Stephen Kaplan
Acting I & II Theatre History II, Directing, Director
Lead Teacher, Academy for Visual and Performing Arts
Contact: stekap@bergen.org, 201-343-6000 (ext 2314)
Prior to teaching at BCA, Stephen served as the Assistant Principal/Chair of the Theatre Department at Fiorello H. LaGuardia High School of Music & Art and Performing Arts (the "Fame" school), was on faculty at the Professional Performing Arts School in New York where he headed the playwriting and directing programs and taught in the musical theatre program, The Actor's Institute where he taught musical theatre performance, and also taught theatre studies at California State University, Northridge and at California Lutheran College.
Stephen grew up in the San Fernando Valley in Los Angeles and wrote his first play, And Jack Came Tumbling After (Old Globe Theatre, Ensemble Studio Theatre and HERE and Lincoln Center Theatre’s American Living Room Series) when he was 15. The play won the California as well as Blank Theatre Company’s Young Playwright’s Contests and led him to write his next play, Self Addressed, which was produced by the Blank in addition to being presented at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. Since then he has written Branwell (and the other Brontës): an autobiography edited by Charlotte Brontë (Semi-Finalist: O'Neill); Community (Semi-Finalist: Premiere Stages Play Festival, Readings: Bay Street Theater, Luna Stage, Playwrights Theatre of New Jersey); una casa/a home (Finalist: Landing Theatre’s New American Voices Reading Series; Route 66 Theatre’s New Play Development Program); For Unto Us (Barrington Stage Company, Luna Stage, Storefront Theatre, Stage Q, OnStage Atlanta, Lionheart, Exit 7, Players Guild of Leonia, Theatre Southwest and Winner: MiniFest, Acadia Theatre Company); In Mrs. Baker’s Room (Theatre Southwest; Commission: Abingdon Theatre Company, Winner: Father Hamblin Award for Outstanding Playwriting, Center for Spiritual Living Playwriting Festival); A Real Boy (59E59 Theatre; This Is Water Theatre; Semi-Finalist: PlayPenn, Dayton Playhouse FutureFest; Ashland New Play Festival, MTWorks’ Newborn Festival); Exquisite Potential (Winner: NJ Playwrights Contest (w/production), Dezart Performs’ Reading Series (w/production) and Across the Generations New Jewish Play Festival, Finalist: Woodward/Newman Drama Award; Semi-Finalist: Seven Devils Theatre Conference); When the Mayonnaise Goes Bad (written with Will Nolan – The Vital Theatre Company); The Book of Daniel (Winner: New American Comedy Showcase Award); Tim Eless, Private Eye (with Noah Wyle @ Blank Theatre Company, Seoul Players); Dreams of Reason (Northwestern University); Oh, Happy We (The Theatre-Studio); and Six Seniors in Search of an Ending (a special commission written for President Bill Clinton). Many of his plays are published on Indie Theatre Now. Additionally, Stephen was the assistant to the writer on Broadway’s The Scarlet Pimpernel and Saturday Night Fever.
Currently he serves on the National Council for the Dramatists Guild of America.
Stephen earned his BFA from NYU (Playwrights Horizons and CAP21), holds a Masters in Theatre Studies from Montclair State University, a Masters in Educational Leadership from Mercy College, and MFA in Writing for Screen and Stage from Point Park University.
