Courses
In The Studio
Instructor(s)
- Paul Lebel
- Winnie Westergard
- Nikki Rice
- Brad Taylor
- Daniel Goody
- J. Gordon
- Meg McLynn
- Nicole Beerman
- BC Campbell
- Charles Sheaffer
- Dan Shafer
- Diana Trotter
- Ellen Forney
- Geof Alm
- Ian Bond
- Jessica Jobaris
- Leanna Keith
- Maja Sereda
- Matt Sircely
- Robynne Raye
- Sarah Lavin
- Sophia Franzella
- Tory Franklin
- Zoe Crago
- Alia Swersky
- Brian Miller
- Chelsea Cook
- Claire Marx
- David Taft
- David Taylor Gomes
- Heidi Vanderford
- Jeff Brice
- Jenna Spinei
- Jimmy Shields
- Kyungjin Kim (KJ)
- Lana Sundberg
- Lauren Boilini
- Lily Hotchkiss
- Lucie Baker
- Peter Vogt
- Ruthie Dornfeld
- Sage Casias-Abplanalp
- Samar Abulhassan
- Sarah Bixler
- Sarah Comer
- Soo Hong
Audition Prep and Performance Ages 15 -18
Audition Prep Ages 12-14
Cornish+ Voices (Sunday)
Claire Marx
Claire Marx currently teaches ensemble singing, cabaret, and private voice at Cornish. She has also music directed Cornish productions of Chicago, Secret in the Wings, Xanadu, and James and the Giant Peach. She has also worked as assistant choreographer/director for Sister Act and Singing in the Rain. She and Rich will be teaming up to work on The Theory of Relativity this fall. She has also taught at Village Theatre, The Evergreen School, Redmond Academy, The Meridian School, and many locations with Seattle Public Schools. Recent local stage credits include: Hairspray at Village Theatre, The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe at Seattle Children's Theatre, The Bishop's Wife at Taproot Theatre Co., The Odyssey educational tour with Book-It, Romeo and Juliet with Seattle Shakespeare, and a handful of new musical workshops at the Seattle Rep.
Heidi Vanderford
Heidi Vanderford's teaching journey is marked by a rich tapestry of experiences. From her full-time role at The Bush School during 2020-2021, to her part-time position at Our Lady of the Lake in Seattle in 2017-2018, Heidi has left an indelible mark on her students' musical growth. Her adaptability and dedication in the face of challenges, especially during the COVID period, showcase her unwavering commitment to education.
With degrees from Pacific Lutheran University and Indiana University, Heidi's vocal prowess is equally impressive. She has graced stages worldwide, portraying iconic roles like Carmen and Frida Kahlo. Heidi's performances on cruise ships, spanning 26 different countries, stand as a testament to her global impact in the world of music.
A career highlight was sharing the stage with Placido Domingo at the Gran Teatre del Liceu in Barcelona, Spain. In addition to her international achievements, Heidi is a regular performer with the Seattle Opera Chorus, further solidifying her presence in the local music scene. Her talent has also been celebrated locally, securing 3rd place in the esteemed 2022 Seattle Opera Guild Development Awards. Heidi's bilingual proficiency in Spanish and English enriches her teaching, creating an inclusive and vibrant learning environment. Here, she imparts not only technical proficiency but also a profound love for the art of music, making her a truly exceptional figure in both music education and performance.
Costume Design
Chelsea Cook
Chelsea Cook is a freelance costume designer, educator, and business owner. Her work has been seen at Kentucky Opera, Seattle Shakespeare Company, Seattle Opera, Village Theatre, Tacoma Opera, George Street Playhouse, ArtsEmerson, and more. Select favorite designs include Ernest Shackleton Loves Me (Off-Broadway Alliance Award, Second Stage Theatre); O+E (Seattle Opera) She’s Come Undone (Gregory Award Nomination, Book-It); What We Talk About When We Talk About Love (Book-It Repertory); and Medea (Seattle Shakespeare Co.). She has a B.A. from Cornish College of the Arts.
Build-A-Bass
Brian Miller
Brian is a musician who has worked with Jonny Copeland, Bobby Radcliffe, Bunny Domino and others. He was a founding member of BBQ Bob and the Spare Ribs and produced their first recording. He came to woodworking by experimenting with a more ergonomic design for basses to alleviate periodic bouts of tendonitis.
He learned the basics of woodworking from master carpenter Joe Guida (Guida Woodworks, Flagstaff, AZ,) during the course of building his first prototype. Since then, he improved his skill by trial and error and getting advice from the master wood workers at IsGood WoodWorks and Ballard Woodworking. In 2020, he started Miller Basses and produces about three uniquely designed basses each year.
