Kelly Martin, Founder

A resident of Astoria, Kelly is a conductor, pianist, vocal coach, choral director and music arranger. 

Kelly studied at West Chester University in Pennsylvania where she received a Bachelor of Science in Music Education with dual foci in Piano and Voice (1999) and a Master of Arts Degree in Music History (2006).  While at WCU, she received the Albert Jones scholarship for excellence in Conducting.  

Kelly is the currently the Resident Musical Director and Managing Director of Jersey Productions in Cincinnati, OH where she received a Cincinnati Acclaim Award for Music Direction for their 2006 production of Ragtime.  Kelly has also served as Musical Director and Conductor with the Ocean City Theater Company performing with the Ocean City Pops Orchestra.  In 2004 Kelly served as Musical Director for NYC based Vital Theatre Company’s production of Idiot’s Delight, which won an Off-Off Broadway Review Award.   Kelly served as an accompanist for Rosie’s Broadway Kids as well as a Music Copyist for Rosie’s Gala: “A Tribute to Chita Rivera” and“A Tribute to Queen Latifah.”  Recent credits also include Musical Director for The Wiz at Playhouse on the Green (CT) and as a Music Intern at City Center (NYC) on their 2009 production of The Wiz.  

A forever teacher, Kelly is a musical theater teacher and coach and recently spent one year as an adjunct professor at Sam Houston State University in Huntsville, Texas training BFA Musical Theater students.  She has also served as director, musical director and choreographer for various Jr. High and High School productions.  Kelly also teaches piano to musical theater actors as well as lessons to children.

About ACT's Educational Programs

The primary objective of all of our educational programs is to learn the three aspects of musical theater: singing, dancing and acting.  

It is important to the design of all of our ACT programs to create a safe space in which kids are encouraged both by their peers and their teachers to try every aspect of the musical theatre program. 

These summer programs fall during a time when many children's theaters are not performing and the students do not have the demands of their schoolwork so they are able to focus on an educational experience in the performing arts.

One of the most exciting parts of our ACT experience is meeting other students from other parts the city.  In musical theater productions, students learn teamwork, physical coordination, public speaking skills as well as earn confidence to perform in front of an audience of both friends (at camp) and the public (at showcase).  

As in all of the ACT educational programs, the Directors and Teachers are professionals in the performing arts having résumé credits with professional and regional theater companies.

We hope that our campers gain an interest in performing as well as a better appreciation for musical theater therefore becoming lifelong patrons of this great American art form.

About Jersey Productions

ACT is a project of Jersey Productions. Our mission is to nurture the voice of musical theatre through the development and production of new and classical works. 

Jersey Productions began in 2006 as a musical theatre company in the Greater Cincinnati area by two Astoria residents who were looking for a new place to produce theater.

After spending two years at The Carnegie Visual and Performing Arts Center in Covington, Kentucky, we moved to the Aronoff Center for the Arts in downtown Cincinnati in 2008. Since our founding in 2006, we produced twelve musical theatre productions and employed over 350 Cincinnati artists. In 2008 alone over 6,000 people attended one of the productions in three-show season; West Side Story, Nunsense and The Sound of Music.  

In June 2008, we instituted Camp Jersey, a two-week musical theatre camp for kids ages 7-17, hosting 24 students. Over the years, we’ve grown to having over 100 kids involved in our educational programs each summer.  Astoria Childrens Theater is our effort to continue these programs back home in Astoria.