Board of Directors

Dexter J. Singleton
Executive Director/ Board Chair

dsingleton@socialchangetheatre.org

Mr. Singleton’s career began with the now world renowned Mosaic Youth Theatre of Detroit as an ensemble member. He went on to graduate from Western Michigan University with a BA in Theatre Performance and Directing in 1998. He is the former Artistic Director of the critically acclaimed Kalamazoo Youth Theatre, a theatre training program for youth ages 10-18, providing touring and professional opportunities.

Upon graduation, Dexter was selected as the first Sikorsky Intern at New Haven, CT. Long Wharf Theatre, where as an artistic/education intern, he assisted award winning directors, Derek Anson Jones (Wit), Christopher Ashley (Xanadu), and Doug Hughes (Tony winner for “Doubt”). He also worked closely with writers Stephen Schwartz (Pippin, Working), Teresa Rebeck (NYPD Blue, Dead Accounts), and Wendy Wasserstein (The Heidi Chronicles).

Dexter moved on to found, along with Liz Hinz in 2001, Collective Consciousness Theatre, a New Haven based multicultural theatre company dedicated to creating new American works that inspire social change. With this company, they have performed for over 70,000 in several states across the U.S. and brought several new plays and premieres to audiences including Little Brother, I’m Just a Superhero, Give Us Free, Stories of a New America, Struggle for Freedom, No Lie: A Hip Hop Bus Trip, Shakespeare: The Remix, and many others.

Dexter has engaged many organizations and schools across the country with original workshops and programming as a public speaker/trainer in the areas of racism, African American Studies, culture, diversity, team building, and hip hop. His recent directing credits include, Oklahoma, Caroline or Change, Pippin, and Anon(ymous) to name a few. Mr. Singleton is a working playwright of six regionally produced works, a director, producer and an actor. Serving as Executive Director of Collective Consciousness Theatre, he is also the Head of Theatre at Regional Center for the Arts in Trumbull, CT. and Director of the GHAA Summer Musical Theatre Workshop in Hartford,CT.

Aaron Jafferis
Secretary
ajafferis@socialchangetheatre.org

Aaron Jafferis’ hip-hop musicals Kingdom, Stuck Elevator, How to Break, Blood Magic, Shakespeare: The Remix, and No Lie have been produced, presented, or developed by The Old Globe, Public Theater, Sundance Theatre Lab, Atlantic Theater, Oregon Shakespeare Festival, HERE, Hip Hop Theater Festival, TheatreWorks/Silicon Valley, On the Boards, St. Louis Black Rep, Capital Rep, Zachary Scott Theatre, International Festival of Arts & Ideas, Yale Institute for Music Theatre, Nuyorican Poets Café, Passage Theatre, ReVision Theatre, Queens Theatre in the Park, National Alliance for Musical Theatre, New York Musical Theatre Festival, International Community Arts Festival in The Netherlands, John Jay College, Collective Consciousness, and Bregamos. He has written poetry for the Urban Bush Women, The Nation, and performed at the National Poetry Slam Championships, where he is a former Open Rap Slam champion. He teaches poetry and theatre in schools, hospitals, health centers, community organizations, and detention centers in his hometown of New Haven, CT. BA: UC Berkeley. MFA: NYU GMTWP.

Margaret Kinsella
Treasurer
mkinsella@socialchangetheatre.org

Margaret Kinsella is a Development Consultant in Hartford, CT. presenting fundraising strategies, program development and grant writing for both public and private sources. Current or past clients include: Hartford Public Schools, the CREC Greater Hartford Academy of the Arts, the Theater of the Performing Arts and The Learning Corridor Corporation, Inc.

In 2001, she retired after 15 years as the Executive Director of Young Audiences of Connecticut. Her duties were to establish audiences within Connecticut school systems; train professional performing and visual artists to work within the school environment; use the arts as learning tools and create corporate, foundation and public support for these programs.

Her recognition awards include: the Connecticut Arts Award for Excellence in Arts Education from the Connecticut Commission on the Arts (1990); National Medal of Arts presented to the Young Audiences network by President and Mrs. Clinton and the Chapter Achievement Award from Young Audiences (1999).

Margaret received her MA in Arts Administration from New York University, BS in Arts Education at SCSU and was a student of painter Roger Van Damme.

Liz Hinz
Member at Large

Liz Hinz has been involved in theatre from the time she was able to play her parents record player and put on one woman performances of Fiddler on the Roof in her basement. She began her formal training at the age of nine in Birmingham, Michigan with the Popcorn Players, an intensive ten week training program for young beginner performers.

Through other acting classes and classmates, Liz became a founding member of the Mosaic Youth Theatre of Detroit, a world renowed youth theatre troupe, performing in the first two productions of Runaways at the Attic Theatre of Detroit, she and Dexter met briefly there.

Liz then ran into Dexter again at Western Michigan University where she earned a BA in Theatre Performance and was directed by Dexter in The Great White Hope. After graduation, Liz was asked to move to New Haven, CT to perform in I’m Just A Superhero, originating the role of Loni and helping to develop the workshop model and many other study guides for Young Audiences of CT.

Liz and Dexter formed Collective Consciousness in 2001, in an effort to bring entertainment and enlightenment to educational theatre.

She moved to New York City in 2005 and has since performed in The Queen’s Players productions of Happy Saturdays, and The Knight of the Burning Pestle; Project:Theatre’s production of JB and Katerine and Friends’ Visions of Rosalind.

Ray Massie

Ray Massie is a professional actor and an educator in the New Haven area. He received bachelor degrees in Theatre and Education from Southern CT State University. He has been teaching and acting for over ten years in New England as well as the Midwest. He currently teaches theatre classes at the Regional Center for the Arts in Trumbull, CT. Ray has always had a passion for the arts as well as education and has developed and instructed programs, workshops, residencies, and classes in the arts for most of his adult life.