Music Intensive + Audition Prep & Performance
Leanna Keith
A freelance flutist, artist, improviser, and composer in the Seattle area, Leanna Keith delights in creating sound experiences that make audiences laugh, cry, and say: “I didn’t know the flute could do that!” She also teaches as the flute professor at Cornish College of the Arts. Her performance artworks have focused on cultural connection and the breaking of audience/performer boundaries. In 2021 she released her first solo album, TAROT Album, which she composed, performed, recorded, and mixed. The album release show premiered online, featuring collaborations between choreographers, digital media artists, stop motion artists, puppetry, and more.
Leanna is currently a co-director of the chamber music ensemble Kin of the Moon, with violist/improviser Heather Bentley and composer/vocalist Kaley Lane Eaton. Kin of the Moon is an improvisation-centric, technology-friendly chamber music series incubated in Seattle's rich musical scene. The series explores sonic rituals, promotes cross-pollination of genres, emphasizes the communicative power of specific performance locales, and celebrates the creativity that multiplies itself through the collaboration of performers and composers.
Auditioning for the Stage: Adult
Diana Trotter
Diana Trotter (she/her) is a Seattle-based actor, director, educator, coach, and the Founding Artistic Director of Artemis Theatre Project. Locally she has performed with Taproot Theatre Co, Annex Theatre, Center Stage, Second Story Rep, Thalia’s Umbrella, UW Theatre, and Fern Shakespeare. She has also been seen on stages in Texas, Illinois, Montana, California, Oregon and Idaho. Favorite roles include Mrs. Bennett in Pride & Prejudice, Roz in 9 to 5, Mae Peterson in Bye Bye Birdie, Vivian Bearing in Wit, and Leonato in Much Ado About Nothing (twice!). Recent directing projects include Into the Woods (Icicle Creek Center for the Arts), Camelot, and Christopher Durang’s Vanya, Sonia, Masha and Spike (Contra Costa Theatre) and Steven Dietz’s Last of the Boys (The Modern, Spokane). Diana specializes in audition preparation and has taught auditioning master classes for the University of Washington, Seattle Youth Opera, and Viva Vocalists where she is also the acting coach for their musical theatre training program. Diana holds a PhD from UC Berkeley and is the former head of the acting program at Whitworth University in Spokane.
Art & Design Intensive + Portfolio Development
Lily Hotchkiss
I have been making art my whole life in one form or another. I fell endlessly in love, over and over, with the process of making. This led to my role as a teacher, first with young children and later with teens. More facilitator and guide than anything else, being able to participate and witness someone’s creative journey and awakening is an awesome gift. It demands that I remain nimble and bring all my best to working with youth and helping them discover and share their voices. I am both an arts educator and a working artist. As a member of Side Rail Collective, I co-curate shows throughout the year and participate in exhibits. My work as an artist is based in storytelling. I work in a variety of mediums, including clay, found materials, wood, fiber, as well as 2D mediums. The story informs the material.
Sarah Bixler
Sarah Bixler is a painter and educator living and working in Seattle Washington. She began her artistic studies focusing on the figure and observation, at Gage Academy of Art in Seattle Washington. There she was able to deepen her understanding of the human body through intensive focus on long-form sculpture, anatomy and drawing from direct observation. In 2011, Sarah received a BFA from the University of Washington where she studied contemporary drawing and painting, with a focus on paint language, form and color.
Lauren Boilini
Lauren Boilini has served as an artist-in-residence at several institutions across the U.S. and in Italy, Ireland, and Spain. She has served as faculty at a number of schools in the Baltimore/DC area as well as Evergreen State College, Pacific Lutheran University, and Cornish. She has completed several public art projects along with many temporary public installations and solo exhibitions across the country. In 2016 she was awarded an Artist Trust grant to publish a book of drawings and spent this past summer as an artist-in-residence at MASS MoCA working on the sequel. Lauren is also a long-distance open water swimmer and loves to call Seattle home.
Winnie Westergard
Winifred Westergard is a Seattle based fine art and commercial photographer with degrees from the University of Washington and Cornish College of the Arts in Creative Writing, Journalism and Art. Her art making foundation is rooted in the early processes of photography, fully embracing the slow processes of 19th century photography. She is a visual creator with a strong base on human emotion and storytelling. She has managed the photography studio at Cornish College of the Arts since 1999 and has taught Photography and Portfolio Development through Summer@Cornish since 2003.
Dance Intensive + Audition Prep & Performance
Film Intensive + Portfolio Development
Paul Lebel
From a young age, I've been captivated by light and its power to transform the world around me. At seven years old, I begged for a camera, eager to capture the magic of my small world through photography. This insatiable curiosity has fueled my journey as a visual storyteller, leading me across the globe to film and edit stories for brands worldwide. Through these experiences, I've grown as a person, and I remain just as curious and excited to explore new stories and mediums.
