Backstage - NDSA

Our Board

Samantha Abt-Bumgarner
UNCC
Becky Darling
Chair, Community Activist
Jacob Darling
Wells Fargo Bank
Valerie Ellerby
Parent of STI Participant, Community Activist
Helene Watts
Parent of STI Participant, TheBump.com

Dee Lanier

Technology education and web support

Kellie G. Brown
Executive Director

Director of Summer Theater Intensive

Kellie became the Executive Director of the school in February 2009. She joined the NoDa School of Arts in its very first year as the Director of Musical Theater. She continues to serve in that role as well as Theater Instructor for the Fall and Spring after school classes. Kellie has a deep and genuine love of both Theater and children. She received her Bachelor’s in Fine Arts in Theatre with emphasis in Broadcast Television from Valdosta State University in Valdosta, GA in 1995. She has performed in Raisin in the Sun, and Fiddler on the Roof and has written several one act plays. A native of St. Louis, MO, Kellie is a wife and a mother of two beautiful boys.

Summer Theater Intensive Staff

Cherise Hill
Choreographer

Mrs. Hill received a Bachelors Degree in Psychology and a Masters of Arts in Dance Education from New York University. She has been a dance instructor in the public school system in Charlotte and New York since 2001. In Charlotte, she continues to teach dance at Garinger High School, and was named the 2009 CMS Dance Teacher of the Year! She has performed with the Charles Moore Dance Theatre in NY and the Beckles Dancing Company in Dallas, TX. Cherise is a native of Jamaica and is a wife and mother of a darling little girl and a beautiful baby boy.

Lindsey Horne
Music Director

Lindsey is a singer and songwriter from Charlotte, NC, and has a great passion for teaching in the arts. She has a B.A. in music and a MFA from Sarah Lawrence College. She is a piano instructor for Community School of the Arts, music director of the Brookstone School, and recently opened her own teaching studio out of a recording studio in South End. She has proudly been teaching with the NoDa School of Arts since 2008.

Doug Mays
Sound Engineer
Doug has been mixing and producing the audio sound for the NoDa School of Arts since 20mixing sound for live bands and churches in the Charlotte areaduction of a

Doug has been mixing and producing the audio sound for the NoDa School of Arts since 2008. His experience includes mixing sound for live bands and churches in the Charlotte area. He has also traveled to Africa as the sound and video engineer in a documentary production of a missionary doctor and his family in Nairobi. Outside the NoDa School of Arts, Doug is a software architect for Fidelity National Information Services, Inc. He is husband and father of three awesome children.

Heather Renfroe
Assistant Director

Heather has been a valuable part of the NoDa School of Arts family since 2007. She has a Bachelor of Arts in Drama and a Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing from Queens University of Charlotte. She has performed in Brigadoon, The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (Abridged) and Snoopy! The Musical as well as stage managed Footloose and Li'l Abner with Pull-Tight Players in Franklin, TN. She has also participated in Just Do It! and the 24 Hour Theatre Project at Theatre Charlotte. Heather is a wife and "mommy" of a doggie named ????