-free training and all around theatrical opportunities for high school and college students. In addition, he created The Story Road Project, a touring theatre troupe which brought live theatrical experiences to the young people in the at-need areas of New Orleans.

As a stage and music director, he has worked with companies such as Le Petit du Vieux Carre, Summer Lyric Theatre, The Storyville Collective, Penfold Theatre Company, Pittsburgh Playhouse-Conservatory and Playhouse Jr., Interlakes, Prime Stage, Durango Arts Repertory Theatre, Rivertown Performing Arts, Jefferson Performing Arts Society, Austin Playhouse, Zilker Theatre Productions, Mary Moody Northern Theatre, and TexArts. Recent stage directing credits include: “Hand to God,” “Reefer Madness” (DART); “Lizzie The Musical” (B. Iden Payne Award, Outstanding Musical and Director), “Matilda” (ZPT); “Natasha, Pierre, and the Great Comet of 1812,” “Cabaret,” “Nevermore,” “The Imaginary Life and Mysterious Death of Edgar Allan Poe,” “Eurydice,” “Sweeney Todd” (FLC); “A Christmas Carol-A Radio Play,” “Heathers The Musical,” “Joseph and the…Dreamcoat” (Durango Theatreworks); “Hand to God” (Big Easy Awards, Outstanding Play and Director), “Reefer Madness” (DMP/Storyville); “Jesus Christ Superstar,” “My Fair Lady,” “Ragtime” (Big Easy Award, Outstanding Director), “Big River” (SLT); “Hunchback of Notre Dame” (Big Easy Award, Outstanding Musical, JPAS), “White Christmas,” “Something Rotten,” and “The Last Five Years” (LPT).

Dr. McKelvey earned his DMA from the University of Texas at Austin, M.M. from Southern Methodist University, and B.M. from Cal State University at Northridge. He is the Editor-in-Chief of the Musical Theatre Educators’ Alliance Journal Alliance Journal and Secretary of the MTEA Executive Committee, and a proud member of Stage Director & Choreographers Society.

Kyle Haden

Senior Associate Head
Associate Professor of Acting

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In his leadership role, Kyle represents the School of Drama on college and university committees, as well as a variety of external functions, and is involved in forming and maintaining partnerships, both locally and nationally. He is the Leadership point of contact for the Season Steering Committee, responsible for negotiating rights for performance with licensing companies, as well as casting all School of Drama productions. In addition to his teaching duties in the Acting/Music Theater program, Kyle is also the Artistic Producer of ColLABo, a production development incubator.

Originally from Pittsburgh, Kyle Haden is an artistic leader, director, educator, and Equity actor, as well as the artistic producer of ColLABo, a production development incubator. He is an Artistic Associate and the former artistic director of the Ashland New Plays Festival in Oregon. During his six-year tenure as artistic director, over a dozen new plays from ANPF went on to have premieres nationwide. Kyle also spearheaded their 2016 Women’s Invitational; one of the winning plays, Martyna Majok’s Cost of Living, won the Pulitzer Prize in 2018. Kyle is also a Senior Coordinating Producer with Black Lives, Black Words International Project, as well as a member of the 2021 cohort of artEquity’s BIPOC Leadership Circle.

As a director, Kyle has helmed various world premieres of productions across the country, including Parental Advisory: a breakbeat play (Milwaukee Repertory Theater), The Devil is a Lie (Quantum Theater), and the award-winning Hazardous Materials (Creede Repertory Theatre). Other shows he has directed include Miss Bennet: Christmas at Pemberley (City Theatre Company), The Royale (Creede Repertory Theatre), Waiting For Lefty (Quintessence Theatre); The Chief (Pittsburgh Public Theater), The Realness and A Brief History of America (Hangar Theatre Company), Hamlet and The Winter’s Tale (Island Shakespeare Festival) and The Tens (Actor’s Theatre of Louisville). Kyle was named a 2018 Drama League Directing Fellow, and is a member of the Drama League Directors Council.

Kyle has taught at various theater companies, including several years serving as the program manager at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival’s Summer Seminar for High School Juniors. He previously held tenure-track appointments at Roosevelt University’s Chicago College of Performing Arts and Southern Oregon University.

On stage, Kyle has performed at regional theaters nationwide, including the Oregon Shakespeare Festival (three seasons), Guthrie Theater, Shakespeare Theatre, Chicago Shakespeare Theater, Arizona Theater Company, Colorado Shakespeare Festival, Pittsburgh Public Theater, City Theatre Company, Quantum Theatre, and Cleveland Play House, as well as various theaters in New York and Chicago. Kyle also appeared in Amazon’s American Rust and is the voice of Luke in the upcoming animated short film Where the Deer Sleep.

