American Legacy Theatre was founded to create a more equitable tomorrow through accessible theatre arts.

Board of Trustees

  • amy weber

    Board Chair

    Chief Impact Officer, United Way of Greater Cincinnati

    "American Legacy Theatre facilitates change and addresses deficits in creativity. American Legacy Theatre uses performance to help explore other's change in community."

  • Julie Muashsher Murray

    Vice Chair

    Sr. Director – Digital Supply Chain, GE Aerospace

  • Jonathan Salisbury

    Vice Chair

    Arts Practitioner, Self-Employed

  • Megan Colvin

    Treasurer

    Sr. Director of Finance, Global Materials

  • Cheryl Kreindler

    Secretary

    SVP, Earth and Environment, SVP

  • Tim Langlitz

    Board Member

    Senior Director, Audience Acquisition, The E.W. Scripps Company

    "Social change! American Legacy Theatre does storytelling that is meaningful, and is a champion for accessibility. They make no qualms about calling it like it is. American Legacy Theatre is doing what others say they want to do."

  • Kristin McFadden

    Acting Secretary

    Mgr. of Membership & Annual Giving, Taft Museum of Art

  • Julie Vazquez McGregor

    Board Member

    Chief Program Officer, Santa Maria Community Services

  • Avery Ozimek

    Board Member

    Employee Benefits Analyst, Day Pitney, LLP

Our Team

Kennen Butler

Playwright in Residence

“ALT has been an incredibly safe space for me. I was given room to grow and stretch as myself. Often in this life, others will mold me into the voice they wish me to use. At ALT, I have been able to use my own voice and through that give back to the communities I’m apart of and beyond.”

Kennen is a NYC-based performer-composer, director, choreographer, and storyteller born in Flint, MI, but raised in Newburgh, NY. Their cross-genre career spans musical theatre and commercial music. A proud member of Actors Equity, their diverse theatre credits include the revival of Seussical the Musical Off-Broadway/Tour (Wickersham), Hairspray (u/s Seaweed), Tommy (u/s Acid Queen), Diary of a Payphone (Original Cast Recording), Aida (Mereb), Urinetown (Senator Fipp), Legally Blonde (Emmett), Knock Down Drag Out (Zonna), and Songs for a New World (Man 1) among others. They spent time as a background vocalist for acts like Toby Beau. Abroad, they served as a Creative Consultant for Universal Studios Osaka as well as being a swing for the company. They would also serve as director/choreographer for a Japanese production company called Team Utsubo where they mounted revue musicals in both English and Japanese.

While their love for harmony and stories would be their entry point into music and musical

theatre, it would be their experiences navigating being black in environments that undervalue you and being nonbinary in a time were there wasn’t a word or place for you that sparked their interest in adding their voice to the current musical climate. Under the name “Kennen Jakhan & the Story” they performed their original English and Japanese commercial music around Osaka and the south of Japan before making the transition back to the United States. They are currently a playwright and composer for American Legacy Theatre’s In Home program to write, compose, and perform one person shows in a week’s time. They graduated magna cum laude from Berklee College of Music in Boston where they studied Contemporary Writing and Production with a double minor in Musical Theatre Writing and Vocal Pedagogy. They have returned to NYC to pursue their masters in Musical Theatre Writing at NYU Tisch.

Dora Bayliss

Arts Impact Program Director

Dora has spent her career working at nonprofit organizations with a focus on education and equity. Before joining American Legacy Theatre, she held leadership roles at youth development organizations Squash & Education Alliance, SquashBusters, and CitySquash. Prior to that, she worked at New York-based arts integration program, LEAP (Learning through an Expanded Arts Program). Whether performing musical theatre, singing in community choirs, teaching crochet lessons, or facilitating youth arts programming, creative pursuits have always been an important part of Dora’s life. Dora moved to Cincinnati in 2019 and is excited to deepen her connections to the Cincinnati community through her work at ALT.


“I was drawn to ALT because of its emphasis on the things that matter most to me in my work – collaboration, community, creativity, equity, and social justice. I feel lucky to be part of a team that is committed to making programming that is community-driven, accessible, and innovative.”

Matthew David Gellin, CRE

Executive Artistic Director & CEO, American Legacy Theatre

“The power of theatre that has not yet been leveraged completely. It’s the idea of how can we get to a point where wars can be stopped and people can be brought together into a world of true equity because of the power of theatre. How do we truly make an impact in positive way for ALL voices and ALL people? We, at A.L.T. give them a voice and bring that voice to the forefront to be heard.”

Matthew has successfully acted and directed across the country, in Europe, and in Asia.
 

Matthew is proud to have served as a U.S. representative at the UNESCO
International Theatre Institute Research Lab in Romania. He was named a Promising Artist of the 21st Century by the International Arts and Cultural Exchange, and he has published papers on directorial theory in international peer-reviewed journals. He has also been recognized as one of Cincinnati Business Courier’s Forty Under 40.
 

His financial background includes serving as U.S. delegate to the People’s Republic of China for foreign business affairs and serving on the Association of Fundraising Professionals Board of Directors as president-elect.
 

Now, he looks to lift American theatre back to the top of the world’s stage.

Elijah Webster

Artistic Program Coordinator