TWIGS

Rebecca Svrjcek ’06

Rebecca Svrjcek graduated from the Baltimore School for the Arts dance program in 2006. She then received her Master of  Social Work degree from the University of Maryland and has spent the past several years building relationships with children and families to strengthen connections within their community, advocate for equity, and support their social and emotional health and well-being. She is honored to be back at BSA working as the TWIGS Program Manager to continue to support these passions through integrating and expanding youth’s access to the arts across Baltimore City.

Samantha Christiansen ’91

Samantha Christiansen has been on the BSA faculty since 2002. She received her early training through Baltimore Ballet and Peabody Preparatory doing the strict Royal Academy of Dancing syllabus. In 1987, Christiansen was accepted into the Baltimore School for the Arts where she studied under Norma Pera, Sylvester Campbell, Stephanie Powell, and Debra Robinson. In 1997, she was awarded the only distinction for the Royal Academy of Dance Grade 8 syllabus in the United States. Christiansen also performed with the Stephanie Powell Danse Ensembles I and II for five years, as well as with Movement Addiction in How to Disappear Completely.

In 1997, Christiansen began teaching privately and at various dance schools around Baltimore. She then went on to open her own school, the Northwest School of Dance based in Finksburg. During this time, she helped students get into top dance programs and win numerous awards at local and national dance competitions. She has also completed the Russian Vaganova Syllabus under John White and the José Limón teachers training workshop in New York.

Michael Solomon

Professor Solomon has written and published eight books, including “How to Find Lost Objects,” “Japan in a Nutshell,” and “Coney Island.”

Anita Horwath

Anita Horwath holds a bachelor’s degree in early childhood education and has taught creative drama for TWIGS for the past 20 years. She also teaches an after-school drama program for Roland Park Country School. She directs Ages on Stages, an intergenerational improvisational group that includes the BSA sophomores. The group performs in senior centers and high schools around the city.

Denis Karp

A native of Baltimore, Denis Karp began studying flute at the age of six at the Peabody Preparatory. In 1989, he performed John Corigliano’s Pied Piper Fantasy with the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra and James Galway on a two-week East Coast tour. In 2002, he received a bachelor of science degree in music from Towson University, where he studied with Sara Nichols.  He frequently records in studio as a member of the Washington Winds and performs with many groups throughout Maryland, Pennsylvania, and Washington, DC. Karp is the flutist in the Gallery Winds woodwind quintet and is the co-founder and co-director of the Gallery Winds Chamber Music Sumer Camp. Karp teaches private flute lessons throughout Maryland and has served as a judge for Maryland All-State Band, Maryland State Solo and Ensemble Festival, Howard County GT Band, and many local competitions.

Sandra Lisicky

Sandra (Gerster) Lisicky, principal oboist of the Shenandoah Valley Bach Festival and Bach in Baltimore, performs regularly with the Baltimore Symphony. Formerly principal oboist of the Hartford Symphony, Connecticut Opera, New Sousa Band, Berkshire Opera, and Opera New England, Lisicky has also been a member of the Virginia (Norfolk) and Richmond Symphonies, Virginia Opera, and Williamsburg Symphonia.

She has collaborated with the New World, Franciscan, and Cavani String Quartets on numerous occasions and was a founding member of Soni Fidelis Quintet, resident wind quintet of the Hartt School of Music. In 2007 she toured Greenland with the acclaimed oboe trio, Trio La Milpa, the first American ensemble to perform in that country.

Currently a faculty member of the Peabody Institute, Lisicky has previously held teaching appointments at more than 20 educational institutions, including James Madison and Virginia Commonwealth Universities, and the Universities of Richmond and Connecticut.

Tyrone Page

An accomplished saxophonist and educator, Tyrone Page Jr. has had tremendous success working with composers and other musicians to expand contemporary saxophone repertoire. Actively involved in the performance of new works, Tyrone performs regularly in the Baltimore area and across the United States as a soloist, chamber, and orchestral musician. Tyrone recently joined the Symphony of the Mountains in a performance of Glazunov’s Concerto in E-flat Major. Recent commissions include collaborations with Gabriella Ortiz, James David Young, and Stacy Garrop.

In collaborations with his alma mater, Tyrone was featured in performances with the Peabody Concert Orchestra, Peabody Modern Orchestra, and the Peabody Wind Ensemble. Gaining proficiency with the contemporary repertoire, he’s a regular performer with Mind on Fire, a musical arts cooperative that strives to engage with an inclusive community through engaging concerts, outreach programs, and special events. In collaboration with the group’s Artistic Director, composer James Young, Tyrone recently released an album recording of “True Fluorescent Skeleton” with Ehse Records. The piece is a 50 minute, unaccompanied, work for tenor saxophone.

Tyrone is a graduate of the Baltimore School for the Arts, where he studied with Dr. Chris Ford. He holds degrees in Saxophone Performance and Music Education from Peabody Conservatory of The Johns Hopkins University as well as a Master of Music in Saxophone Performance and Wind Conducting.

Laura Ruas

As a teacher, chamber and orchestral musician, Laura Ruas is one of the region’s most sought after double bassists. She is principal bass of both the Baltimore Chamber Orchestra and Concert Artists of Baltimore and was a member of the former Baltimore Opera Orchestra. Ruas has performed with the National Symphony, Baltimore Symphony, and performs regularly with the National Philharmonic.