BA: Wake Forest University, MFA: Columbia University.

Claudia Benack

Teaching Professor of Voice

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Claudia teaches private singing lessons to Music Theater majors and co-teaches the Musical Theatre Literature and Repertoire/Music Theatre History course.

Claudia Benack earned her Bachelor of Fine Arts degree (BFA) and Master of Fine Arts (MFA) degrees in Voice Performance from Carnegie-Mellon University’s School of Music. Her comprehensive training provided a robust foundation in vocal pedagogy, performance, and artistic interpretation.

Since 1997, Claudia has been a full-time faculty member at Carnegie-Mellon University’s School of Drama, where she teaches private singing lessons and co-teaches the Musical Theatre Literature and Repertoire/Music Theatre History class. Previously, she has taught the Music Theatre Skills class (theory) and has music directed shows in all of the Purnell Center for the Arts’ performance venues.

In addition to her roles during the academic year, Claudia serves as the Acting/Musical Theatre option coordinator for the Drama School’s renowned six week summer PreCollege program where she has taught rising high school juniors and seniors for over twenty years. She has also shared her expertise with other educational programs, including the Southwestern Summer Theatre Institute (SSTI), College Audition Pros (CAP), and the Broadway Artists Intensive, among others.

Claudia’s extensive international singing career, which includes performances with major symphonies and opera companies, as well as her work as a recitalist, has deeply influenced her teaching approach. Her global performance experience enables her to offer students valuable insights into vocal technique, stage presence, and artistic expression.

She also maintains her own thriving private vocal studio.

Claudia’s favorite part of her long career is watching and enjoying former and present students appear on Broadway, off-Broadway, on national tours, and at regional theaters.

Catherine Moore

Teaching Professor Drama, Movement

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Ms. Moore has been on the faculty of the School of Drama since 2000 specializing in physical approaches to actor training and promotes the creation of self-generated artistic work by students. She has been the Co-Faculty Coordinator/Advisor for the School’s PLAYGROUND: A Festival of Independent Student Work since its inception in 2003. In 2023 Moore was honored with Carnegie Mellon’s William H. and Francis S. Ryan award for Meritorious Teaching.

Moore teaches The Viewpoints, Laban, Suzuki, Stage Combat in the movement sequence in the Acting/MT program, having also taught Acting II, III, and directed Junior Performance Projects. She has served as Fight Choreographer or Movement Director for over 85 productions. Internationally, Moore has conducted workshops and master classes in The Viewpoints at the New National Theatre of Tokyo Drama Studio, The Korzo Theatre in Den Haag, The Netherlands, Il Melograno Scuola di Recitazione in Rome, Italy, and at the Meeting of European Theatre Academies (META), in Florence, Italy.

She has acted in plays and musicals in regional theatres throughout the United States and locally in Pittsburgh at the Pittsburgh Irish and Classical Theatre and Quantum Theatre. Internationally, Moore performed in an acclaimed production of Brian Friel’s Faith Healer which toured across the Republic of Ireland and in Northern Ireland.

As Fight Director, her work has been seen at The Cleveland Playhouse (“The Diary of Anne Frank”), Pittsburgh Public (“Disgraced”), Pittsburgh Opera (“The Rape of Lucretia” and “I Capuleti e I Montecchi”), City Theatre Company (“The Night Alive,” :Marcus, or the Secret of Sweet,” and “Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde”), and Pittsburgh Irish and Classical Theatre (“The Lieutenant of Inishmore” and “The Pillowman”).

Moore has been commissioned to create narrations and spoken word adaptations for orchestral concerts with the Chicago and Boston and Cincinnati Symphony Orchestras: “Romeo & Juliet: Shakespeare in Words and Music,” and “Women Composers” with Boston Pops Music Director Keith Lockhart, the narration for and direction of a concert version of Bizet’s “Carmen” for the Milwaukee Symphony for Andreas Delfs, and a narration based on the letters of Johannes Brahms and Clara Schuman for the National Arts Centre Orchestra of Canada under Maestro Pinchas Zucherman.

