Board of Directors
Dexter J. Singleton
Executive Director/ Board Chair
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 intern, he assisted award winning directors, Derek Anson Jones (Wit), Christopher Ashley (Rocky Horror Show), and Doug Hughes (Tony winner for “Doubt”). He also worked closely with writers Stephen Schwartz (Pippin, Working), Teresa Rebeck (NYPD Blue, Mauritus), 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 evoke social change. With this company, they have performed for over 50,000 in several states across the U.S. and brought several new plays and premieres to audiences including Little Brother, I’m Just a Superhero, What do you See?, Harriet Tubman: Story of the Underground Railroad, Struggle for Freedom, No Lie: A Hip Hop Bus Trip, Kingdom, and several others.
Dexter has engaged many organizations and schools across the country with original workshops and programming as a public speaker in the areas of racism, African American Studies, culture, diversity, and hip hop. His recent directing credits include, Kingdom, Kiss Me Kate, Julius Caesar, and Family Affair to name a few. Mr. Singleton is a working playwright of five regionally produced works, a director, 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. (dsingleton@socialchangetheatre.org)
Aaron Jafferis
Secretary
Aaron Jafferis has performed his hip hop poetry at Madison Square Garden, the Kennedy Center, and the National Poetry Slam Championships, where he was the 1997 Open Rap Slam champion. His hip hop musical Kingdom (music by Ian Williams) won the award for Most Promising New Musical at the 2006 New York Musical Theatre Festival, and has been developed by Bregamos Community Theater.
His solo hip hop play No Lie has been seen at the Nuyorican Poets Café, H.E.R.E., Passage Theatre, the International Festival of Arts & Ideas, and at high schools and colleges across the country. His hip hop play Shakespeare: The Remix (music by Gihieh Lee) was commissioned by TheatreWorks (Palo Alto) and performed by TheatreWorks, St. Louis Black Rep, and Collective Consciousness.
He wrote the book and English lyrics for Ruben Flores’ Latin American Songbook series at Joe’s Pub. He was named one of “50 To Watch” in the July/August 2007 issue of The Dramatist. He has received artist residencies from TheatreWorks and the MacDowell Colony. He has written poetry for the Urban Bush Women dance troupe and for The Nation and Northeast magazines. He received his BA in Arts & Social Change from the University of California at Berkeley, studied at the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, and received his MFA in Musical Theatre Writing from NYU, where he was an Alberto Vilar Global Fellow in the Performing Arts (ajafferis@socialchangetheatre.org)
Margaret Kinsella
Treasurer
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 Education (1994); 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. (mkinsella@socialchangetheatre.org)
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 Fiddle 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.
