Current Teachers:
Joshua Cicci
Josh Cicci is a 41 year old professional cartoonist in Tucson. He has taught theatre and art throughout the Southwest for 20 years. He has worked in with private and public schools, as well as civic and public health organizations. His students have ranged from first graders to seniors in high school. He was a member of Comedy Corner at the University of Arizona. He was a founding member of the improv/sketch comedy troupes The Monolith Players, The Secret Show and Good Job Dinosaur. He has performed with members of The Upright Citizen’s Brigade, Improv Olympic, Second City and SNL.
Katie Mason
Katie is a graduate of the CYT program. She's continued involvement with CYT as an Our Gang teacher and choreographer for our recent productions of "You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown" and "James and the Giant Peach." She has also choreographed musical theater productions, performing arts camps, and show choirs with several schools and organizations. She is currently pursuing a degree in elementary education.
Kelsey Eggerman
Kelsey Eggerman was born in Bedford, Indiana and began dancing at the age of four. She has had extensive training in many styles of dance including ballet, pointe, jazz, tap, acro, lyrical/contemporary, hip hop, musical theater, and ballroom. She danced competitively for 12 years and traveled frequently to Los Angeles and New York City to train with the industry’s best teachers and the most renowned choreographers. Through her competitive years, Kelsey won numerous awards and scholarships. One of her greatest achievements was placing in the top 10 Outstanding Dancers at New York City Dance Alliance Nationals. She has done intensive training at Complexions Contemporary Ballet in NYC, Joffrey Ballet School in NYC, MODAS Dance, Millennium Dance Complex in Los Angeles, and the famous Radio City Rockettes. Kelsey was one of 65 dancers invited to do the Rockettes Invitational Week. Recently, Kelsey was a member of the Drop Fam and competed in highly esteemed hip hop competitions in Phoenix and Los Angeles. Kelsey is excited to share her knowledge and passion of dance with everyone at CYT.
Laurel Sommers
Laurel Sommers has lived in Tucson for the past 10 years. She has been a pastel and oil paint artist for the past 30 years, specializing in horse and human portraits. Once her daughter started with CYT in 2011, she became a set painter and later a make-up artist. Some of her favorite looks include Donkey from Shrek, Uncle Fester and Grandma from the Addams Family, and cat faces from Cats! Another interest is make-up for film. She has been the key make-up artist for several indie short films produced by Teen Street Films, specializing in cuts, bruises, blood and gore. Teaching is one of her favorite things to do. She has taught make-up and prosthetics classes for CYT in the past and can’t wait to do it again!
Mike Padilla
A native of Tucson, Mike has entertained and worked in Tucson, San Francisco and Japan as a cabaret entertainer, pianist, singer, actor, musical director and teacher. He spent 17 years in San Francisco where he studied acting/singing at Studio ACT and the SF Academy of Performing Arts where he was mentored by Richard Nickol his voice teacher. As an actor he has played Archie & Dr Craven in The Secret Garden, Judge Turpin in Sweeney Todd, Dr Parker in Bay Boy, Cladwell in Urinetowne to name a few. Locally, He’s done musical direction for the Invisible Theatre, SALOC, The Gaslight, The Great American Playhouse, UofA’s Arizona Repertory Theatre, Arts Express and CYT. He has been the vocal coach/music director for the Tucson Starlight Awards (Ben Vereen Awards) the last 4 years as well as ATC’s Summer on Stage. Mike was an instructor at the UofA School of theatre for 4 years serving as the staff pianist, vocal coach and musical director. Mike is a member of NATS (Nat’l. Assoc. of Teachers of Singing)and maintains a private voice studio.
Nicole Martinez
Nikki Martinez holds her MFA from the Yale School of Drama and her BFA from The Carnegie Mellon School of Drama. She has studied at The Workcenter of Jerzy Grotowski, The Trinity/LaMaMa Peforming Arts Center, The Fordham/Orvietto Theatre Institute, The Williamstown Theatre Festival and the SITI Company. She employs approaches and exercises from a wealth of methodologies including: Stanislavsky, Grotowski, Meyerhold, Spolin, Boal, Alexander, Skinner, Linklater, Roy Hart, Laban and many more. Nikki’s students are offered a rare learning experience by combining the best of conventional acting curriculum with the opportunity to explore new and innovative approaches to theatre. She has been teaching and directing in the theatre department at Pima Community College for four years.
Tom Selegue
Tom has been teaching chemistry at Pima Community College for 16 years. His love of teaching and learning has shown through demonstrations, activities, and discussions with students at several K-12 schools in Tucson. He is a member of Tucson Improv Movement, where he performs regularly with several house teams and coaches a long-form improv team. He has been through the full range of improv classes at TIM as well as workshops with internationally renowned improvisers. Tom brings a passion for watching and performing improvised theater to the CYT classroom.