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John-Robert Schroyer
Mari-Andrea Travis
Zachary Houppert-Nunns
Dr. Tyrone Stanley
DR. TYRONE STANLEY is a playwright and composer whose works have been featured in multiple national and international festivals and concerts. Dr. Stanley is the coordinator and Assistant Professor of Musical Theatre at Morgan State where earned the Ph.D in English with a creative writing focus. He received his M.A. in English/Creative Writing at the University of Central Oklahoma, and B.A. in English from North Carolina A&T State University. An accomplished musician and director, Dr. Stanley is the composer and playwright of Soul On Fire the Musical, which made a Kennedy Center debut in 2014. Soul On Fire the Musical made its Off-Broadway debut in New York's June Havoc Theatre, as a main stage feature for the Midtown International Theatre Festival in 2013. In 2020, he was commissioned by Long Beach Opera Company to write the libretto to two of their new operatic works for the 2020-21 season. In 2022, Dr. Stanley was commissioned to adapt Soul On Fire with an African influence to include the Swahili and Igbo languages. This revision took him to Kenya for research to support the revisions. His work has also been seen in the National Black Theatre Festival, Atlanta Black Theatre Festival, and the Midtown International Theatre Festival and Awards, where it won Best New Musical and Dr. Stanley Best Lead Actor in a Musical. Dr. Stanley is a recipient of the Central Oklahoma Playwriting Award (2009) for his 10-minute play, Distant Cousins, which also earned him the Middle-Atlantic Writers Association Award in Creative Writing. Dr. Stanley made his New York City Opera debut as a tenor in Toni Morrison's Margaret Garner, the Opera. He has also been seen as Andre the Viper in Fats Waller Musical Ain’t Misbehavin; Sportin’ Life in the Australia/New Zealand tour of George Gershwin’s Porgy & Bess; a feature role in an open run of NJ Performing Arts production of Your Arms Too Short To Box With God, which starred Tony Award winner Melba Moore and Cissy Houston; the Wiz in the hit musical, the Wiz; and a featured role in the regional premiere of Passing Strange (Guthrie, OK). He has appeared on CBS’ As the World Turns; ABC’s All My Children; HBO’s Sex & the City; and Whoopi Goldberg’s Whoopi. Dr. Stanley is currently completing a revision to his musical Soul On Fire, adapting the original story to that one based on research completed in Nairobi. He is also completing research for his first Dramatic Literature collection, Stories In the Keys of A thru G: A collection of Ten-Minute Plays with Music. Dr. Stanley has directed and choreographed plays and musicals such as Annie, Dreamgirls, The Color Purple, Hairspray, Aida, Steel Magnolias, and Shakespeare in Hollywood.
DeWitt Cooper
DeWitt Cooper III is a singer, dancer, actor, award-winning teacher, Applause Award-winning choreographer, and director. He is the co-founder and Artistic Director of CooperMorgan Dance and a former Artist Director instructor for the Jacksonville Center of the Arts. He has mentored students who have been accepted into prestigious theatre, dance, vocal, and musical theatre programs across the country, including institutions such as CalArts, DePaul, Penn State, Shenandoah, Howard, The Juilliard School, and many others. In 2005, Cooper co-founded and became the Artistic Director of CooperMorgan Dance Theatre. He attended Florida State University and credits Florida A&M for his mentoring. At Case Western Reserve University, he was the first African American male to receive an MFA in Contemporary Dance and was nominated for the Wittke Undergraduate Teaching Award. He previously worked full-time at Walt Disney World Company’s Animal Kingdom, performing in the long-running “Finding Nemo: The Musical.” Cooper shared the stage with Lin-Manuel Miranda in “The First National Tour of In the Heights,” playing the role of Benny opposite Aerial Jacobs. His other credits include "Ain’t Misbehavin'," "C.C. in DreamGirls," "West Side Story," "Joseph in Black Nativity," "Agwe in Once on this Island," "Don’t Bother Me I Can’t Cope," and the international Asian tour of "Aida." He has studied with the Garth Fagan Movement Institute under Bessie Award winner Natalie Cropper and directed "Cabaret" aboard the Norwegian Escape. Cooper also spent eight months in Hawaii with Norwegian Cruise Line as a lead singer and vocal captain in the ship's main stage productions. He had the honor of singing at the doctoral celebration of the late Ann Reinking. In the summer of 2023, he choreographed “Tuck Everlasting” at Hope Repertory in Holland, Michigan. Cooper has appeared on "So You Think You Can Dance," "The George Lopez Show," and numerous Disney promos. His directing credits include "Once on this Island," "Significant Other," Associate Director for "Rent," "Harold and the Purple Crayon," and "I Love My Hair." Currently, he is a musical theater instructor at the prestigious Douglas Anderson School of the Arts, where he has been named Adjunct Teacher of the Year and Teacher of the Week for the city of Jacksonville. In 2019, Cooper was hired by Douglas Anderson to reestablish the Black Art organization, which has been rebranded to “A.L.I.V.E.” under his leadership. He is the Director of the Legacy Project, a movement actively seeking to raise funding for a life-size statue of Mr. Douglas Anderson. Cooper has spent two winter seasons with Dance With Jax and was recently awarded the Modwest Wilde Award for his choreography. He also had the honor of working with Dr. Bobby Cartwright and BET as the designated choreographer for the 2023 Gospel Super Fest. This season, he directed and choreographed Douglas Anderson’s first-ever all POC cast of “Once on this Island,” which won two Applause Awards.