Mrs. Barth is beyond thrilled to be at the helm of the BHSDC for her second season. Mary Poppins will be another new show for the BHSDC, and she is excited to share this production with audiences! Mrs. Barth would like to thank John Sullivan for his guidance and leadership during her high school years at BHS and for fostering her love with the magic of the theatre. After BHS, she traveled for a year with Up With People, earned a BFA in Musical Theatre from Emerson College, received her Actor's Equity card while performing for three years at Disney World in Orlando, FL, and earned her MM in Music Education from Boston University. Currently, Mrs. Barth teaches music and directs the chorus at Barnstable Intermediate School. When she's not in the theatre, you can find her having family fun with her husband and their two sons!

Matthew Kohler is a native to the Cape, former BHSDC member (Class of '08), and a teaching theatre artist year round. He is the current Technical and Facilities Director at Cape Cod Theatre Company | Harwich Junior Theater and the Stagecraft and Theatre Technologies Instructor at Cape Cod Community College. He is very excited to be a part of bringing Mary Poppins to life and is grateful for the opportunity to give back to the drama club where he started his theatre career, as well as work with and teach such talented students here at the BHSDC.

Misao Koyama is a local pianist and accompanist. A graduate of the Berklee College of Music, she currently serves as the organist and music director at St. John’s Episcopal Church in Sandwich. She has worked on many theatrical productions and concerts, including appearances with Cotuit Center for the Arts (Piano Men I and II, We Are the Champions, to name a few), the Cape Symphony, Cape Cod Chorale, Cape Cod Community College, Cape Rep, Cape Cod Academy, St. John Paul II School, and several other local schools. Misao has been at Barnstable High for some time, history including “Into the Woods” and “The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee.” She would like to thank her friends and family for supporting her and cheering her on.

As a Barnstable High School graduate, Julie Lariviere is a product of BHSDC, both on stage and as a pit musician. Her first production was as the bass player in the pit for You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown (1979), and her most recent was as the Wicked Witch in the Wizard of Oz (2008). Her entire family (parents, siblings, children, nieces, and nephews) has a long tradition of participating in shows with both BHSDC and Barnstable Summer Family Theater. She is excited to carry on this tradition in a new role. She has been teaching math for a long time, and for the last 19 years here at BHS. She is grateful for the many talented people who have supported her during this crazy time. She is also thrilled to work with such a devoted and enthusiastic group of performers.

Kris has an extensive history with the BHSDC beginning way back in 1983 when as a naive freshman, she began her career as a shrieking head in the Annual Haunted House. She continues that role today as the Music Director for Mary Poppins. Between then and now, Kris appeared on stage in various roles with BHSDC, Barnstable Summer Family Theater, Barnstable Comedy Club, and the Cotuit Center for the Arts. In the summer of 1990, former BHSDC Artistic Director John Sullivan handed Kris the baton for the Velveteen Rabbit, and she’s waved it a lot ever since. Notable shows for which she has been music director include The Hobbit, The Wizard of Oz, Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, Mary Poppins, and The Reluctant Dragon. Kris is an elementary music teacher in the Mashpee Schools. When not teaching, you’ll find her running ninja warrior obstacle courses with her son, Isaac. She is excited to be back with so many BHSDC alums, including two of her siblings, on the creative team!

Molly Shanahan is a BHSDC alumni and a graduate of Dean College where she received a Bachelor’s in Arts and Entertainment Management as well as an Associates in Dance. She is currently in a Graduate program at Bridgewater State University studying English and hopes to teach in the near future. As a student at Barnstable High School, Molly choreographed many of the BHSDC shows. These shows included Grease and some dance numbers added into a plethora of Shakespeare plays. Tap dance has always been her favorite style and she is excited to be able to share her passion with this talented group of students. Outside of BHSDC, Molly also teaches tap at Arts Edge Dance Company. She is grateful to be back in her home away from home and have the opportunity to share her love of theater and dance with the newest BHSDC generation.

Brooke Styche grew up dancing on Cape Cod and is a graduate of Barnstable High School. After graduating from Trinity College with a major in Theater and Dance, she ran a dance studio in Pocasset. Realizing her love for academics was missing in her life, she went back to school for her MAT in English and has been an English teacher at BHS for 19 years. Never wanting to stop choreographing--one of her passions--she choreographed many musicals for Sandwich High School over the years (where she began her career as an educator) and then started assisting BHSDC with choreography for She Loves Me and Pippin and was back last year for Shrek. Brooke is so excited to work on Mary Poppins with the wonderfully enthusiastic students and the creative team. When students who think they can’t dance “get it” is such a joy--because everyone can dance!

