ABOUT
Maplewood Performing Arts Centre (MPAC) is the umbrella organization in Rochester, NY providing a number of products: African American Repertory Company, an Applied Theatre Company, Educational Outreach, and Theatre Incubation. We provide voice to those in the community through art!
Maplewood Performing Arts Centre is committed to making an "mpactoday" by creating theatrical arts both "for" and "with" the community!
Founded in 2009, as a way to make an "mpac" in the Maplewood Community via the social and economic development properties of the Arts; providing a voice to the voiceless and varying degrees of entertainment not currently offered in the Maplewood Area. Click HERE to see a quick video about MPAC 's mission.
Company Members
RJ Tapp
Chief Administrative Officer
RJ Tapp is the Founder/Artistic Director of the Maplewood Performing Arts Centre (MPAC), whose mission is to make theatrical art both "for" and "with" the community.
MPAC seeks to do this both by utilizing community-based art practices such as "Forum Theatre" in outreach and through its a Black/African American repertory theater company, {theatre}+{nafsi}.
RJ's commitment and studies in community development have inspired him to start MPAC to both entertain audiences and be a vehicle for social change within the community.
Gary D. Marshall
Associate Director
Nancy Fancher
Shirlyn Washington
Production Coordinator
Front House Manager/Actor
A native of Western New York, Nancy studied dance and psychology at Keuka College and SUNY Brockport and has taken on nearly every job in the theatre over the past few decades with numerous companies and organizations, primarily in the Northeastern US.
As an artist particularly enamored with the creative process, she gravitates toward new or seldom performed works.
Beyond theatre, Nancy has done a variety of film, vocal, and commercial work, and she extends deep gratitude to her daughter Esabella Cesarini for her continued patience and support.
Shirlyn M. Washington has been performing in Rochester, NY since 1985. Over the past 15 years, she has had the pleasure of bringing living history workshops to classrooms for gifted learners through Project Adept and has brought new works to life with SUNY Brockport’s Sankofa.
Shirlyn has undergraduate and graduate degrees in Community Health Education, serves as Chair of the Health Ministry at Mount Olivet Baptist Church and is a member of the Rochester Interdenominational Health Ministry Coalition, which seeks to help people improve and maintain health of the mind, body and spirit.
She is proud to be part of Maplewood Performing Arts Centre and grateful for the opportunity to be involved in work that brings her passions, interests and creative energy together.
Jahaka Mindstorm
Playwright/ Concessions
TBA
Coming Soon.