Our director

Theater has always been my happy place. From the first time I stepped onto a stage as a young child in a classroom play, to seeing my very first Broadway show, Peter Pan starring Sandy Duncan, I have been captivated. The sights, the sounds, the scents - whether on stage, backstage or in the audience - there is simply nothing like the magic of the theater. My goal is to bring that wonder and magic to our students.

Envision Theater was founded on the principle that all children are natural storytellers with voices that deserve to be heard. Their boundless imagination and creativity, coupled with the skills, confidence and discipline a theater program provides will help any child's success navigating this 21st century world. 

At Envision Theater, we are committed to developing performing arts programming with a warm, professional staff of theater artists who are committed to the process as much (if not more than) the product.  

Noa Berger is a theatre artist and recent graduate of Tulane University, where she earned a Bachelor of Arts in Theatre Production/Design. She has a lifelong background in the performing arts, with experience in scenic design, acting, dance, visual arts, and arts education. In addition to her work in theatre, Noa has taught gymnastics, ballet, and art to children of all ages. She is passionate about creating engaging, inclusive spaces where young artists can build confidence, develop their creativity, and discover a love for theatre. Noa believes every student has something valuable to contribute and strives to foster a supportive environment where they feel empowered to grow, both on and off the stage. 

Christine has pursued her passion of working with others who love to create for the last twenty years throughout the New York City Metropolitan Area. After graduating from New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts with a B.F.A., she acted professionally at The McCarter Theatre and various off-Broadway theatres, including working with the legendary Elaine Stritch. She loves actively engaging in the learning process and helping others learn; her directing credits for NYC schools include West Side Story, Fiddler on the Roof, and Romeo and Juliet. As a teaching artist, she devised plays and musicals in collaboration with City Lights Youth Theatre, Sundog Theatre, Inside Broadway, and Hartford Performs. This past spring, she directed Thornton Wilder’s one-act play, “The Happy Journey from Trenton to Camden,” revisiting Wilder’s experimental style with a group of high schoolers. The experience reminded her of her own high school performance of “Our Town,” one of her acting debuts that set her on the theatrical path. Christine is also a vocal jazz musician and loves modern dance as well as her newfound hobby, surfing. A graduate of The Steinhardt School at New York University with a Master’s in Educational Theatre, she is delighted to be on board with the faculty at Envision and reconnect with some former alumni! 

Tisa Harriott is a professional performing artist. Growing up, she loved singing competitively, dancing, and studying criminal justice. A first generation graduate with honors from Kean University, she received her Bachelor's in Theatre with minors in music and dance. While obtaining her bachelor's, she studied stage makeup, on-camera acting, and yoga. She studies multiple styles of dance, including jazz and musical theatre. Professional on stage credits include Step Kids (Morgan) at The Tank and Go Down Moses (Angela Carter) at AMT Theatre. She's also had the opportunity to be directed by Jelani Remy (Ain't Too Proud) in Smokey Joe's Cafe. Some on-screen credits include a dramatic feature film and regional commercials, as well as modeling. She is committed to high-quality arts education, a safe learning environment, and most importantly, instilling artistic confidence to our youth.  

Amelia is an NYC based actor and teaching artist. She has a B.F.A. in Acting from Tisch, NYU, where she studied primarily at the Lee Strasberg Theater and Film Institute, where she currently teaches Method Acting. While at Tisch, she also studied with Stonestreet Film and TV Studio, Viewpoints with Mary Overlie, Clowning with Christopher Bayes and spent a semester in Dublin. She also has an M.A. in Educational Theatre from Steinhardt, NYU. 
Amelia works as an actor and Education Director with Red Monkey Theatre Group in the Bronx, where her roles on the stage have included Hunter in Neil Gaiman's Neverwhere, Silvia in Two Gentlemen of Verona; Chick in Crimes of the Heart. She is a company member with Emit Theatre, bringing immersive Shakespeare to NYC public schools with roles ranging from Gertrude in Hamlet to Malvolio in Twelfth Night. Other theater credits include Sally in Tally’s Folly with Bagaduce Theater, Beatrice in Measure for Measure at America Theater of Actors and she originated the role of Flannery in Mrs. Schrodinger’s Cat at NYC Fringe Festival. Amelia is producing and acting in an on-going production of John Ford Noonan’s one woman show, All She Cares About is the Yankees, which opened in Maine over the summer of 2022. She lives in the Bronx with her husband and two young children.

Jen Lee is a bilingual theatre educator, teaching artist, director, performer, writer, and researcher whose work bridges educational theatre, multilingual learning, and cross-cultural performance. She holds an M.A. in Educational Theatre in Colleges and Communities from NYU Steinhardt and a B.A. in Radio and Television Journalism from Hunan Normal University. She also trained at the Lee Strasberg Theatre & Film Institute and is currently pursuing an Advanced Certificate in Educational Theatre at the City College of New York.