Victoria Pero
Acting III & IV, Voice & Speech I & II, Theatre History I, Director
Contact: vicper@bergen.org, 201-343-6000 (ext 2311)
Off-Broadway & NYC Directing: Stormy Weather: The Lena Horne Story, starring Leslie Uggams for Amas and Manhattan Theatre Club. Adapted/directed MasterBuilder: REBUILT featuring Okwui Okpokwasili. Prodigal, a new Australian musical with Alison Fraser, Kerry Butler and Cristian Borle at The York. The Strange Case of Mary Lincoln, a new musical, with Barbara Walsh for Women’s Project. Pre-Broadway workshop of The Alchemist featuring James Stovall. David Rodwin’s one-man opera Trippin’ at LaMaMa. New musical Consumer Behavior for FringeNYC. David T. King’s Big Cactus. World premiere production of Caryl Churchill’s The After Dinner Joke (Top Ten-In Theatre Magazine, OOBR award). Regional: Scenes and Revelations for SUNY Purchase. Adapted/directed Ibsen’s A Doll House, and Eric Coble’s multi-award winning Bright Ideas, Bob Clyman’s The Appointment, and The Guys, for Twelve Miles West. Ron McLarty’s Sandpilot at Luna Stage. Victoria has worked at The Royal National Theatre in London, The Guthrie, The Cleveland Playhouse, The York Theatre, The Pearl, Utah Shakespeare Festival, Expanded Arts in NYC and The American Stage Company. She has produced for The Spoleto Festival, The Drama League and Circle In The Square. Graduate of Northwestern University, Ohio University (MFA), and LAMDA. Victoria is featured in the 2008 Who’s Who for American Women.
Victoria was founding artistic director of The Shakespeare Summer Arts Institute (2001 to 2010), where she and her team educated children from ages 10-18 in the works of Shakespeare. The summer-long intensive commissioned adaptations of full-length Shakespeare plays; rehearsing and presenting one-hour wacky versions for free to hundreds of families in NJ, NY and Vermont at libraries and art centers. She co-produces the podcast Coaching Shakespeare https://www.coachingshakespeare.com with her former students Amanda Whiteley and Marissa Ferrara.
Victoria has recently returned to acting, most recently playing The Friar in Romeo and Juliet and Claudius in Hamlet for Spokehouse Productions and Marina Abromovic, BBC Reporter, A Bacchus and Vanessa in Elektra for the Columbia MFA directing students. Her voice will be featured in June as Marmee in an audio production of Little Women.
Victoria co-founded the Bergen Mask Task Force at the height of the pandemic with four other women, organizing over 400 volunteers from NY and NJ to create and deliver over 43,000 PPE to area hospitals, schools and homeless shelters.
Educationally, Victoria has been a Performing Arts teacher and sustainability advisor at Bergen County Academies High School in New Jersey in their nationally recognized Performing Arts Academy since 2004. Teacher of the year in 2011. She teaches Acting, Voice & Speech, Stage Combat, Stage Make-up, Theatre History, Stage Management, Accent & Dialects, Costume Design, Devised Theatre, Design For The Theatre, Scenic Painting and Sewing & Fashion Design. Victoria has directed more than 30 productions at BCA including an all-female Romeo&Juliet, Cymbeline, Macbeth and the award-winning devised pieces, DOXXED and LLF: Don’t Trust The Boyz!. She has, with the EarthKnights club, created the school recycling program and been an annual recipient of the BCUA grant award for sustainability more than 8 times. Her EarthKnights were featured on “Our Thirsty Planet” for Nickelodeon highlighting their efforts at creating a plastic bottle-free campus. She is the 2015 recipient for the Japan-US Fulbright for Educational Sustainable Development.
Victoria published an iBook in 2012 entitled sMASHinFASHin’ and began presenting free workshops on fashion upcycling in libraries and art centers. She co-founded Stubborn Jeans, LLC with her 16-year old daughter – a company creating one-of-a-kind hand upcycled signature clothing pieces at affordable prices. Victoria founded and ran a Project Runway-style summer fashion design camp, Chic Squad Fashion Camp (2010 - 2021), for 8-13 year olds. She has three children and is married to sci-fi/fantasy/comic artist Peter Scanlan.
