Senior Faculty

Ray is a graduate of both Georgetown University and the National Conservatory of Dramatic Arts and is a founding member of the NCDA’s Actors Repertory Theatre company.  Ray has been acting professionally for 28 years, appearing in more than 150 productions on stages nationwide, including Wayside Theatre, Totem Pole Playhouse, Olney Theatre, Charter Theater, Theatre on the Hill, Metro Stage, Imagination Stage, Keegan Theatre, and the Hanna Theatre.  He served as the artistic director of Totem Pole Playhouse, a professional theater located in Pennsylvania, from 2008 to 2013.  He is a proud member of the Actor's Equity Association and served as co-chair of its Washington, DC Equity Liaison Committee for seven years. Ray has also served as chair of the Theater Departments at Calvert Hall College and Iona Preparatory School.​

​​Doug is the former director of education and a graduate of the three-year program. Doug has acted in more than 100 plays in the Washington area. He has directed shows at NEXTSTOP Theater, 1st Stage, Imagination Stage, Actors Repertory Theatre, Charter Theater, The Capital Fringe Festival, and Wayside Theater, as well as many different scenes and acts for local cabarets. Doug is also active in the independent film/industrial world, where he has appeared in more than 40 projects and directed over 50 short films, many of them award-winning. In 2015, at the Helen Hayes awards, Doug won the Robert Prosky Award for Best Lead Actor in a Play, presented for his work in One Man Two Gunners. In 2017, Doug was nominated for two more Helen Hayes awards, one for best supporting actor in a Musical, and one for his writing.  In 2018, Doug was nominated for another Helen Hayes award for Best Lead Actor in a Play for his performance in 'Trevor' at 1st Stage.  In 2018, Doug became the Show Runner for the CBS television show 'This is'.  He now runs 'Staycation' and 

The Recruit', both of which can be found on Amazon Prime and are broadcast on CBS.  Doug travels to DC frequently to teach Film and Media at NCDA. You can see his reel and resume at www.wilderfilm.com.

 Natalie is a local theatre artist, divisor, director, playwright, and educator. She has collaborated with companies including Folger, Constellation, Synetic, Theatre Alliance, Flying V, Washington Stage Guild, We Happy Few, and others. She received her Bachelor of Arts in Acting and Directing, and earned her Master's in Classical Acting with The Shakespeare Theatre Company and The George Washington University. She also studied physical theatre and Commedia dell'Arte abroad in its Italian birthplace. Her children's play Squeakers and Mr. Gumdrop, which she co-wrote and directed with her writing partner, is a Helen Hayes nominated production. In addition to her work offstage, Natalie voices a lead character in the SciFi radioplay podcast EOS10 and is a proud associated artist with Rorschach Theatre, Faction of Fools, and Arts on the Horizon.

 After graduating from the Conservatory, Ricardo worked as an acting apprentice at the Actors Theatre of Louisville and returned to DC to work in educational and outreach theatre with the Living Stage, Young Playwrights’ Theater, and the Folger Shakespeare Library's Bill's Buddies program. Career theatre credits include: African-American Collective Theatre (Best Man for the Job, Auld Lang Syne, Heartbeats); Arena Stage (The Price, Our War); Imagination Stage (Mulan, Ferdinand the Bull, The Borrowers); Round House Theatre (Two Trains Running); Shakespeare Theatre (The Oedipus Plays); Studio Theatre (In the Red and Brown Water); Totem Pole Playhouse (45 Seconds from Broadway, The Complete History of America: Abridged). Ricardo received a Helen Hayes Awards nomination for Outstanding Supporting Actor, Resident Musical for his work in Imagination Stage’s 2012 production of (Doctor Dolittle). He is a member of Actors Equity Association and has numerous industrial, short, and independent film credits including: (The Father and The Bear; Route 30,Three!) by John Putch; and (tHERAPY) by Kelley Slagle for which he won the best actor honorable mention award in the Washington, DC 2010 48-hour film project. He is a co-host and co-producer of the Read More Plays podcast - www.readmoreplays.com! 

Tia is a professional actress and produced playwright. She has performed with Second City, Baltimore Center Stage, Imagination Stage, The Hub Theatre, Taffety Punk's Riot Grrrls, Constellation Theatre, Arts on the Horizon (performing nonverbal theatre for ages 6 and under) and the Kennedy Center TYA (including two national tours of Knuffle Bunny: A Cautionary Musical), among others. Non-local credits include Tennessee Rep, Nashville Shakespeare Festival, Arkansas Shakespeare Theatre, Nashville Children's Theatre and New York's East River Theater Company. She is a graduate of NYU's Gallatin School for Individualized Studies and has practiced theatre with the likes of Austin Pendleton and SITI Company's Jeffrey Fracé. Tia is especially adept at highly physical theatre, multi-character tracks, and theatre for young audiences.

