Meet Our Teaching Artists
The educators creating BCT magic with our students every day!
Maclaine Bolden
Director/Choreographer
Maclaine is a NYC based actor, poet, playwright, and lyricist. Originally from Dallas, she graduated from Pace University with a BFA in Acting. While in school, her participation in poetry readings led her to hone her writing skills and begin to tell stories that focus on mental health and generational gifts. She has a passion for set design, costume design- and how space tells our stories. Recently, she costumed BCT’s “A Teacher’s Worst Nightmare”. She has also written the book and lyrics for “The Library is Open”, being produced as part of BCT’s Fall 2022 season.
Mary Jo McBride
Music Director
Mary Jo is a teaching artist, actor, and musician who has been working primarily in early childhood education since 2005. Earning her BFA in Musical Theatre from the HARTT School in CT, Mary Jo has used her training and experience as both an educator and children’s performer to develop an engaging curriculum for each phase of early childhood. She started her own program, “Toddler Time With Mary Jo”, taught Music For Aardvarks, and collaborated with Joanne Solomon to bring an original program, “Stomp and Shout”, to the Brooklyn Conservatory of Music, where she remains a faculty member in the early childhood division. In addition to working with the little ones, Mary Jo performs with “The Improbable Players,” a theatre troupe bringing dramatic workshops on drug and alcohol abuse prevention to middle and high schools. Her solo show, Born MYdentity, which was part of Theatre Row’s United Solo Theatre Festival, is being further developed for a run Off-Broadway.
Amari Q. Smith
Director/Choreographer
Born and raised in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn, Amari is a multifaceted theatre artist, performing arts educator, and creative professional whose work spans musical theatre, arts education, and live entertainment production.
Amari holds a Bachelor of Arts in Theatre Arts with a concentration in Acting from The City College of New York and is a proud alumnus of Brooklyn Children’s Theatre’s Teen Players Program. His artistic work has earned him a Richard Maltby Award nomination through the Kennedy Center American College Theater Festival.
With years of experience as a full-time Theatre and Performing Arts Educator within New York City’s school system, Amari has dedicated his career to cultivating creativity, inspiring young artists, and helping students discover their unique talents and artistic potential. He firmly believes that every child possesses an individual voice, perspective, and creative ability deserving of recognition and development. Through acting, musical theatre, movement, and collaborative storytelling, Amari creates opportunities for students to explore their identities, build confidence, embrace their individuality, and discover strengths they may not have recognized in themselves.
At the heart of Amari’s educational philosophy is a deep commitment to equity, diversity, and inclusion in the performing arts. He strives to cultivate learning environments where students of all backgrounds, identities, and abilities feel represented, respected, and empowered to participate fully in the creative process. Recognizing that every student enters the classroom with different experiences, needs, and strengths, Amari approaches arts education with the belief that access to meaningful artistic opportunities should never be limited by circumstance. His teaching emphasizes student voice, culturally responsive instruction, collaboration, and the importance of ensuring that every young artist has the opportunity to be seen, heard, and celebrated.
Beyond the classroom, Amari brings experience in live entertainment and production management, combining his theatrical background with a passion for creative direction, technical production, and developing engaging performance experiences.
Whether onstage, behind the scenes, or in the classroom, Amari remains committed to artistic excellence, championing equitable access to arts education, and inspiring the next generation of performers, storytellers, and creative leaders.
Isis Bruno
Director/Choreographer
Bronx Native, Isis is an alum of NYU Tisch’s drama department. She is an artist, choreographer, director and writer. Her art sits at the intersection of a 4 year old who believes in fairy tales and a twenty something queer Black-woman who believes in revolution. She applies this politic in her work “untitled”, a choreopoem about the maturation of Black love most recently put up at Hickory Playground. Other credits include performer in Theater Mitu’s Utopian Hotline, a step choreographer/Adelaide’s u/s/ featured ensemble in the Guthrie Theater’s production of Guys and Dolls and Danielle in Black Spectrum Theater’s production of Bring it On.
