Our Team
Learn more about the TYA/USA Staff and Board.
Leadership
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Sara Morgulis
Executive Director
Sara is an award-winning theatremaker, educator, and nonprofit leader. She previously served as the Director of Education at New York City Children’s Theater, where she led with her personal mission of engaging young people through accessible and inclusive theatre practices. She is an Adjunct Faculty Member for the M.F.A Performing Arts Management Program at Brooklyn College and the Disability Services and Accessibility Consultant at CUNY’s MA in Applied Theatre program, where she received her Master’s degree. Her Master’s thesis research about training young people to be peer facilitators was published in a 2015 edition of RIDE: The Journal of Applied Theatre and Performance. In 2015, Sara received the TYA/USA Ann Shaw Fellowship Award, which funded a trip to London to visit Oily Cart Theatre and learn about their play development process. Sara used that research to co-create FIVE, a multi-sensory touring musical designed for students with disabilities, which has now toured to over 8,500 students in schools across NYC. Sara also served as Director of Programs at Actionplay, an organization dedicated to providing autistic, neurodivergent, and disabled teens and young adults with equal access to the theatremaking process. Sara has served on panels and presented workshops at many conferences, including the American Alliance for Theatre and Education Conference, the Leadership Exchange in Arts and Disability Conference, NYU Forum on Educational Theater, ARTWORKS Arts in Education Conference, and the NYC Arts in Education Roundtable Face to Face Conference. Sara was the Associate Artistic Producer of the 2019 UP CLOSE Festival and is a freelance TYA producer and director. In collaboration with The Kennedy Center’s David Kilpatrick, she devised New York City Children’s Theater’s first show for the very young, Please Bring Balloons. Her arts education work extends to CO/LAB Theater Group, Creative Arts Team, Miracle Project New York, Asolo Repertory Theatre, Syracuse Stage, and People’s Light. She previously served on the Museum, Arts and Culture Access Consortium Steering Committee and is a current Board Member of the NYC Arts in Education Roundtable. www.saramorgulis.com
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Rachel Lee
Programming Manager
Rachel Lee (she/her) is an arts administrator based in New York City, devoted to working in a community-oriented capacity in the interest of supporting education and collaboration. Since joining the TYA/USA team, Rachel has supported producing and curation of the four-part, multi-month online 2021 TYA/USA Virtual Festival & Conference; three in-person regional events across the USA for the TYA/USA on Tour series as well as the parallel online Virtual Pass offering; and a number of one-off professional development webinars. Rachel’s passion for arts administration was realized and nurtured as a high school student during her two consecutive years on the producing team of The 5th Avenue Theatre’s “Rising Star Project” mentorship program. As a college student, she continued to develop her skills as a theater professional by interning and working in a variety of roles for a range of organizations in the greater Seattle area and New York City including The 5th Avenue Theatre, Village Theatre KIDSTAGE, Henry Street Settlement’s Abrons Arts Center, and the New Light Theater Project. In 2018 Rachel graduated with a B.A. in Liberal Arts from Sarah Lawrence College, concentrating in Theater and Russian Literature. Prior to joining the TYA/USA team as Programming Manager, Rachel served as Education Registrar at Seattle Children’s Theatre where she fell in love with Theatre for Young Audiences.
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Stephen Fala
Membership and Communications Associate
Stephen Fala (he/him) is a New York based theatre for young audiences creative. His work as a teaching artist includes seminars with The Rev, workshops and readings with Philadelphia Young Playwrights, and music direction at Music Theatre Philly. Stephen is the creator and host of the theatre for young audiences industry podcast Pipe and Drape. He has performed Off Broadway with Sesame Street: The Musical, regionally with Walnut Street Theatre and Barter Theatre, and toured theatre for young audiences with Nickelodeon, Disney Cruise Line, Lexington Children’s Theatre, TheaterWorksUSA, and The Rev. stephenfala.com
Board of Directors
Our board is comprised of highly skilled leaders, administrators, artists, and educators from across the country dedicated to advancing professional TYA theatre.
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Idris Goodwin
Board President
Idris Goodwin is an award-winning playwright, director, orator, poet and educator. This fall he will become the Producing Artistic Director of Stage One Family Theater in Louisville, KY. For Stage One he penned American Tales and the widely produced And In This Corner : Cassius Clay, winner of the 2017 Distinguished Play Award from The American Association of Theater and Education. Other widely produced stage-plays include: How We Got On, This Is Modern Art co-written with Kevin Coval, Bars and Measures, The Raid, Hype Man and Blackademics. His play From The Mouths of Monsters was produced by The Kennedy Center’s Theater for Young Audiences Division. Idris is currently developing new TYA plays for Seattle Children’s Theater, Metro Plays and Nashville Children’s Theater. He’s received support from the NEA, Ford, Mellon and Edgerton Foundation, and awarded The American History Cycle Commission from Oregon Shakespeare Festival, The BlueInk Playwriting Prize and InterAct Theater’s 20/20 Prize. Goodwin recently directed Dominique Morriseau’s Detroit ’67 for Curious Theater and This Is Modern Art for Denver Center Theatre. He is the author of the pushcart nominated essay collection These Are The Breaks and Inauguration, a chapbook co-written with Nico Wilkinson (Haymarket Books), winner of the 2017 Literary Arts Award from The Pikes Peak Arts Council. His words have appeared on HBO, Sesame Street, BBC radio and Discovery Channel. A seasoned educator, Goodwin teaches and lectures across the nation to multiple demographics, and from 2012-2018 was Assistant Professor in The Department of Theatre and Dance at Colorado College, where he was voted teacher of the year.