Chris Viens is a Special Education teacher at Barnstable High School. He has been involved in theater since the second grade and has been a part of shows in a variety of venues, from high schools to summer camps. Chris first appeared on stage with the Barnstable High School Drama Club as Col. Moran in The Life and Death of Sherlock Holmes and assisted with the production of Little Shop of Horrors, William Shakespeare’s Cymbeline, The Great Gatsby, and William Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream. He served as technical director for the BHSDC productions of A​lmost, Maine, G​odspell, The Women of Lockerbie, Into the Woods, High School Musical, She Loves Me, and Pippin. He directed 2015 and 2016 BHSDC Haunted House, William Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night, and Dracula, The Radio Play.

This is Ms. Wyt’s eighth musical with the BHSDC, and is over the moon about working with this team of creatives for a second year in a row. When she first began her teaching career on Cape Cod, she remembers coming to BHSDC musicals and fell in love with Pippin, Joseph, Fiddler, Barnum, Seussical, Mame, Christmas Carol, On the Twentieth Century, Chicago, and so many more! She got to see Mrs. Barth share the stage with her mother, Lorraine Dunnett in The Music Man and Wizard of Oz (with a purple horse of a different color!) She believes in the joy of community that musical theater and just music making in general can bring to those who create it and who attend the performances. While in high school, Ms. Wytrwal was a proud percussionist in the Norwood High Mustang Marching Band, a piano player for their jazz band, a singer in their jazz choir and Madrigal Singers. She moved on to sing with the Ithaca College Jazz Choir, the Berklee College Vocal Jazz Ensemble, and MJ and the In Crowd. She has directed music for shows at Dennis-Yarmouth Regional High School, the Barnstable Comedy Club, the Cape Cod Theater Company, the Cotuit Center for the Arts, and taught at Summer Sounds for the Cape Cod Conservatory. Ms. Wytrwal teaches Piano Class, directs the choirs at Barnstable High School and recently became the 6-12 Music Department Head. She would like to thank all those who have supported all the efforts of the BHSDC for mounting this production of Mary Poppins!

This is Kylee Youmans-Driskell's fourth musical working with BHSDC. This season, she has been dubbed "Creative Assistant" to the director (Mary), producer (Julie), and Brooke Styche as choreographer. Kylee has had a life-long passion for performing. She was a competitive dancer from age 11 through college, and has coached recreational and all-star competitive youth cheerleading on the Cape since 2012. A former employee of Barnstable High School, Kylee is now the speech-language pathologist at Gateway ABA Therapy LLC in Wareham, and lives in Plymouth with her husband and their four pets. She is so very proud of the notable growth the BHSDC thespians have had over the last few seasons, and is thrilled to be a part of Mary Poppins!

Anthony Drewe and George Stiles (Stiles and Drewe) are a multi award-winning musical theatre writing partnership. Writing credits include Honk! (National / UK Tour / Worldwide); Mary Poppins (West End / Broadway / Worldwide); The Wind in the Willows (UK Tour and West End); Cameron Mackintosh’s new version of Half A Sixpence (Chichester Festival Theatre / West End); Travels With My Aunt (Minerva Theatre, Chichester); Betty Blue Eyes (West End / UK Tour); Just So (Tricycle / Chichester Festival Theatre / Worldwide); Peter Pan – A Musical Adventure (West Yorkshire Playhouse / Birmingham Rep / Royal Festival Hall / Worldwide); Soho Cinders (Soho Theatre / in concert at the Queen’s Theatre); The Three Little Pigs (West End / UK Tour and International Tour); Goldilocks and the Three Bears and The Three Billy Goats Gruff (Singapore Rep). Future projects include a stage version of Robert Harling’s film Soapdish, and a new musical with director/choreographer Jerry Mitchell. Independently as a lyricist, Anthony’s credits include The Card (Watermill / Regents Park) and A Twist of Fate (Singapore Rep). Other projects include: song contributions for Dame Edna Everage’s Look At Me When I’m Talking to You; The Shakespeare Revue (RSC) as well as a variety of material for TV and radio. Awards include the Laurence Olivier Award for Best New Musical for Honk!, three of the top prizes at the Musical of the Year Awards for Peter Pan and The Three Musketeers, the TMA Best Musical Award (Moll Flanders), The Straits Times Award for Best Musical (A Twist of Fate) and the first ever Vivian Ellis Prize (Just So). Mary Poppins has won 45 major theatre awards around the globe including Tony, Olivier, Helpmann and London Evening Standard Awards. Laurence Olivier nominations include Mary Poppins and Betty Blue Eyes. Stiles and Drewe’s passion for new musical theatre writing is recognised via the annual Stiles and Drewe Prize for Best New Song, and their new Mentorship Award supported by Music Theatre International (Europe). They are also founding board members of Mercury Musical Developments (MMD), Associate Artists at The Watermill Theatre and patrons of the London Musical Theatre Orchestra and The Musical Theatre Academy (MTA).