Dionne McClain-Freeney
Music Director
Dionne is a musician, composer, arranger, music director, and actor whose work has been experienced nationally and internationally, including a stint off-Broadway. Her work has been recognized with several award nominations, including the AUDELCO, and a Princess Grace Award. Theatrical Composer & Lyricist: Aviatrix (World Premiere, Seattle Public Theater; nominated for 5 Gregory Awards), The Harriet Holland Social Club (The Movement Theatre Company and New Georges Theatre Company; nominated for a Drama Desk Award). The Brownstoners (Musicals in Development Commission, Piper Theatre), Not So Fair-y Tales (Piper Theatre), The Movie Star & The Mammy (Joe’s Pub), The Sugar Hill Sisters (NYMF), This One Girl’s Story (NC A&T, NYMF, Gayfest, GLAAD Media Award nominee). For BCT: The Dry Land (BCT, with support from the New York State Council on The Arts), ho(ME), Charisma’s Turn, The Taming of Romeo & Juliet, Rice & Rocks. Songs (partial): “A Safe Place,” (BCT); “Beautiful Me,” (in honor of Viola Davis, BCT); “The Beautiful Son,” (Rainbow Lullaby, Broadway Records). Acting: The Potluck (“Sandi Smith,” Associate Music Director. Soho Rep and INTAR Theatre. Off-Broadway), BRECHT ON BRECHT (Actor, Music Director. TBTB. Off-Off Broadway). Member of the BMI Lehman Engel Advanced Musical Theatre Workshop & Steering Committee.
Alexandra Toro
Director/Choreographer
Alexandra Toro is a dedicated teaching artist at Brooklyn Children’s Theatre, blending her passion for theater with her commitment to community building. With a background in theater studies and experience as a child performer, Alexandra believes in providing every student with the opportunity to flourish. She sees the classroom as a platform for unity, where students from diverse backgrounds come together to express themselves freely. Alexandra’s mission is rooted in promoting equality, equity, and inclusion, using theater as a vehicle for empowerment and self-expression.
Jen Clarke
Music Director
Jen has been an educator for children and adults of all ages for 25 years. Trained in classical piano, as child she hid show tunes inside her sheet music. She was thrilled to find BCT in 2005 and since then, has been a music director for BCT’s after-school programs and in-school residencies. When she’s not playing the piano, you can usually find Jen in Prospect Park, leading running groups and teaching outdoor fitness classes. Jen has a Master’s of Education and Media from Harvard Graduate School of Education.
Adam Isaiah Naimoli
Director/Choreographer
Adam is an actor/musician based in Brooklyn NY. He started his journey into the fine arts through Amy Graves and BCT back in 2011 and has been hooked ever since! BCT has encouraged and guided Adam to expand his interests, not only in instrumental music but to vocal productions, movement and drama as well. He is a 2018 graduate of LaGuardia High school and has had the opportunity to work with and on numerous projects across NYC. He is super excited to be able to pass on some of the things he’s learned to the next generation of artists and collaborators with the most important being to have fun, own your work and remember, no one can do it quite like you 🙂
Paolo C. Perez
Music Director
Following in the footsteps of the long haired rockers that came before them, Paolo has been performing and teaching in musical theater and rock n roll for the last 15 years. From playing around the world on board Celebrity cruise ships, to teaching at the college level at the New York Conservatory of Dramatic Arts, Paolo works hard to ensure that the education they bring to the classroom is informed from a lifetime spent working in the musical arts. A frequent collaborator with Second City Improv, Paolo understands the value of flexibility and patience in their teaching style. Whether a student’s desire is to perform as a hobby, or to one day turn their passions into a career, Paolo endeavors to ensure a fulfilling and holistic experience to every child in our program.
Karen “K” Xie
Music Director
K is an artist, educator, observer, rester, plant-smeller, musician, composer, and neo-Church-theydy, who discovered their artistic voice as an improviser after years of classical training and their calling as community organizer in spaces in their native Brooklyn. They are dedicated to creating safer spaces and wider stages for queer performers like themselves. As a performer, they respond to the outer and inner worlds with sensitivity and tenderness, inviting audiences to laugh, sing, cry, and engage with the questions: what burdens and grieves do we share? What space do we offer ourselves to change? They have appeared at The Pocket, Dizzy’s Jazz Club, Montclair Jazz Festival, Clifford Brown Jazz Festival, and the New Brunswick Jazz Festival.