Who We Are
Our Beginnings
Our founder, Ellen Lettrich, has been working with young musical theatre and acting performers for almost 28 years, first as a high school classroom teacher and theatre director and, after receiving her MS in Speech-Language Pathology, as a medical voice therapist.
Her diverse teaching experiences led her to found Musical Theatre College Auditions (MTCA), a college theatre audition preparation company. Ellen built MTCA’s team of actively working teaching artists who themselves are grads of rigorous theatre training programs such as Juilliard, Yale School of Drama, Carnegie Mellon, the University of Michigan, the Boston Conservatory, and NYU Tisch.
Over the past 20 years, MTCA has prepared hundreds of students for college theatre auditions and yielded exceptional success rates. Through her work with MTCA, Ellen saw how difficult it can be for low-income students and those from underrepresented communities to access the information and financial resources needed to be competitive in the audition process for college-level acting and musical theatre programs.
Ellen founded The Fund for College Auditions to bridge this information and financial gap: to support the expenses that are part of college auditions, to provide fair compensation to experienced, innovative, student-centered teaching artists who can help these students excel artistically, and to subsidize college audition information workshops for underserved high schools and theatre groups.
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Our Board of Directors
Our Education Partners
TFCA scholarship recipients may use their scholarship funds to train with any of the following:
Our Donor Partners
We are grateful to the following companies for their continued and generous support of our Scholars through donations and fundraisers.
Ellen Lettrich, MS, SLP-CCC
Executive Director
Steve is the Managing Partner of SR Capital Advisors, which he co-founded in 2004, and serves as the CFO of AMR Songs. SR Capital is focused on managing private equity investments, with a focus on the media, telecommunications and entertainment sectors. AMR Songs is dedicated to helping songwriters create successful new compositions and adding value to older songs.
Previously, Steve served as Co-Head of TD Capital’s New York-based private equity group (“TD”) which invested private equity and mezzanine capital on behalf of the TD Bank Financial Group, a leading North American bank.
Steve attended the University of Michigan, where he earned a B.A. with High Distinction in Economics, and the MIT Sloan School of Management, where he earned an MBA. He has served on 5 corporate boards and also on the Advisory Board of the MIT Venture Capital/Private Equity Club, a student-run organization, which provides educational, informational and relationship-building opportunities to MIT Sloan School students that are interested in careers in private equity or venture capital.
Responsibilities include advising the club's leadership, facilitating and participating in speaking engagements and other events at MIT, and helping to preserve the institutional memory of the club as the leadership changes over time.
Steve is also the proud father of a recent NYU Tisch Musical Theater graduate.
Michael J. Moran, MBA, MS
First Vice President
Michael Moran is a Managing Director for Health Solutions for FTI Consulting, a global business advisory consulting firm. In this role, he guides health care organizations through managing change, performance improvement initiatives and advisory services in any area where support is needed: financial, legal, operational, political & regulatory, reputational, and transactional.
Initially an athletic trainer by education, Michael has cared for athletes at the high school, collegiate and professional level. Since moving to the business side of health care, he has managed progressively larger operations in disciplines including physical therapy, orthopedics/sports medicine, neurology, neurosurgery, general surgery, women’s health, laboratory services, radiology services, and multidisciplinary/multi-specialty physician organizations. Prior to FTI, Michael was the COO for a 700+ provider hospital-owned medical group.
Aside from these accomplishments as an employee, Michael also owned and operated his own Physician Practice Management Consulting Company from 2012-2018. He is an expert in business development, strategic planning, compensation planning, financial management, human resource management, contract negotiations, and physician practice operations.
Michael’s MBA degree is from Baldwin Wallace University in suburban Cleveland, which also boasts nationally-recognized programs in musical theatre, acting and arts management. He holds a bachelor’s degree in sports medicine from Canisius College in Buffalo, N.Y. and a master’s degree in sports medicine from the University of Pittsburgh. In addition to his extensive business expertise, as Ellen Lettrich’s brother, Michael has been an objective observer of the college audition process for many years.
Karen Coleman, MS, MSW
Second Vice President
Karen has over 25 years experience leading and managing public health, clinical and child welfare programs. Ms. Coleman began her career as a social worker at Hahnemann University Hospital working with patients with neurological disorders and HIV. She was instrumental in creating the first-ever Case Management Department at Drexel University’s Partnership Comprehensive Care Practice in 1999 before her promotion as the Department’s Administrative Director. In that role, Ms. Coleman managed daily operations supporting a 45-member team, and expanding programs to include Peer Education and Training, Self-Management Support Programs, hospital-based HIV testing, and HIV services for women and children that extended to The Dorothy Mann Center at St Christopher’s Hospital for Children. Ms. Coleman now serves as the Community Umbrella Agency Director of a child welfare organization serving well over 750 children where her commitment is to the goals of safety, permanency, and well-being as the foundation of all child welfare practice.
Ms. Coleman holds an undergraduate degree in Health Planning & Administration from Pennsylvania State University, a MSW degree from Temple University, and an MS in Project Management from Drexel University. She’s been recognized for her excellence in clinical care and serves on various professional committees and community boards. Her daughter, Kayla, is a 2018 NYU Tisch Drama graduate in Musical Theatre.
Kimberly Mullaney
Secretary
Kimberly Mullaney is a veteran education innovator, relatively new to theatre education. She is the associate director of station relations at WNET New York Public Media, supporting programs such as PBS NewsHour Weekend, Nature and Firing Line with Margaret Hoover. As WNET’s associate education director, she was the project director for American Graduate Day, an annual eight-hour live television broadcast highlighting educational innovation in at-risk communities, and a co-founder of the Celebration of Teaching and Learning, an annual conference of thousands of educators designed to spotlight and incubate innovation. Earlier, she served as a consultant to the Public Broadcasting Service’s Ready to Learn preschool initiative, and as education director at Planned Parenthood of Maryland, where her work with at-risk youth earned one of the Centers for Disease Control’s first Community Block Grants for HIV/AIDS prevention.
