What Do You See When You Look At Me? Performers

Matthew Petrucelli is an actor and educator. He holds his MFA acting degree from Rutgers University, Mason Gross. Matthew has performed internationally in various work ranging from timeless musicals to new plays. You can see Matthew in the award-winning web series NEIGHBORS. Aside from acting, he is also deeply passionate about arts education. Matthew was a teacher in Newark, NJ where he helped foster and build a drama curriculum for grades K-8. He hopes to continually share art in educational settings, and allow for students to learn, have fun, and express themselves!

Jenn Eisenberg has a BA in Dance Education from Marymount Manhattan College. Jenn co-founded BOLD Arts, a creative and accessible dance program for children in 2014. Jenn has been a teaching artist with many schools and organizations, choreographed on many stages, and led trainings for other dance educators around the country. Some of her favorite performance experiences include being a dancing doll with Phoenix Theater Ensemble, dancing in "The Woodman Project", and riding a bicycle above the stage in "The Wizard of Oz" tornado scene.

Brittany McCullers is a Communications Manager and Teacher for Jersey Public schools. Growing up, Brittany was heavily involved in the arts. She studied theater from the time she was 9 years old, trained in ballet and modern for 18 years, and is a trained vocalist. Once she left for college, she continued to dance, but gave different areas of study a little more attention and ended up loving business. She received her B. A. in Public Relations in 2014 from Clark Atlanta University and received her M.S. in Entertainment Business in 2016 from Full Sail University. As time went on, she began a career that was focused more on business. Over the years she’s had much success in business through helping others build their businesses and working for other companies to expand her knowledge. In 2019, Brittany competed in Miss New Jersey USA. Although she didn't win, she had a great experience and was happy to accomplish one of her goals in competing in the competition. Now that Brittany has accomplished so much in life she is ready to dedicate more of her time to the arts by reaching her goal of going on pointe and beginning to pursue modeling and acting again. This will be her first dance performance on stage since 2013.

Alyssa K. Santos, born in North Carolina and raised in New York, began her dance training at age 8 and studied at Dance Design School in Cornwall, NY through high school. In 2009, Alyssa studied abroad in Italy and had the opportunity to perform on stage as well as on national Italian TV. There, she studied under Giorgio Rossi, Gianni Bruschi, Rita Perrone, and a variety of guest teachers and musicians. Alyssa graduated from Goucher College in 2010 with a BA in Dance Choreography and a minor in Arts Administration. There she studied under Elizabeth Ahearn, Juliet Forrest, Linda Garofalo, Chrystelle Bond, Chandra Moss-Thorne, and many more guest teachers and artists during her time at college. Alyssa performed in student works and guest artists residencies as well as choreographed a piece for her senior year project. Alyssa was performing with Deep Vision Dance Company (Baltimore) after college when she was diagnosed with lupus in 2011. After doctors found blood clots in her lungs, Alyssa moved up to New Jersey to be closer to family. What Do You See When You Look at Me is the first time Alyssa will be performing in eleven years and she is very excited for this opportunity to dance again. Having type 1 diabetes along with a blood clotting disorder, fibromyalgia, and lupus has really given Alyssa a new perspective on life and she is reminded daily to not take things or people for granted. She is thankful for Lara in allowing her to perform and further share her story with more people.

Leslie Merced was born and raised in Plainfield, New Jersey. She studied at the Union County Academy for Performing Arts in Scotch Plains, NJ, where she graduated in 2016. Leslie continued her education and graduated magna cum laude from the Conservatory of Dance at Purchase College, SUNY with a minor in Psychology. Where she was also a nominee for the Chancellor’s Award for Student Excellence, Class of 2020. She has danced works by Shannon Gillen, Joseph Hernandez, Sidra Bell with Roderick George, and performed masterwork “Psalm” by Jose Limón, to name a few. Leslie is currently a freelance dance artist in the NJ/NYC area.

Tiffany Voll is a true multipotentialite: who has many interests and creative pursuits often at the same time. Some of these include: wife, mother, Bruja (witch), artist, writer, and Bilingual Pediatric Speech-Language Pathologist. She earned both her Bachelor’s in Psychology with a minor in Communication Disorders and Master’s in Communication Disorders at William Paterson University. After suffering from a miscarriage and PPD (postpartum depression), she realized part of her purpose was to be an postpartum/women’s rights advocate. During her healing journey and rediscovery of herself, Tiffany chose to pursue her lifelong dream of writing her first children’s novel.