Jen currently supports faculty development and student engagement at CCNY while continuing to teach and facilitate theatre programs for young people across New York. Over the past decade, she has taught drama, literature, music, and dance in both English and Mandarin in New York City, Beijing, and Tianjin. Her artistic practice encompasses acting, directing, playwriting, adaptation, and the creation of original performance work with students and communities.

Her research explores bilingual and embodied theatre pedagogy, cross-cultural adaptation, multilingual performance creation, museum theatre, and the evolving role of artificial intelligence in artistic authorship. She has presented her work at the American Alliance for Theatre and Education, the Association for Theatre in Higher Education, the Children, Youth and Performance Conference, and the Cambridge China Education Forum. Her recent projects include A Modular Music-to-Narrative Framework for Multi-Group Multilingual Performance Creation and Between Generation and Decision: AI, Adaptation, and the Limits of Authorship in Educational Theatre.

Jen is a 2026 Arthur Miller Foundation Fellowship recipient and a recipient of the Double Edge Theatre/CUNY Training Scholarship. Through her work in theatre and education, she seeks to amplify student voices, foster cross-cultural understanding, and explore how art can reveal and deepen our shared humanity.

Victoria Oltarsh has been a professional drama teacher and director for 30 years. She is a Rockland Council of the Arts individual artist recipient and a published lyricist on Atlantic Records with her song, “Lucky Charm.” Her adaptations of classical fairy tales have been performed for school assemblies with the River Light Theater, a touring company of adults. She has previously been employed by Arts in Ed organizations: The Metropolitan Opera Guild, Making Books Sing, Northern Westchester Center for the Arts, Pulse Performing Arts School and Opera New Jersey. She is most recently employed as a Master Teaching Artist at LeAp in NYC, where she teaches story theater, improv and LeAp Onstage, a signature playwriting program, and in-school creative writing classroom literacy residencies. Her teaching experience includes creative movement and mime for actors, original playwriting, lyric writing, and rapid-fire think on your feet comedy style improv.   

Beth Selter has been working in professional and regional theater for over 30 years. She graduated with a B.A. in Theater Arts from Queens College after performing in Israel while studying at Hebrew University. She then received a post-graduate degree from the New York Academy of Theatrical Arts and interned at the Williamstown Theater Festival. Beth has been directing Youth Theater in New York/New Jersey schools since 1996 and served as Drama Director for the NJY CAMPS at Camp Nesher for 17 years. Additionally, Beth writes and performs her own one-woman Cabaret shows in and around NYC accompanied by the famed Mr. Alex Rybeck. Her shows often explore the challenges of her dual passions for the performing arts and her dedication to living a traditional, Torah inspired life. Beth has also performed with Black Box Studios’ Professional Ensemble group in Teaneck, NJ and the JCC Palisades Players, and she coaches voice, theater and public speaking from her home studio in Wesley Hills, NY. 

Kiersten White is a dancer, writer, and yogi who recently graduated from Northeastern University - New York City (formerly known as Marymount Manhattan College), where she earned her Bachelor of Arts in Dance with a Media concentration and Bachelor of Arts in Digital Journalism. Kiersten has been a dancer her whole life. Native to South Jersey, she began her training in the competition world. Aside from dance, she participated in choir and musical theater throughout her adolescence. Kiersten moved to NYC for college where she performed in works by Katie Walker, Earl Mosley, and Ehizoje Azeke, to name a few. Kiersten also has a love for yoga and completed her 200-hour RYT certification, which gave her stronger knowledge about the body and injury prevention. Kiersten has assisted and taught at multiple studios in the South Jersey area and loves sharing her passion for dance and art with the next generation. She believes that all children deserve to dance, and she wants to dance with them! 

Long before Shay became Envision Theater's social media and website manager, they participated in Envision Shakespeare. They starred as Brutus in Julius Caesar and Romeo in Romeo and Juliet, directed a rendition of A Midsummer Night's Dream, and won an award for their performance of Sonnet 23. College acting credits include Mr. Darcy in Pride and Prejudice and various roles in student short films and one-act plays. Shay has also since performed as Chaim in Molly Lopkin's Mishteh Chaim and Young Bertuccio in SPRQ Media's audio production of The Count of Monte Cristo. 

Outside of acting, Shay is a visual artist, intelligence analyst, researcher, and writer. They hold an Master of Professional Studies in Applied Intelligence from Georgetown University and a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Visual Arts and English with a minor in Art History from Rutgers University. Shay enjoys creating imagery that is representational but metaphorical, using opposing techniques of anthropomorphization and dehumanization to explore the dichotomy between the objective and subjective body and the line between horror and comedy. You can find their art here.