My artistic practice as A Box In The Sea extends into multimedia, print, and sound art. In my sound lab, I experiment with soundscapes and scores, translating them into visuals and rendering them into pen and ink. This process of creating and transforming sound into art is a continuous cycle of discovery, and it's a journey I feel lucky to be on.
Musical & Theater Intensive + Audition Prep & Performance
Nicole Beerman
Nicole is an actor, singer, dancer, choreographer, teacher, visual artist, wife to Josh and mother to Max and Huxley. Nicole has lived and worked on both coasts, loves to create, garden, and do construction! On screen, Nicole has been seen in Nike, LG, and T-Mobile commercials. On stage in Adrift (Sam French Festival), Big Effing Deal! (Duet with Reggie Watts), Cabaret (Gregory Award Nominee), Mary Poppins, Annie, Bye Bye Birdie, How to Succeed, Once Upon A Time in New Jersey and many Village Originals (Village Theatre), The Constant Wife (Seattle Rep), Cabaret (5th Ave, AMTSJ, Ordway Center), Wonderful Town (5th Ave), Ming the Rude (Empty Space), Elephant and Piggie, Fire Station 7, Sleeping Beauty (SCT), Tapestry (Oregon Cabaret Theatre), and many more. As a choreographer and dancer Nicole had the honor of working with Sonya Tayeh and the Oregon Shakespeare Festival with running the dance call for the original production of Head Over Heals. In New York, Nicole’s work has been seen at the HERE Center, Ensemble Studio Theatre, Clubbed Thumb, Astoria Performing Arts, The Management and Acting Manitou. In Seattle, at KIDSTAGE, Cornish, Oregon Cabaret Theatre, The Triple Door, Café Nordo, Seattle Children’s Theatre, Fantastic Z, and Art Institute of Seattle. Nicole is currently teaching at Cornish College of the Arts, Seattle Film institute, and Westlake Dance Center. She has also taught at UW, Art Institute of Seattle, Hunter College High School, VAM Studios, 5th Avenue, Century Ballroom, McCarter Theatre Company, Jersey City Dance Academy, and The Studios. Nicole holds a BFA from Cornish College of the Arts, is a certified Simonson Technique teacher and a member of Actors’ Equity.
Polymer Clay Sculpting
Kyungjin Kim (KJ)
Kyung-jin Kim is originally from South Korea. He received his MFA Sculpture at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 2016. He utilizes diverse mediums to approach the substance of liminality inherent to dislocation, translation and adjustment. Through sculpture, kinetic devices, and interactive sound installations, His work has shown at venues include Gallery MC (NY), Korean Cultural Center NY, MASS MoCA Open Studios (MA), Vermont Studio Center (VT), Governors Island Art Fair 2018 (NY) RU Exhibition: DYNAMIS, Equity Gallery (NY), Rubin Museum Block Party (NY). He participated ACRE Residency (WI) MASS MoCA Residency (MA), Vermont Studio Center Residency (VT), Flux Factory Residency (NY) Sculpture Space Residency program, Utica (NY), RU Residency program, New York and recently had a Solo exhibition ‘Wishful Thinking’ at the Thomas Hunter Project Space, 2022, CUNY Hunter College New York.
He received the NYSCA/NYFA Artist Fellowship, category of Architecture/ Environmental Structures/ Design in 2019, New York Corp Artist Fund in 2021 and the Queens Council on the Arts : Art Access Grant in 2021. He is a co-founder of the New York based artist group, "Jeju Island Artist Collective" and curated a Flux Factory annual major exhibition titled, "Survival Tools for Artists for the Age of Ultra Anxiety" in 2021, Plaxall Gallery, Queens, NY)
Digital Collage for Film & Video
Charles Sheaffer
Charles Sheaffer is a researcher and producer interested in the ever-changing relationship between globalization and cinematic storytelling. Sheaffer's creative activities include narrative filmmaking and video essay production. Sheaffer's scholarly writing has appeared in Postmodern Culture, and his current research explores classical tragedy and comedy as a means of mapping emergent developments in screen-based narrative. Sheaffer has taught at the University of Minnesota and the University of Washington and teaches courses in film history and production in the Cornish Film department. He lives in Seattle with his wife.
String Band
Ruthie Dornfeld
Seattle fiddler Ruthie Dornfeld’s vibrant, expressive playing is voiced in a wide range of traditional fiddle styles, from Celtic, American Old-Time, and French Canadian, Scandinavian, and Eastern European. She has performed and taught widely throughout the US, Europe, and South America. During her 15 year sojourn in New England, Ruthie studied at Berklee College of Music, was a member of the twin fiddle stringband The Poodles, the bluegrass band Boston City Limits, the Hungarian band The Pulis, was a mainstay on the contra dance circuit, and toured Europe with tapdancer Ira Bernstein and with the Copenhagen-based American Cafe Orchestra. Since returning to the Pacific Northwest in 1996, she has been a member of the French cabaret group Rouge, performs with guitar master John Miller, with the quintet Tangoheart, and for local contra and English dancing.