Amanda has worked as a Director and Creative Consultant for Fever Originals and has recently worked on Genie's Secret Bazar, The Little Mermaid, Sleepy Hollow, and Michelangelo’s Sistine Chapel: The Exhibition.  She has appeared in Giant Spoon's Back to the 90's in Las Vegas, The Banyan Family House at the Electric Forest Music Festival in Michigan, and directed and produced a featured performance with the NBA’s Atlanta Hawks. Prior to that she reprised her role as Madame Martine for the final installment in The Cabaret Trilogy with TBD Immersive in Washington, DC.  Her solo performance in the 2019 Capital Fringe show, Nothing Broken, was met with popular acclaim and her work in Ambien Date Night garnered a Best Performance Honor at the 2015 Capital Fringe. She was a 2017 company member with Actors Repertory Theatre where she appeared in The Judas Goat as Olivia, The Adventures of the Extra Ordinary Superheroes as Gadsby Googlefry, Much Ado About Nothing as Beatrice, and served as a collaborator and performer in the devised piece, #LYLO.  Other local stage credits include, Imagination Stage's, S.P.I.E.S as Pat, Theater Alliance's Night Falls on the Blue Planet as Claudia and DC Dead and ATL Dead as Brookland. Amanda is also an award-winning filmmaker, taking home festival awards for Best Film, Best Direction, Best Writing, Best Production Design, and Best Actress, among others. Amanda studied Theatre & Drama at Indiana University and continued her training at the National Conservatory of Dramatic Arts.  Amanda is especially adept at large-scale immersive activations, close contact immersive improv, devised theater, and self-producing.  

David is an actor, stage manager, and voiceover specialist. Stage appearances include Inspector Hound (The Real Inspector Hound), Greg (Sylvia), Schotter (King of the Jews), Matt Friedman (Talley's Folly), Don Quixote (Man of La Mancha), Ira Stone (Laughter on the 23rd Floor), Uncle Gabe (Sleeping Arrangements), Polpoch (Marat/Sade), Friar Peter (Measure for Measure), Everyman (Everyman), and Frederik Egerman (A Little Night Music) at venues that include Olney Theatre, Bay Theatre, Metrostage, Theater J, Wayside Theatre, Signature Theatre, the Other Opera Company, and many others. David as served as Production Stage Manager for shows at The Studio Theatre, Theater J, Totem Pole Playhouse, and Wayside Theatre. More recently David was PSM for The Alliance of New Music-Theatre's productions of The Vaclav Havel Project, and a new version of Kafka's Metamorphosis. He was the resident PSM for Metrostage for 3 seasons, 2015-17. His voice can be heard on books and magazines for the Library of Congress and in the commercial sector; his voices and accents are embedded in many industrial-training films. He is a member of Actors’ Equity Association and SAG-AFTRA.

 Brenna Horner is an actor, teaching artist, and 200-Hour Certified Yoga Instructor. With a background in creative dramatics and original play creation, she began teaching throughout the DC Metro Area in 2014, including at Round House Theatre, where she later became the full-time Education Associate. Following her time at RHT, she worked as Everyman Theatre's Lead Teaching Artist and developed programming there, where she taught preschoolers, elementary, middle, and high school, as well as adults in Baltimore City and County. She continues to freelance throughout the region with a focus on training adult actors. Brenna has been on stages in DC and Maryland as an actor, and has directed students of varying ages in productions throughout the area. She attended The University of Maryland, College Park, where she studied Communications before leaving to pursue Acting. She later attended The National Conservatory of Dramatic Arts, where she completed their two-year training program. Beyond theatre, her interests include travel, literature, and rescuing animals. 

Michael is an actor, improviser, writer, and teacher. He has performed locally at Shakespeare Opera Theater as Falstaff in Merry Wives of Windsor & Bottom in Midsummer Night's Dream, at Compass Rose Theater as Tevye in Fiddler on the Roof and as Multiple Characters in Forever Tuna. Amongst his other credits are Studio Theater, In the Red & Brown Water (O Li Roon & Man from State); Doorway Arts Ensemble, Endgame (Clov); Signature Theater, Dirty Blonde (Charlie & others). In addition, Michael is a company member of Lean & Hungry Theater and has performed in their productions of Hamlet (title role), As You Like It (Jacques, et.al.), The Scarlet Letter (Chillingworth), and King Lear (Cornwall, et.al.). He served 7 years as the Executive/Artistic Director of the Baltimore Improv Group (BIG), and continues to perform, teach and develop new shows with BIG including improvised Shakespeare and an improvised Law & Order show. He has been an invited performer at comedy/improv Festivals from NYC to Austin & Chicago to Philadelphia.