Eboni Latay Edwards
Dance I, II, III and IV, Choreographer
Dance Electives (Ballroom, Dance Fundamentals, Beginning Modern, Stretch/Pilates, Dance Performance)
Projects – Creative Dance, Broadway Choreographers Project
Contact: eboedw@bergen.org, 201-343-6000
Eboni LaTay Edwards is a dancer, choreographer, and educator whose work spans concert dance, theatre, and arts education. She began her professional career at age seven, originating and closing the role of Angela Robson in the Broadway production of Billy Elliot the Musical at the Imperial Theatre, directed by Stephen Daldry with music by Elton John and choreography by Peter Darling. She also appeared with the Broadway cast in the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade and Broadway in Bryant Park.
Eboni trained at Five Star Dance Center, Nunbetter Dance Theatre, Earl Mosley’s Institute of the Arts, and Titans of Dance Convention, where she received the Shield of Excellence Scholarship. Her performance career includes work with Dorrance Dance (The Blues Project, Schomburg Center), Debbie Allen Dance Academy (Special Olympics Opening Ceremony, Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum), The Alison Owusu Experience Dance Company, and the Bambara African Drum and Dance Ensemble in New York City. Additional credits include The Los Angeles Tap Festival, The Series at Alvin Ailey City Center, Philadelphia Youth Dance Fest, The All American Goddess Pageant, and the Ohio Black Expo.
Eboni holds a BFA in Dance and a BA in Psychology from The Ohio State University, where she was a Morrill Scholar and performed in Faculty Concerts, MFA works, African Night, Student Showcases, and with the Thiossane West African Dance Institute at the Lincoln Theatre and Ohio Theatre.
As an educator, Eboni has taught dance and theatre for Patternz Summer Camp, Empowering Young Voices, and East Side High School in Newark. She joined the faculty of Bergen County Academies in 2024 as an alumna of the theatre academy, where she teaches Contemporary Dance, Ballet, Jazz, Tap, Social Dance, African Diaspora forms, and Yoga, and has choreographed productions including The Drowsy Chaperone and works for the annual Dance Concert.
Eboni is also a company member with Camille A. Brown & Dancers. With the company, she has performed at the Joyce Theater, McCarter Theatre Center at Princeton, Arizona State University’s Gammage, the Prior Performing Arts Center at Holy Cross, the Ahmanson Theatre in Los Angeles, and the Cutler Majestic Theatre in Boston. In addition to performing, she serves as an educator with Camille A. Brown’s community outreach program, Every Body Move, and was a member of the review committee and teaching faculty for the launch of the Camille A. Brown Arts Program, an initiative providing free arts education to young people. She also taught at Jacob’s Pillow this summer on behalf of Every Body Move.
She recently made her Metropolitan Opera debut in Porgy and Bess.
Guest Teaching Artists
In addition to working with Academy Theatre Arts Faculty AVPA: Theatre students have the exceptional opportunity to work with many guest teaching/artists from the artistic community.
Jennifer Carr: Production Supervisor
Ms. Carr has worked most recently as an electrician for Lincoln Center Theater on numerous Broadway shows including Twelfth Night, It Ain't Nothing But The Blues, Parade, Marie Christine, and Contact. She spent several years as the head electrician for American Ballet Theater doing national and international tours and NYC seasons at the Metropolitan Opera House. Her other credits include The Grapes of Wrath (B'way,) The Martha Graham Dance Company, Bryant Park Fashion Week, and Phuket FantaSea in Thailand. Television work includes Politically Incorrect, MTV, VH-1, and Sesame Street. Ms. Carr has BFA in theater from the University of Illinois, and is a member of IATSE local #1.
Terry Thiry: Costume Designer
Ms. Thiry has been resident costume designer for Garage Theatre Group in Teaneck where she has designed costumes for both the Professional Company and the Youth Conservatory. Her desighns for Garage has included Footloose, Into The Woods, Pirates of Penzance, A Touch of Spring, Afghan women, Happy Days, among many others. She has also designed for Bergen County Players, Clarkstown Summer theater Festival, Rockland Community College and The State University of New York - Genesco. Terry Thiry was nominated for a Paper Mill Playhouse Rising Star award for her designs for Bergen County Academies' production of The Secret Garden.