Portfolio Development for College Applications
Winnie Westergard
Winifred Westergard is a Seattle based fine art and commercial photographer with degrees from the University of Washington and Cornish College of the Arts in Creative Writing, Journalism and Art. Her art making foundation is rooted in the early processes of photography, fully embracing the slow processes of 19th century photography. She is a visual creator with a strong base on human emotion and storytelling. She has managed the photography studio at Cornish College of the Arts since 1999 and has taught Photography and Portfolio Development through Summer@Cornish since 2003.
Tintype and Ambrotype Photography
Winnie Westergard
Winifred Westergard is a Seattle based fine art and commercial photographer with degrees from the University of Washington and Cornish College of the Arts in Creative Writing, Journalism and Art. Her art making foundation is rooted in the early processes of photography, fully embracing the slow processes of 19th century photography. She is a visual creator with a strong base on human emotion and storytelling. She has managed the photography studio at Cornish College of the Arts since 1999 and has taught Photography and Portfolio Development through Summer@Cornish since 2003.
Choreography & Performance
Auditioning for Musical Theatre Dance: Adult
Nicole Beerman
Nicole is an actor, singer, dancer, choreographer, teacher, visual artist, wife to Josh and mother to Max and Huxley. Nicole has lived and worked on both coasts, loves to create, garden, and do construction! On screen, Nicole has been seen in Nike, LG, and T-Mobile commercials. On stage in Adrift (Sam French Festival), Big Effing Deal! (Duet with Reggie Watts), Cabaret (Gregory Award Nominee), Mary Poppins, Annie, Bye Bye Birdie, How to Succeed, Once Upon A Time in New Jersey and many Village Originals (Village Theatre), The Constant Wife (Seattle Rep), Cabaret (5th Ave, AMTSJ, Ordway Center), Wonderful Town (5th Ave), Ming the Rude (Empty Space), Elephant and Piggie, Fire Station 7, Sleeping Beauty (SCT), Tapestry (Oregon Cabaret Theatre), and many more. As a choreographer and dancer Nicole had the honor of working with Sonya Tayeh and the Oregon Shakespeare Festival with running the dance call for the original production of Head Over Heals. In New York, Nicole’s work has been seen at the HERE Center, Ensemble Studio Theatre, Clubbed Thumb, Astoria Performing Arts, The Management and Acting Manitou. In Seattle, at KIDSTAGE, Cornish, Oregon Cabaret Theatre, The Triple Door, Café Nordo, Seattle Children’s Theatre, Fantastic Z, and Art Institute of Seattle. Nicole is currently teaching at Cornish College of the Arts, Seattle Film institute, and Westlake Dance Center. She has also taught at UW, Art Institute of Seattle, Hunter College High School, VAM Studios, 5th Avenue, Century Ballroom, McCarter Theatre Company, Jersey City Dance Academy, and The Studios. Nicole holds a BFA from Cornish College of the Arts, is a certified Simonson Technique teacher and a member of Actors’ Equity.
Premiere Pro Film Editing
Paul Lebel
From a young age, I've been captivated by light and its power to transform the world around me. At seven years old, I begged for a camera, eager to capture the magic of my small world through photography. This insatiable curiosity has fueled my journey as a visual storyteller, leading me across the globe to film and edit stories for brands worldwide. Through these experiences, I've grown as a person, and I remain just as curious and excited to explore new stories and mediums.
My artistic practice as A Box In The Sea extends into multimedia, print, and sound art. In my sound lab, I experiment with soundscapes and scores, translating them into visuals and rendering them into pen and ink. This process of creating and transforming sound into art is a continuous cycle of discovery, and it's a journey I feel lucky to be on.
Intro to Documentary Filmmaking
Paul Lebel
From a young age, I've been captivated by light and its power to transform the world around me. At seven years old, I begged for a camera, eager to capture the magic of my small world through photography. This insatiable curiosity has fueled my journey as a visual storyteller, leading me across the globe to film and edit stories for brands worldwide. Through these experiences, I've grown as a person, and I remain just as curious and excited to explore new stories and mediums.
My artistic practice as A Box In The Sea extends into multimedia, print, and sound art. In my sound lab, I experiment with soundscapes and scores, translating them into visuals and rendering them into pen and ink. This process of creating and transforming sound into art is a continuous cycle of discovery, and it's a journey I feel lucky to be on.