Artistic and Production Staff
David Catanzarite
Founding Artistic Director
David Catanzarite is a master stage director and expert educator. He has directed 200 professional and college productions in Los Angeles, New York, Chicago, Prague, South Africa, Toronto, and the San Francisco Bay Area. Catanzarite was a resident guest artist in Cape Town in 1995, where he met Nelson Mandela during the first free presidential elections. He performed and taught in Czechoslavakia and East Germany during the final years of Communist rule.
Catanzarite began his teaching career at the age of 26 as a theatre instructor at Stanford University. He is currently on the Theatre faculty at California State University, San Bernardino/Palm Desert Campus. He served full-time as head of the Directing programs at Pomona College (Claremont, CA) and Towson University (Baltimore, MD) and has taught acting at the University of Southern California; UCLA; the Los Angeles County High School for the Arts; the California State Universities at Los Angeles and Northridge; and several California community colleges.
Catanzarite served on the statewide committee that wrote California’s first Visual and Performing Arts Content Standards in 2001, and leads professional development training for teachers throughout the state.
He has taught theatre in California schools at every grade level. From 2002 to 2006 he was a Visual and Performing Arts Adviser for Los Angeles Unified School District Local/District 7, serving 82,000 K-12 students in Watts and South Central Los Angeles. He then became Assistant Principal at USC/32nd Street K-12 Performing Arts Magnet.
Catanzarite co-directed a A Midsummer Night’s Dream with Ben Donenberg for Shakespeare Festival/Los Angeles, which was attended by more than 10,000 spectators on the Los Angeles Cathedral Plaza. He worked for two seasons as Directing Assistant for New Plays Development at the Mark Taper Forum under Oskar Eustis and Jose Luis Valenzuela. In 1999 the German Consulate of San Francisco commissioned him to direct a marathon reading of Faust I and Faust II at Berkeley Repertory Theatre for Goethe’s 250th birthday.
At Green Room Theatre, Mr. Catanzarite has directed The Dresser, Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, Twelve Angry Men, To Kill A Mockingbird, Pop-up Shakespeare, numerous melodramas, and a holiday production of Gift of the Magi that toured African American Churches across the Coachella Valley. For Green Room Summer Conservatory he directed sold-out productions of Annie Get Your Gun, The Pirates of Penzance, Mary Poppins, Oliver!, and Fiddler on the Roof at the Indian Wells Theatre. Most recently he directed Sister Act at the state-of-the-art Indio High Performing Arts Center.
Catanzarite's 2010 production of Tuesdays with Morrie, starring Hal Linden, was one of Indian Wells Theatre’s first hits. At College of the Desert he directed award-winning productions of At Risk, Our Town, and Blood Wedding; at Palm Springs High School he directed The House of Bernarda Alba and record-breaking productions of Phantom of the Opera and Hairspray.
His productions have garnered numerous Desert Star Awards, a Los Angeles NAACP Image Award Nomination, and numerous “picks of the week” in the Los Angeles Times, LA Weekly, and Backstage West.
Founding Artistic Director
David Catanzarite is a master stage director and expert educator. He has directed 200 professional and college productions in Los Angeles, New York, Chicago, Prague, South Africa, Toronto, and the San Francisco Bay Area. Catanzarite was a resident guest artist in Cape Town in 1995, where he met Nelson Mandela during the first free presidential elections. He performed and taught in Czechoslavakia and East Germany during the final years of Communist rule.
Catanzarite began his teaching career at the age of 26 as a theatre instructor at Stanford University. He is currently on the Theatre faculty at California State University, San Bernardino/Palm Desert Campus. He served full-time as head of the Directing programs at Pomona College (Claremont, CA) and Towson University (Baltimore, MD) and has taught acting at the University of Southern California; UCLA; the Los Angeles County High School for the Arts; the California State Universities at Los Angeles and Northridge; and several California community colleges.
Catanzarite served on the statewide committee that wrote California’s first Visual and Performing Arts Content Standards in 2001, and leads professional development training for teachers throughout the state.
He has taught theatre in California schools at every grade level. From 2002 to 2006 he was a Visual and Performing Arts Adviser for Los Angeles Unified School District Local/District 7, serving 82,000 K-12 students in Watts and South Central Los Angeles. He then became Assistant Principal at USC/32nd Street K-12 Performing Arts Magnet.