Educated at Ampleforth and Magdalene College, Cambridge, Julian Fellowes is a multi-award-winning actor, writer, director and producer. As creator, sole writer and executive producer of the hit television series Downton Abbey, Fellowes has won three Emmy awards and a Golden Globe. Fellowes received the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay for Gosford Park (2002). His work was also honoured by the Writer’s Guild of America, the New York Film Critics’€™ Circle and the National Society of Film Critics for Best Screenplay. Other writing credits for film include Piccadilly Jim (2004), Vanity Fair (2004), Young Victoria (2009), The Tourist (2010), Romeo & Juliet (2013), and the three-part drama Doctor Thorne for ITV. Fellowes also wrote and directed the award-winning films Separate Lies and From Time to Time. Fellowes wrote the books for the Tony-nominated stage production of Mary Poppins and for School of Rock: The Musical which opened on Broadway in December 2015, and was written and produced by Andrew Lloyd Webber. Fellowes has authored two novels: the international bestsellers Snobs (2005) and Past Imperfect (2008). Julian Fellowes became a life peer in 2011. He lives in Dorset and London with his wife, Emma.

For over 50 years Cameron Mackintosh has been producing more musicals than anyone else in history, including the three longest-running musicals of all time: Les Misérables, The Phantom of the Opera and CATS. Joining this list of legendary titles, his co-production with Disney of Mary Poppins continues to break records and disperse her magic globally. Following its huge recent success in the West End, his new production of Miss Saigon is now playing a National Tour of the UK and will tour in North America later this year whilst the much loved Kinky Boots, co-produced by Cameron in the West End and in Australia, continues to kick up its heels. Cameron also enjoys producing new versions of classics including Oliver!, My Fair Lady, the longest running production ever of Follies and recently reinventing Half a Sixpence in the West End to great acclaim. Other original musicals he has produced include Little Shop of Horrors, Side By Side By Sondheim, Martin Guerre, Betty Blue Eyes, and The Witches of Eastwick. Cameron, with Working Title and Universal, produced the award-winning film version of Les Misérables. A film of the 25th Anniversary performance of the new stage production of Miss Saigon was screened in cinemas worldwide in 2016. He owns eight West End theatres: Prince of Wales, Gielgud, Queen's, Wyndham's, Noël Coward, Novello and Prince Edward, all of which have been spectacularly refurbished, and the recently acquired Victoria Palace which, following a major rebuild and restoration, reopened at the end of last year with the award winning American musical, Hamilton. He is also the co-owner of Music Theatre International, the world's largest library of secondary rights of many of the greatest musicals ever written. Cameron was knighted in the 1996 New Year's Honours for his services to the British Theatre and has recently been the first British producer elected to Broadway's Theater Hall of Fame. In 1990, Cameron inaugurated the Chair of Contemporary Theatre at St Catherine's College in Oxford University, currently held by Sir Tom Stoppard.

