Musical Theater Workshop

Kathleen West is Acting for Young People’s (AFYP) Director of After School Programming, and has been a teaching artist with AFYP since 2017.  She is also the Vocal Director of our Saturday Showcase and Advanced Actors Showcase programs, and teaches Musical Theatre for our Summer Acting Camps. Throughout her teaching career, Kathleen has directed her students in many plays, musicals, and musical theatre showcases. When she is not teaching, Kathleen works as a professional actor in the DC area.

Her recent credits include Escape to Margaritaville at Toby’s Dinner Theatre, and Art of Murder, The Mystery of Edwin Drood, and Xanadu at Workhouse Arts Center. She has also hosted Amazon’s “Girls Tech Day,” an educational outreach program encouraging women to pursue careers in STEAM. 

Kathleen graduated Summa Cum Laude from George Mason University, receiving a BFA in Theatre with a concentration in Musical Theatre, and awards of excellence in both academics and performance. 

Kendall attends George Mason University as a senior Theater major. A former AFYP student, Kendall has been teaching with AFYP since 2014 in our summer camp, showcase, and after school programs. Kendall choreographs for our Musical and Advanced Actors’ Showcases and teaches musical theater in our summer programs. She is very involved with the Mason Players and Mason Cabaret, and is president of Mason’s chapter of Alpha Psi Omega, the theater honor fraternity. She was most recently seen in The Road to the End (Young Diana), Head Over Heels (Pamela), as well as in The Boy Detective Fails, Footloose, and Rags.

A graduate of University of Maryland, College Park with a Bachelor of Arts in Theater and Speech Communications, Mary has been working professionally as an actor in the metropolitan Washington-area, Los Angeles, and New York since 1985. She has worked at Washington area theaters including Theater of the First Amendment, Arena Stage, Studio Theatre, and Source Theatre. Television, radio and film credits include ABC’s All My Children, Barry Levinson’s Avalon, Diesel Films’ Dracula’s Mother, the MGM/Lionsgate thriller Hit and Run, and several spots for NPR’s Morning Edition.

Mary founded AFYP in 1997, and has seen the company grow from being its only teacher with a sporadic program schedule in rented spaces to where it is today: a year-round program with a full staff, working in conjunction with Potomac Arts Academy, for which she is Associate Director.

She is a longtime member of Mason’s School of Theater faculty in the areas of Performance and Theater Education. She was named a 2013 “Teacher of Distinction” and was a 2014 TEDxGeorgeMasonU speaker (“Magic Moments: the Transformative Power of  Theater“). She previously taught at the Studio Theatre Acting Conservatory and the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. Her professional memberships include The Screen Actors Guild-American Federation of Television and Radio Artists, Actor’s Equity Association, and the Educational Theatre Association.

Mary’s directing credits include An Experiment with an Air Pump and Shakespeare in Hollywood (George Mason University); Still Beating Hearts and A Godless Man (Theater of the First Amendment First Light Festival); Happy Holidays, Charlie Brown, 101 Dalmatians, It’s a Wonderful Life: A Live Radio Play; Willy Wonka, Jr.; Peter Pan, Jr.; A Seussified Christmas Carol; Alice in Wonderland, Jr. (AFYP).