Ruas is a dedicated music educator in Baltimore City, where she teaches double bass and theory at the Baltimore School for the Arts high school, and bass lessons in their TWIGS program. Ruas also serves as program director for the Bridges Program; an after-school string program for Baltimore City Public Schools.

Russ started playing bass in New York City Public Schools, attended the High School of Performing Arts (of ‘FAME’ fame) and Manhattan School of Music Preparatory Division. She earned bachelor and master of music degrees from the Juilliard School.

Tony Tsendeas

Kaya is a multi-faceted performing artist. Kaya has been a part of the BSA family since 2006 when they were in TWIGS, graduated from the BSA acting department in 2012, and came back to BSA to teach TWIGS in 2017 and began teac

Tony Tsendeas is a core acting instructor at The Baltimore School for the Arts.  He is the former Artistic Director of Action Theater; named Baltimore’s Best Theater by Baltimore Magazine, and featured in national theater publications American Theater Magazine and The Drama Review.   

Action theater’s initial production of David Mamet’s American Buffalo was met with tremendous critical enthusiasm.  The News American’s Scott Fosdick enthused that Action was “…the type of company that has reshaped the American Theater…go see it, at the least you will see an excellent production of a hard-hitting play, whether or not you’ve seen theater history remains to be seen.”   Tony directed Beckett’s Happy Days (later moved to Barnard College for a Beckett Festival), The Water Engine by David Mamet, Albee’s American Dream – named Best Production by the Baltimore City Paper, The Madman and the Nun by Stanislaw Ignacy Witkiewicz, and I Married a Fly by company member Thomas E. Cole.  For many years, Action Theater was in residence at The Baltimore Theater project and presented many productions at this venerable venue.

Tony conceived and directed, BeckettLand .  This collection of short dramatic pieces by Samuel Beckett was set in a ‘Ghost Carnival’ or ‘Bemusement Park’.  Action presented BeckettLand at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. The show was a tremendous hit. London Stage Magazine called the production, “A marvelous production and a must for all Beckett Fans.”  Scotland’s largest daily paper, The Scotsman opined that the show was “A boldly conceived and memorably luminous production”.  BeckettLand earned the company representation by renowned European Impresario, Hans de Visser who booked a multi-city tour for the company in The Netherlands.

Tony then directed Action company member Robb Bauer’s adaptation of The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari.  Presented at Goucher College as part of the company’s residency there, this multi-media, trip-hop, dark clown show phantasmagoria was named best production of the year by The Baltimore City Paper.  This was the 2nd time a show directed by Tony earned this distinction; the first being Action Theater’s production of Edward Albee’s The American Dream. 

For The Clown Theater troupe – Theatrics, Tony directed Circus Berserkus at Wolf Trap, Café Quikus for The Theater by the Sea and Payatz! at Roundhouse Theater in DC and The Baltimore Theater Project.   For The Baltimore Shakespeare Festival, Tony directed Macbeth, Othello, Julius Caesar and The Complete Works of William Shakespeare. At Rep Stage, Tony directed I Am My Own Wife and Wittenberg by David Davelos, for which Tony was nominated for a Helen Hayes award as best director.

As a stage actor Tony has played a wide variety of roles in a broad array of theaters and venues in the US and abroad, including: Action Theater, Center Stage, The Lyric, The Baltimore Shakespeare Festival, The Edinburgh Fringe, Scena Theater, The Meyerhoff, Theater J, Woolly Mammoth Theater, Denver’s The Verizon Center, and Verizon Hall in Philadelphia and most city theaters in The Netherlands.  Roles assailed at these venues include Teach (American Buffalo), Chebutykin (The Three Sisters), Beethoven (CSI:Beethoven), Sigmund Freud (Analyze This), Bam (What Where – BeckettLand), Claudius (Hamlet), Benedick (Much Ado About Nothing), Buckinham (Richard III).  Tony was formerly actor-in-residence at The Baltimore Edgar Allan Poe House and Museum and his one man show – The Poe Show has toured extensively.  

Tony’s voice has graced Audible and he has narrated shows for The Discovery Channel, The History Channel and The Learning Channel.   Film work includes the features, Her Alibi, The Fall from Paradise, Television: HBO’s The Wire, HBO’s Autopsy and NBC’s Homicide: Life on the Streets, The learning Channel’s Great Books Series,  

While writing and directing Look Alive Baltimore 2, for the City of Baltimore, Mr. Tsendeas cast Tony award winning actress Trazana Beverly as civil rights icon Lilly Carrol Jackson.  Out of this work, mutual respect and friendship evolved.  Mr. Tsendeas’ first exposure to BSA came as a substitute teacher for Trazana.  When Trazana prepared to leave BSA, she asked Tony to take over her classes; Donald Hicken agreed and thus began a long and productive artistic and educational journey.

hing in the Theatre Department in 2019. Having graduated from Towson University with a BFA in Acting, Kaya has maintained their local roots having performed with notable Baltimore theatre companies such as Single Carrot, Submersive Productions, Center Stage, and ACME Corporation. Kaya is currently a company member with the ACME Corporation. While Kaya is a Voice teacher for the Acting department, their passions lie in merging both the voice and the body in all forms of performing arts, specifically in poetic language.