Moore is a member of the Actors Equity Association, the Society of American Fight Directors, and the Association of Theatre Movement Educators. She received her B.F.A. Magna Cum Laude from Wright State University, trained under Beatrice Straight at the Michel Chekhov Studio in New York, with Anne Bogart and the SITI Company, and received her M.F.A. in Dramatic Performance from the University of Cincinnati, College-Conservatory of Music where she is the recipient of the Julia Winter Cohen Alumni Award for Career Excellence.

Robert Ramirez

Head of School

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Robert Ramirez became head of the School of Drama on August 1, 2022. He joins CMU from the Department of Theatre and Dance at the University of Texas at Austin (UT), where he served as professor and chair.

Ramirez joined UT in 2014 as associate professor and head of acting and in 2016, became head of the Performance Division. He was later named senior associate chair and then interim chair of the Department of Theatre and Dance prior to his promotion to full professor and being appointment as department chair in 2020. During his tenure as chair, Ramirez prioritized student experience and learning outcomes, as well as the advancement of faculty and staff profiles in the College of Fine Arts and the professional realm. As a teacher and administrator, he set new standards for recruitment of diverse student, faculty, and staff populations, as well as the development of equitable and inclusive casting and production processes and curriculum reform at the undergraduate and graduate levels.

Before joining the faculty at UT, Ramirez was tenured at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, serving as an associate professor of acting, voice, speech, and dialects. Prior to that, he was an adjunct professor of voice and speech for the stage at the American Musical and Dramatic Academy and Marymount Manhattan College in New York City.

Ramirez has long been a part of the professional theater industry. He has worked as an actor, director, voice artist, and voice and speech coach at theaters across the country including the Guthrie Theater, the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, Cleveland Playhouse, Hartford Stage, the Alley Theater, and American Players Theatre, as well as numerous Shakespeare festivals in every region. He has been a member of the Recorded Books repertory company in New York City for over 20 years and is a proud member of Actors’ Equity Association. Robert served several years as a board member and Vice President of the United Resident Theatre Association and is a member of the National Theatre Conference. He completed his undergraduate studies at the Los Angeles Theatre Academy at Los Angeles City College and earned his MFA at the University of Delaware’s Professional Theatre Training Program.

Andrew William Smith

Associate Professor of Acting
Associate Area Chair of Acting/Music Theater

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As a professor of acting, Andrew teaches in the entire first and second year- from an entryway into the work through heightened text. He also teaches juniors how to most effectively audition for film and TV through the art of self-tapes as well as an Audition for the Stage class. Andrew serves as Associate Area Chair for Acting/MT, leads the Student Rep committee to make our community better and more responsive, and is a dedicated member of the School’s audition team that brings amazing students to our classrooms.

Andrew William Smith joined the School of Drama in the fall of 2014. Before joining Carnegie Mellon, he worked as a professional stage, film and television actor, and as the founding Co-Artistic Director of Project Y Theatre Company in New York City.

Project Y Theatre Company produces new and innovative theatre, with a focus on unheard and diverse voices. We support new plays and playwrights that appeal to an audience interested in such themes as race, feminism, technology, and community. The Women in Theatre Festival, which seeks to broaden the opportunities for women in the entertainment industry by producing new work by women with more than 50% female representation of all artists involved, will celebrate its 10th year in the summer of 2025.

With Project Y, he has served as producer for 9 Women in Theatre Festivals (and counting…), 3 New Playwright Festivals, and over 40 world premiere’s including world premiere productions by Lee Blessing, Nikkole Salter, Banna Desta, Lia Romeo, Megan Monaghan Rivas, Amina Henry, Tori Keenan-Zelt, Samuel Brett Adams, Justin Shipman, and Karl Gajdusek.

Additionally with Project Y, he is a core member of the grant writing teams that have received funding from New York State Council on the Arts (NYSCA), the Department of Cultural Affairs (DCA), Nancy Quinn Grant (from ART/NY), Creative Space Grant (from ART/NY), Bel Geddes Grant (from ART/NY), and the Puffin Foundation.

Andrew has directed multiple professional productions, including Scenes from an Execution by Howard Baker with Quantum Theatre, the world premiere of Three Musketeers 1941, by Megan Monaghan Rivas in New York City, and the world premiere of Yoga with Jillian, which was hosted at the Pittsburgh City Theatre Momentum Festival, the Women in Theatre Festival in NYC, and the Edinburgh Fringe Festival in 2023 and 2024.

As Co-Artistic Director of Project Y, he oversees the day to day business of Project Y Theatre Company, which includes a bi-monthly Writers Group, a bi-monthly Reading series of new work, and a commitment to the development of new and emerging voices in the theater.

