The Dogteam Theatre Project
The Dogteam Theatre Project engages established professional theatre makers with Middlebury College students in Vermont and New York City in a unique training/producing model that cycles over the course of two years, alternating a Building Summer with a Producing Summer. The activities of the Building Summer, in residence at Middlebury College, are anchored around script development and translation workshops for established playwrights, with professional directors, actors and designers also working with students whose areas of focus include playwriting, directing, design, producing, and arts management. Dogteam engages professionals in these diverse areas to provide students advanced training and mentorship.
Producing Summers see the company rehearsing in VT then moving to NYC to present two productions in rep at Atlantic Stage 2.
Connection to Middlebury College
The Dogteam Theatre Project is associated with the Theatre Department at Middlebury College, which has a 35-year history of providing aspiring theatre artists the opportunity to work as peers alongside established theatre professionals. The Dogteam is a natural extension of the department’s praxis-heavy curriculum, offering advanced experiential learning options in all areas of theatre making
LEADERSHIP
Alex Draper*
Co-Producing Artistic Director; Co-Founder
As a professional stage, film and television actor, Alex’s thirty-five-year career includes performing with the Mabou Mines in Paris, France, filming the Bollywood extravaganza Kalapani in the Andaman Islands, and appearing in the New York premieres of Dare Clubb’s Obie Award-winning Oedipus, starring Billy Crudup and Frances McDormand; Erin Courtney’s A Map of Virtue; the Presnyakov Brothers’ Terrorism; Neil Simon’s Rose’s Dilemma; and Phillip Ridley’s The Pitchfork Disney. He was a founding member of PTP/NYC, appearing in 23 productions over 17 seasons, including Howard Barker’s Scenes from an Execution, and Caryl Churchill’s Serious Money. He was also a founding member of the Blue Light Theatre company, appearing in their acclaimed revivals of Clifford Odette’s Golden Boy and Waiting for Lefty. He received his MFA from the Yale School of Drama, and his BA from Middlebury College, where he is a Professor of Theatre.
Olga Sanchez Saltveit
Co-Producing Artistic Director; Co-Founder
Olga serves on the Artistic Advisory Board of PICT International Classic Theatre, and as Artistic Director Emerita for Milagro, the Pacific Northwest’s premier Latinx arts & culture organization, following her service as Artistic Director from 2003-15. Actor, director, devisor, translator, dramaturge, and culture activist, her work has been seen throughout the US and in Peru, Venezuela, and Honduras. Olga served as co-artistic director of the People’s Playhouse in NYC, artistic director of Seattle Teatro Latino, and co-founder of La Casa de Artes, a Seattle-based non-profit organization dedicated to celebrating the beauty of Latine arts and cultural heritage. She is a member of the María Irene Fornés Institute and the Advisory Committee of the Latinx Theatre Commons, in partnership with HowlRound Theatre Commons. AEA, SAG-AFTRA, SDC. She is co-editor of The Routledge Companion to Latine Theatre and Performance (2024) and Assistant Professor of Theatre for Middlebury College.
Todd P. Canedy
Company and Budget Manager
Todd has been working in theatre professionally for over 30 years. His adventures have varied from children’s theatre in Olympia, Washington, to co-creating his own theatre company in Denver, Colorado, to working large-scale concert venues in Boston, Mass. Prior to Middlebury College, he was the Associate Professor of Design for the Theatre and Dance Department at State University of New York, Potsdam. Todd’s teaching career experiences include Instructor/Technical Director at Bowling Green State University/Huron Playhouse, Assistant Professor of Technical Theatre at Southwestern Oklahoma State University, and Instructor/Technical Director at Lawrence Academy, in Groton, Massachusetts. He is originally from Southern California, received a B.F.A. in Technical Theatre from Chapman University and an M.F.A. in Set Design from CSU Fullerton.
Mark Evancho
Mark Evancho, Resident Designer, Co-Founder
Mark is the faculty scenic and lighting designer at Middlebury College. He has designed professionally for the New Jersey Shakespeare Festival; Blue Light Theatre; and PTP/NYC in the NYC area, the Potomac Theatre Project and the Olney Theatre Center in the Washington D.C. area, Pennsylvania Stage Company and Bucks County Playhouse in the Philadelphia area, and The National Opera of NC. In the New England area, Mark has designed for Vermont Theatre Company, Lyric Theatre Company, and Lost Nation Theatre, Montpelier, VT. Mark studied with Ming Cho Lee at the Kennedy Center Summer Intensives program, and with Lester Polakov’s Studio & Forum in NYC. Mark received his BA from Baldwin-Wallace University, and his MFA from Western Illinois University.
COMPANY 2025
* Members of Actor's Equity Association