Catanzarite co-directed a A Midsummer Night’s Dream with Ben Donenberg for Shakespeare Festival/Los Angeles, which was attended by more than 10,000 spectators on the Los Angeles Cathedral Plaza. He worked for two seasons as Directing Assistant for New Plays Development at the Mark Taper Forum under Oskar Eustis and Jose Luis Valenzuela. In 1999 the German Consulate of San Francisco commissioned him to direct a marathon reading of Faust I and Faust II at Berkeley Repertory Theatre for Goethe’s 250th birthday.
At Green Room Theatre, Mr. Catanzarite has directed The Dresser, Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, Twelve Angry Men, To Kill A Mockingbird, Pop-up Shakespeare, numerous melodramas, and a holiday production of Gift of the Magi that toured African American Churches across the Coachella Valley. For Green Room Summer Conservatory he directed sold-out productions of Annie Get Your Gun, The Pirates of Penzance, Mary Poppins, Oliver!, and Fiddler on the Roof at the Indian Wells Theatre. Most recently he directed Sister Act at the state-of-the-art Indio High Performing Arts Center.
Catanzarite's 2010 production of Tuesdays with Morrie, starring Hal Linden, was one of Indian Wells Theatre’s first hits. At College of the Desert he directed award-winning productions of At Risk, Our Town, and Blood Wedding; at Palm Springs High School he directed The House of Bernarda Alba and record-breaking productions of Phantom of the Opera and Hairspray.
His productions have garnered numerous Desert Star Awards, a Los Angeles NAACP Image Award Nomination, and numerous “picks of the week” in the Los Angeles Times, LA Weekly, and Backstage West.
Melanie Jones
Managing Director
A native of Los Angeles, Melanie Jones has always loved and been involved with music and performance. Growing up in a family of music lovers, it was not unusual to hear the sounds of Nancy Wilson, Hugh Masekela or Oscar Peterson playing on a early Sunday morning. Of course, her favorites were the Jackson Five and Karen Carpenter and by the time she was 15, she had become a top drummer at a very prominent church in Los Angeles.
After attending San Francisco State University, Melanie moved back to LA to pursue a career as a drummer and also began volunteering at the Los Angeles Gay & Lesbian Center. During that time, she led various groups including Lesbian, Bi-Sexual and Transgender support groups. It was through her volunteer experiences that she became seriously involved with the nonprofit sector and became an employee of the LA Center. As the Director of Community Outreach & Education, she managed the Senior, Youth, Adult Education, and Career Center programs for many years. Melanie has also worked with the political organization Equality California doing door-to-door campaigning for Marriage Equality. Additionally, after moving to Palm Springs almost 10 years ago, Melanie continued her work in non-profit management with Desert AIDS Project.
Of course today, you can still find Melanie performing in Palm Springs as a Drummer/Performance Artist and traveling around the world to photograph & experience the beauty of other countries & cultures.
Isn’t life grand?!~
Managing Director
A native of Los Angeles, Melanie Jones has always loved and been involved with music and performance. Growing up in a family of music lovers, it was not unusual to hear the sounds of Nancy Wilson, Hugh Masekela or Oscar Peterson playing on a early Sunday morning. Of course, her favorites were the Jackson Five and Karen Carpenter and by the time she was 15, she had become a top drummer at a very prominent church in Los Angeles.
After attending San Francisco State University, Melanie moved back to LA to pursue a career as a drummer and also began volunteering at the Los Angeles Gay & Lesbian Center. During that time, she led various groups including Lesbian, Bi-Sexual and Transgender support groups. It was through her volunteer experiences that she became seriously involved with the nonprofit sector and became an employee of the LA Center. As the Director of Community Outreach & Education, she managed the Senior, Youth, Adult Education, and Career Center programs for many years. Melanie has also worked with the political organization Equality California doing door-to-door campaigning for Marriage Equality. Additionally, after moving to Palm Springs almost 10 years ago, Melanie continued her work in non-profit management with Desert AIDS Project.
Of course today, you can still find Melanie performing in Palm Springs as a Drummer/Performance Artist and traveling around the world to photograph & experience the beauty of other countries & cultures.
Isn’t life grand?!~