As a professional actor, Andrew has been seen in many regional theatres around the nation, including: Pittsburgh Public Theatre, Pittsburgh City Theatre, Quantum Theatre, Actor’s Theatre of Louisville, Seattle Repertory Theatre, Arena Stage, Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company, Roundhouse Theatre, Potomac Theatre Project, Ars Nova, Studio Theatre, and Olney Center for the Arts. Film work includes Lucid, Shooting Script, Death of a Nation (Winner: Best Short, IndieFest 2011; Best in Show, Best Shorts Competition 2011), Under-Ground. Television work includes American Rust, GONE, Law and Order: Criminal Intent, One Life to Live, As the World Turns, and Guiding Light.

In 2019, Andrew was an invited teacher at the Monfitz International Theatre Festival in Sozopol, Bulgaria, and he continues to host teacher training workshops in NYC in Active Analysis and Creativity within the Actors Process.

Andrew is a graduate of the MFA Acting program at the University of California, San Diego, from which he received the Teaching Excellence Award upon graduation.

Ausar Stewart

Assistant Professor of Voice and Acting

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Ausar teaches voice and acting to sophomores, juniors and seniors in the Acting/MT program.

For his heart-centered, pragmatic, and future-thinking pedagogy, actor-director Ausar Stewart is one of North America’s most sought-after teaching artists, arts educators, and performance coaches. He inspires students to seek knowledge and practically apply it, bridging the gap between theory and practice. This praxis forms the foundation of learning and over time empowers students to take responsibility and ownership of their own growth and development. 

Ausar is a Designated Linklater Voice Teacher. Having studied with luminaries in the field such as Kristin Linklater, David Smukler, David Carey and Fran Bennett, he now contributes to the training of the next generation of Linklater Voice Teachers.  

Ausar is also in demand as an Accent and Dialect coach. Most recently serving as the Voice, Accent and Dialect coach on a wide range of productions at The Shaw Festival, Canada’s second largest regional theatre company known for staging world-class productions. Recent coaching credits include: Sherlock Holmes and the Mystery of the Human Heart (dir. Craig Hall), Candida (dir. Severn Thompson), The House That Will Not Stand (dir. Philip Akin), The Orphan of Chao (dir. by Michael Man), The Great Revenge of the Zhao Orphan (dir. Courtney Ch’ng Lancaster), Snow In Mid in Mid Summer (dir. Nina Lee Aquino). 

Adding to the multifaceted nature of his skill sets  Ausar is also a dynamic acting teacher. Having taught Text Analysis, Shakespeare, and Scene Study, across all four years of training at Carnegie Mellon School of Drama. Senior level classes include Culture Class, and his innovative course The Actor as Artist, featuring a groundbreaking curriculum centering holistic wellness for the actor, for which he was awarded a Provost Teaching Fellowship. 

Ausar is a burgeoning director who has trained with celebrated Canadian directors such as Philip Akin, Co-Founder of Obsidian Theatre and Richard Rose, Artistic Director Emeritus  of Tarragon Theatre Company. Having been shaped, and inspired by the aforementioned artists, as well as the numerous  directors he’s had the good fortune of collaborating with, Ausar demonstrated his own prowess for potent storytelling by way of directing for CMU, Blood at the Root by Dominique Morisseau and Passage by Christopher Chen.

Now poised to continue delivering world-class training to all of his students, Ausar is delighted to have the honor and privilege of sharing the bounty he’s received from his master teachers, mentors, coaches and collaborators with the next generation of theatre artists.

Lisa Velten Smith

Associate Professor of Voice
Associate Area Chair of Acting/Music Theater

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Velten Smith is a Designated Linklater Voice teacher and professional actor.  After receiving her BFA from the Theater School at DePaul University, Velten Smith cut her teeth on the Chicago stage with such theaters as Steppenwolf, About Face, and Lookingglass.  She was a member of the now defunct fringe WNEP theater company, acting and directing in new and devised work.  Later, Velten Smith received her MFA from University of California, San Diego where she trained with notable directors Darko Tresnjak and Les Waters and performed with famed New York theater company The Civillians at The La Jolla Playhouse.  Her 20+ career spans Broadway, off Broadway, Regional Theater, television and film.  In 2019, Velten Smith was awarded Pittsburgh Performer of the Year for her portrayals of Nora in A Doll’s House Part II at Pittsburgh Public Theater and Laura in Stephen Belber’s We Are Among US at City Theatre.