The Sherman Brothers’ career as leading composer/lyricists in family entertainment spans almost 50 years and includes two Academy Awards Best Score and Best Song for Mary Poppins. The work of the brothers Richard M Sherman and Robert B Sherman is enjoying a fresh chapter of success in musical theatre with sensational stage revivals of Chitty Chitty Bang Bang and Mary Poppins now playing across the UK. Chitty originally opened in the West End in 2002 going on to become the longest-running musical ever at the London Palladium, before playing Broadway and beyond, garnering huge international success. The stage production of Mary Poppins, co-produced by Disney and Cameron Mackintosh, opened to critical acclaim in London in 2004, winning two Olivier Awards, with the Broadway production running for six years. The Jungle Book, another Shermans/Disney favourite, has also recently made the screen-to-stage transition, premiering at the Goodman Theatre in Chicago. The Sherman Brothers gained recognition in popular music with several top-ten hits - among them You're Sixteen, Let's Get Together and Tall Paul. 1960 marked the start of a phenomenal 10 year association with Walt Disney, during which time they composed over 150 songs for his films, TV shows, Disneyland and other theme parks. Their Disney credits include the films The Jungle Book, The Parent Trap, Bedknobs and Broomsticks, The Sword and the Stone, The Aristocats, The Happiest Millionaire, the Winnie the Pooh series, and of course Mary Poppins. They also wrote the most translated and performed song on earth, "It's a Small World (After All)". They went on to compose song scores for Snoppy Come Home, Charlotte's Web, the Broadway hit musical Over Here! and the ‘fantasmagorical’ Chitty Chitty Bang Bang - with its Oscar nominated title song. The Sherman Brothers created screenplays and song scores for Tom Sawyer (their music won First Prize at the Moscow Film Festival),Huckleberry Finn, the 1976 Royal Film Performance The Slipper and the Rose (with co-author Bryan Forbes), and The Magic of Lassie which also earned them their 9th Academy Award nomination for Best Song. More recent credits include the book Walt's Time - a wonderful autobiographical and pictorial journey through their song-writing years; the Disney hit animated feature The Tigger Movie, the stage musical Busker Alley starring Tommy Tune in the United States and Beverly Hills Cop 3. In addition to their Oscars, other honours awarded to the Sherman Brothers include 3 Grammys, 24 Gold and Platinum Albums, as well as a star on The Hollywood Walk of Fame. Robert Sherman died peacefully in London in March 2012.

George Stiles and Anthony Drewe (Stiles and Drewe) are a multi award-winning musical theatre writing partnership. Writing credits include Honk! (National / UK Tour / Worldwide); Mary Poppins (West End / Broadway / Worldwide); The Wind in the Willows (UK Tour and West End); Cameron Mackintosh’s new version of Half A Sixpence (Chichester Festival Theatre / West End); Travels With My Aunt (Minerva Theatre, Chichester); Betty Blue Eyes (West End / UK Tour); Just So (Tricycle / Chichester Festival Theatre / Worldwide); Peter Pan – A Musical Adventure (West Yorkshire Playhouse / Birmingham Rep / Royal Festival Hall / Worldwide); Soho Cinders (Soho Theatre / in concert at the Queen’s Theatre); The Three Little Pigs (West End / UK Tour and International Tour); Goldilocks and the Three Bears and The Three Billy Goats Gruff (Singapore Rep). Future projects include a stage version of Robert Harling’s film Soapdish, and a new musical with director/choreographer Jerry Mitchell. Independently as a composer, George’s credits include the musicals Moll Flanders; The Three Musketeers; Tom Jones and the scores for Sam Mendes’ stage productions of Twelfth Night and Uncle Vanya (Donmar Warehouse / BAM NYC). Other projects include: song contributions for Dame Edna Everage’s Look At Me When I’m Talking to You; The Shakespeare Revue (RSC) as well as a variety of material for TV and radio. Awards include the Laurence Olivier Award for Best New Musical for Honk!, three of the top prizes at the Musical of the Year Awards for Peter Pan and The Three Musketeers, the TMA Best Musical Award (Moll Flanders), The Straits Times Award for Best Musical (A Twist of Fate) and the first ever Vivian Ellis Prize (Just So). Mary Poppins has won 45 major theatre awards around the globe including Tony, Olivier, Helpmann and London Evening Standard Awards. Laurence Olivier nominations include Mary Poppins and Betty Blue Eyes. Stiles and Drewe’s passion for new musical theatre writing is recognised via the annual Stiles and Drewe Prize for Best New Song, and their new Mentorship Award supported by Music Theatre International (Europe). They are also founding board members of Mercury Musical Developments (MMD), Associate Artists at The Watermill Theatre and patrons of the London Musical Theatre Orchestra and The Musical Theatre Academy (MTA).