Kimberly has a B.A. from Hollins University and has served on the board of InterACT Theatre Productions in South Orange, N.J. Her son is an up-and-coming actor whose college audition process was overseen by Ellen Lettrich and her MTCA colleagues.
Christopher Graff, JD, CPA
Treasurer
Chris Graff is a partner at The Medical Management Consulting Group, Inc., a financial planning practice for medical professionals in Virginia Beach, Va., where he has worked since 1994. He received his bachelor’s degree from the College of William and Mary in 1991 and his law degree from Widener University School of Law in 1994. Chris is licensed in Virginia and Pennsylvania and became a certified public accountant in 2000. Chris speaks in professional venues about legal issues pertaining to medical practices, including employment law, the Federal Fair Labor Standards Act, patient confidentiality and medical records, policy manuals, and Virginia and Federal legislative updates. He has also done legal and consulting work related to theatre education for several years.
Krizia Cantres
Board Member
Krizia is currently working a part of the Global Client Experience Team at Herman Miller. As part of her role, she oversees the day-to-day operations at the New York City Flagship showroom, while managing client tours, showroom events, and digital marketing initiatives. As liaison to the marketing team at HQ, she has been exposed to the creative process of event planning, which she expertly utilizes with the Herman Miller-TFCA client appreciation concerts as part of the guest committee and facilitator. Krizia is soon to be a co-chair for the next event.
While working full time at Herman Miller, Krizia supports a Racial Equity team as an associate manager and is a part of Herman Miller Cares, the philanthropic arm of Herman Miller Group that supports initiatives that advance social justice in its communities worldwide. Krizia is currently pursuing a master’s degree in Integrated Marketing Communications at Georgetown University (remotely) as she moves her career in that direction.
Deirdre Dennehy-Basile, PhD
Deirdre Dennehy-Basile was raised in a family of actors but, always the rebel became a Clinical Psychologist. She is well aware there’s a really good joke in there somewhere. Her psychology training has come in handy every day as the mother of four theater kids. Passionate about theatre and about all students having access to college educations and theatre training, she is thrilled to be a part of TFCA.
Alejandro Rodriguez
Diversity and Equity
Alejandro Rodriguez is an Associate Producer at PlayMakers Repertory Company, the professional theatre company in residence at the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill. He is also founding Artistic Director of the Artist as Citizen Conference, organized by New York-based Artists Striving to End Poverty, an immersive educational program to develop the whole artist through traditional classes, career-skills workshops, and programs on citizenship, service and promoting social justice through the arts.
In 12 years as a performer, he created many roles Off-Broadway, including Charlie Rosa in Ghetto Babylon (which won the National Latino Playwrights Award based on this Off-Broadway performance), and Gabriel in the New York Times Critics’ Pick Bird in the Hand. He played Romeo in The Acting Company’s national tour of Romeo and Juliet, and Edgar in its production of King Lear. He has also performed at regional venues including the Kennedy Center, the Guthrie Theatre in Minneapolis, Denver Center Theater Company, Baltimore Center Stage and the Los Angeles Theater Center. His film and TV credits include Nurse Jackie (Showtime), Dates from Hell (Discovery ID), and the feature film Emoticon.
As a writer, Alejandro’s first full-length play, Sorry, enjoyed a sold-out run at the LaGuardia Performing Arts Center (LPAC) in New York. His earlier work, Now is the Time, was produced three times in New York and toured throughout Canada. He has lectured at multiple colleges, is on the faculty of The Performing Arts Project in Winston-Salem, N.C., and has taught at the City University of New York. His new play, Tropical Storm Warning, received its first public reading in December 2017. Alej is a graduate of The Juilliard School.
Carrie Maliszewski
As a military wife of 23 years, Carrie has called many different places home. She graduated from NC State University in 1999 with a degree in Secondary English Education and currently teaches 9th and 11th grade English in Virginia. She is the proud mother of 3 teenagers and 2 adorable Labrador Retrievers. In her spare time, Carrie is a freelance editor for aspiring young adult authors. She enjoys CF workouts, ice hockey games, and, of course, MUSICALS! Her oldest daughter is a recent “survivor” of musical theater college auditions. Over the past 10 years, Carrie has supported her daughter through volunteering in local youth theater organizations, working in both fundraising and artistic capacities. She is excited to serve TFCA as she has a heart for helping students achieve their dreams.
Kris Saucedo
College Mentor Representative
Kris Saucedo is truly humbled and elated to be working with TFCA, as scholarships and support from an army of people allowed him to be where he is today. As a queer first-generation Mexican-American son of a single mother, he is deeply passionate about arts education being accessible to everyone regardless of their identity, socioeconomic status, and differences in a world full of systematic and institutional biases.
He is a graduate of the University of North Carolina School of the Arts’ high school acting conservatory and will be earning a BFA in Musical Theatre at Penn State University.
Select Regional performance credits:: Chasing Rainbows (Pre-Broadway World Premiere), Gypsy (Clarence), A Christmas Carol (Ensemble), Joseph… Dreamcoat (Ensemble), Tuck Everlasting (Jesse Tuck, directed by Joe Barros), Anything Goes (Billy, directed by Tony Spinosa), Music Man (Ensemble, directed by Chase Brock) Zombie Prom (Josh/Dance Captain). @Krisbway
Gabriel Lawrence
