2026 Oklahoma Summer Arts Institute

Now accepting applications!

2026 Faculty

Acting

Christine Farrell, Instructor

Cliffside Park, New Jersey

Christine Farrell is an actress, playwright, and professor at Sarah Lawrence College. She is a member of Ensemble Studio Theatre, SAG-AFTRA, and Actors’ Equity Association. Her film credits include The Ice Storm and Fatal Attraction. Stage credits include The Comedy of Errors, Uncle Vanya, Catholic School Girls, Broken Glass, and The Dining Room. On television, she appeared as Detective Pam Shrier on Law & Order. Her published plays, Mama Drama and The Once Attractive Woman, were developed at Ensemble Studio Theatre. A recipient of an NEA Affiliate Artist Grant, a MacDowell Colony Fellowship, and an Alfred P. Sloan Grant, her play Our Half of the Sky was selected by the Great Plains Theatre Conference in 2020. This season, she created the role of Ruth in the Off-Broadway production Smart, appears in the web series There Will Be Bowling and 60 Is the New Puberty, and produced the short film Brunch, which won the Audience Award at the 2025 Brooklyn Film Festival.

Kea Trevett, Teaching Associate

New York, New York

Kea Trevett (she/her) is a theater artist, filmmaker, and educator. As an actor, her NY stage credits include Roundabout, Classic Stage Company, Lincoln Center, Ars Nova, Ensemble Studio Theatre, The Sheen Center, New Georges, The Lark, and Page 73. Trevett is an Outfest Screenwriting Fellow, a NYSCA Support for Artists grantee, and a NYFA NYC Women’s Fund recipient. Her film collaborations have screened at Outfest, Newfest, Frameline, the Nevada Women’s Film Festival in Las Vegas, and Atlanta Film Festival. Trevett teaches playwriting and Shakespeare for Theatre for a New Audience and Lincoln Center, and Theater & Screenwriting for Sarah Lawrence. She is a founding member of Apocalyptic Artists Ensemble, for whom she recently directed a mini series adaptation of Shakespeare’s As You Like It, and a tour of A Midsummer Night’s Dream, co-produced with Red Bull theater. She received her M.F.A. at Columbia University.

keatrevett.com

Dance

DeeAnna Hiett, Instructor

Kansas City, Missouri

DeeAnna Hiett, a Texas native, began her professional career with Ailey II after receiving a full merit scholarship to The Alvin Ailey American Dance Center. She later became a charter member of the Jamison Project under Judith Jamison and went on to perform with the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater. Her performing career includes work with Ballet Hysell, Deeply Rooted Dance Theater, Quixotic, and the Wylliams Henry Contemporary Dance Theater, where she was also co-artistic director. She has been featured as a guest artist with companies such as Kansas City Ballet and has performed and choreographed in numerous operas and commercial venues. Notably, she appeared at Career Transitions for Dancers’ 22nd Anniversary Jubilee at New York’s City Center. Her choreography has been showcased nationally, including her work "Without a Word," performed at The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. She is a recipient of the Generative Performing Artist Award from the Charlotte Street Foundation. Ms. Hiett currently serves as Professor and Chair of Dance at UMKC Conservatory.

Drawing & Painting

Daphne Arthur, Instructor

New York, New York

Arthur received her B.F.A. in Painting and Drawing from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 2007, and an M.F.A. from the Yale School of Art in 2009. Recent residencies and fellowships include Project for Empty Space AIR Program, Ucross Foundation Residency, Virginia Center for the Creative Arts Residency, Pocoapoco Residency, MassMoca Artist Residency, and The Alma B. C. Schapiro Residency. She is the recipient of The Helene Wurlitzer Foundation Fellowship, the Anne Critz Fellowship, The Ald Held Fellowship at the American Academy of Rome, the Vermont Studio Center’s Pollock-Krasner Foundation Fellowship, The New York Foundation for the Arts Queens Art Fund: New Work Grant, The Newark Creative Catalyst Grant and the For The Artist Grant. Recently her work has been featured in New American Paintings Northeast publications #164 and #170. Arthur is currently based in New York City, where she also teaches at Columbia University.

daphnearthur.com

Film & Video

Alrick Brown, Instructor

New York, New York

Alrick Brown is Assistant Professor of Undergraduate Film and Television at NYU. An award-winning writer and director, he found his medium, film, after visiting the slave castle of Elmina, in Ghana, during two years of service with the Peace Corps in Cote d’Ivoire. His cinematic reach includes credits on the small screen as director, producer and writer on a variety of projects – ABC’s Final Witness, ESPN’s short doc series Spike Lee’s Lil’ Joint, and Investigative Discoveries Emmy-Award winning series A Crime Two Remember. Brown’s collective body of film work has earned several honors. Among them is the HBO Life Through Your Lens Emerging Filmmaker Award for the critically acclaimed documentary Death of Two Sons. Brown’s first feature, Kinyarwanda, was recipient of the prestigious Sundance World Cinema Audience Award.

Bryan Cardinale-Powell, Editor

More information coming soon!

Alan Novey, Technician

More information coming soon!

Orchestra

Liza Grossman, Orchestra Conductor

Cleveland, Ohio

For more than 30 years, conductor and producer Liza Grossman has championed one core belief: empowering artists to trust their own voice is a necessary act. She builds rehearsals as collaborative studios where musicians shape artistic direction, modeling the truth that art is inherently collective. Grossman is the Creative Director and Conductor of the Kaboom Studio Orchestra in Cleveland, Ohio, a Hollywood-style recording orchestra, creating soundtracks for film, animation, video games, albums, documentaries, and broadcast media. Her work blends classical foundations with contemporary storytelling, positioning orchestras as essential engines in modern content creation. She serves as tour conductor for Styx and has collaborated with artists including Melissa Etheridge, Ben Folds, Graham Nash, and leading composers from Michael Daugherty to Joan Tower. A champion of new music, she has commissioned over 500 works and has conducted major orchestras including in Colorado, Jacksonville and Nashville. Her mission is unwavering: to cultivate independent thinkers, empathetic collaborators, and courageous creators.

kaboomstudioorchestra.org

Raquel Samayoa, Trumpet Instructor

Denton, Texas

Raquel Samayoa is a versatile and accomplished trumpet soloist, chamber musician, orchestral performer, and educator. Dr. Samayoa is Principal Trumpet of the Richardson Symphony Orchestra (TX) and performs regularly with the Dallas Chamber Symphony. Samayoa is also a Yamaha Performing Artist and a Denis Wick Artist and Clinician. Dr. Samayoa is a founding member of the award-winning Lantana Trio and was a core member of Seraph Brass from 2016 to 2025. Samayoa currently serves as Associate Professor of Trumpet, Co-Director of the UNT Brass Band, and Associate Chair of Instrumental Studies at the University of North Texas College of Music. 

solotromba.com

Katie Glading, Low Brass Instructor

More information coming soon!

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