She began her teaching career at The University of California, San Diego (Excellence in Teaching 2003 and 2004)  and it was there that she began her deep interest in voice work by assisting prominent Voice Professor Ursula Meyer.  Velten Smith went on to teach at notable institutions Middlebury College, Point Park University and The University of Pittsburgh.  She has taught classes in Acting, Shakespeare, Public Speaking, the Creative Process, Intro to Voice, Advanced Voice, and hip hop rap/spoken word.

Velten Smith has coached voice and dialects for numerous CMU productions and maintains a career in coaching professional productions and actors as well as clients from outside the industry.  One of only 200 Designated Linklater Teachers in the world, Velten Smith has the distinguished pleasure of being the go-to trainer for those interested in pursuing a Linklater Designation in the Tri State area.

With an interest in the actor’s and student’s vocal and mental health, Velten Smith developed The Resilient Voice a workshop that combines the science of meditation with vocal exercises.   She is trained in Intimacy Education and recently served on City Theater’s Community Conversation panel about race in the Pittsburgh Region.

Member of AEA, SAG/AFTRA and The Voice and Speech Trainers Association.

Kaja Dunn

ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR, ANTI-RACIST AND CULTURALLY COMPETENT PRACTICE

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Kaja Dunn is an intimacy professional, diversity consultant, and associate faculty at Theatrical Intimacy Education. Kaja is a member of SAG-AFTRA and an actor, director, and activist with performances in over 40 productions in 5 countries including Theatrical Outfit, Playmakers Rep, Moxie Theatre and others.

Current favorite intimacy work includes American Prophet (Arena Stage), Choir Boy (Denver Center and ACT Seattle) Harlem (Amazon), Strange Loop (Broadway, associate Intimacy Director), The Best Man, The Final Chapter (Peacock). She is a recipient of the Kennedy Center’s National Medallion for her work on theatre and race. She has published in several journals about race and theatre, intimacy and co-authored a chapter in Arden Research Companion to Shakespeare and Contemporary Performance.

She has presented on issues of equity and diversity in theater for theaters and universities, Actors’ Equity Association as their racial consultant, The Women’s Theatre Festival, Blumenthal Performing Arts, MICHA, North Carolina Theatre Association (Keynote Panelist), Children’s Theatre Charlotte, Anti-Racism and Decolonization at University of London Goldsmiths, SETC and SETC Theatre Symposium, KCATF and The Association of Theatre in Higher Education, among other places. She is on the Executive Board of the Black Theatre Network and a former executive member of Black Theatre Association. She was recently interviewed in American Theatre Magazine around issues of Race and Theatre education. You can find out more at her website kajadunn.com.

Randy Kovitz

Special Faculty, Acting

Randy has taught numerous classes for the School of Drama, including Comedy, Chekov, Greeks, the Business of Acting, and Film Appreciation. He has directed productions and staged numerous fight scenes for the department, served as a faculty advisor on a number of student directed short films, and he created the Acting for the Camera curriculum, which he has taught for 15 years. He also produces, directs and edits the video content for the Acting and MT Showcase process.

Randy Kovitz is a veteran actor with credits across the entertainment industry. He trained at the CMU School of Drama under Earle Gister, Israel Hicks, Jewel Walker, Leon Katz, Tim Monich and B.H. Barry. Since that time, he has worked as both an actor and fight director in theater, film and television in New York, Los Angeles and in between.

As and educator, Randy has taught at NYU, SUNY Purchase, and the Yale School of Drama.

Randy’s film work includes roles in Mr. Harrigan’s Phone, The Fault in Our Stars, Concussion, Dawn of The Dead, Knightriders, The Addams Family, Basic Psych, Hello Beautiful and many others. His TV credits include The Chair, American Rust, Archive 81, The Blacklist, Parks and Recreation, Z: The Beginning of Everything, Seinfeld, E.R., The King of Queens and The Practice, among many others. On Broadway he appeared in Burn This, Othello and Macbeth at Lincoln Center. His regional appearances include Yale Rep, The Los Angeles Theater Center, The American Shakespeare Theater in Stratford Connecticut and the Pittsburgh Public Theater.

Randy is also a fight director with credits in Broadway and regional theater, film and TV, including the Pulitzer Prize-winning Mark Taper Forum/Center Theater Group productions of Angels in America and The Kentucky Cycle, among many hundreds of other projects. He is also an award-winning screenwriter and film director; his films have played in festivals nationwide. His feature directing debut, Validity is in post-production and should be released in late 2024 or early 2025.

www.randykovitz.com