YSP East Staff

Suzanne Rubinstein, Director and Co-Founder of YSP East

Suzanne is the mother of three YSP actors and is thrilled to share the joys of classical theater with local youth, their families, and the greater community. She brings with her over 20 years of experience working in the non-profit sector and a great joy for theater, Shakespeare and working with young people. Suzanne and her daughter, Mia, launched YSP East in the fall of 2012.

Visiting artists:

Atticus Belmonte

Atticus Belmonte is a writer, director, actor and recent graduate of Bard College with a degree in Theater. He is a founder of Patch Productions that he formed with his brothers and several friends (many of them YSP East alumni), taking his immersive theater pieces to the Shea where they have offered several productions. Atticus is also an alumnus of the Young Shakespeare Players East.

Elisa Gonzales

Elisa Gonzales is a professional voice, text, and dialect coach. Her coaching credits include productions on Broadway; the Oregon Shakespeare Festival; American Players Theatre; American Repertory Theater; Portland Center Stage; the St. Louis Shakespeare Festival; the Hangar Theatre Company; Santa Fe Playhouse; the Denver Center for the Performing Arts; the Mark Taper Forum; and many others.

Elisa is currently the Associate Professor of Voice and Acting and Undergraduate Program Director in the UMass Amherst Department of Theater. She is the proud co-author of Spanish Accents and Dialects for Actors, an accents guidebook for Latinx actors.

In addition, Elisa serves as a board member of the Voice and Speech Trainers Association and is a Certified Teacher of Knight-Thompson Speechwork and a Certified Associate Teacher of Fitzmaurice Voicework. She received her MFA in Theatre Performance from Arizona State University and her BFA in Acting from Emerson College.

Teen Directing Team:
Genevieve Mickelsen Lynch; Lucy McGuinness Holland; Joseph Lesley; Amelia Burch; Sandu Rager; Emma Hale

Past visiting artists:

Visiting Artist and Director, Lila Oren-Dahan
Lila Oren-Dahan (she/they) is a High School English and IB Theatre teacher. Recently, they’ve been involved with productions at Shakespeare Stage, Mount Holyoke College, and Exit 7 Players. Lila is currently working towards her MA in English at Bread Loaf School of English where she just wrapped up The Tempest. 

Visiting Artist and Director, Ariana Karp
Ariana is an actor, director, educator, and cellist. She is the Artistic Director of the International Shakespeare Center Santa Fe. In September 2019, she joined The Shakespeare Ensemble (curated by Ben Crystal) on a tour of Japan and performed Macbeth, Romeo and Juliet, and Hamlet in original pronunciation (OP). She is the producer and curator of Tabling: The Podcast, and Radio Shakespeare Lab, available on all podcasting platforms.

She has extensive teaching experience with a specific focus on empowering young people (ages 6-18) through ownership of Shakespeare’s language, textual analysis, creative problem solving, development of ensemble, and using movement to activate the text through the body. In addition to co-directing the Youth Shakespeare Festival Santa Fe since 2016, she has also completed residencies and conducted workshops for actors of all ages throughout the US.

Ariana is an alumna of London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art (LAMDA) with a Masters degree in Classical Acting for the Professional Theatre. She received early theatrical training from Richard and Anne DiPrima at the Young Shakespeare Players in Madison, WI, a program that produces uncut Shakespeare with children ages 6-18. After receiving her BA in Literature-Theatre from Reed College, she returned to the Young Shakespeare Players as lead director and educator (2011-2013). She has made theatre in New York, London, Madison, WI, Portland, OR, Santa Fe, NM and Japan.

Besides classical theatre, Ariana also has a passion for playing cello, something she has enjoyed doing since the age of 5. Over the last three years she has incorporated original cello and vocal compositions into her theatrical work, writing the incidental music for King Henry IV, Part I, King Lear, Twelfth Night, Chemistry, and The Enchantment. She is also a cellist for the Brooklyn-based progressive folk rock band, Satin Nickel.