viBrant staff

keeping viBe running

Toya Lillard Executive Director
Toya is a native Houstonian from an artistic family who grew up having viBrant arts experiences in theater and music. She brings more than 15 years of experience in arts education and has directed plays, developed curriculum, led advocacy efforts, and implemented innovative teaching artist training programs both in and out of our city’s schools. After graduating from Houston’s prestigious High School for Performing and Visual Arts, Toya attended Vassar College and further developed her interest in arts education, particularly in the use of theatre to help youth address issues relevant to their personal and civic development. Toya also holds an M.A. from NYU’s Gallatin School of Individualized Study. As a theater teaching artist, Toya has worked extensively and passionately with teenage girls in New York City. Joining viBe is a “dream come true” for her!

chandra thomas Founder/Director of Programming
chandra thomas is the co-founder and director of programming of viBe Theater Experience. She is consistently amazed by the 175+ “viBe Girls” who have shared their creative voices through their original plays, solo shows, music and performances. As a professional actor/ writer/ producer, chandra has worked and studied for over 15 years across the United States and internationally. Her long-standing artistic interest is in the development and creation of fresh, new works. To this end, chandra has originated roles in plays as well as performing in film, television and voiceover. She has also written and produced new plays and theatrical experiences. As an educator, chandra teaches collaborative theatre development, business for performing artists and performance as empowerment. She currently teaches at Columbia University’s School of the Arts. Recently, she completed a performance as empowerment workshop series at the Ferris School for Boys, an all-male juvenile detention center in Wilmington, DE. She has also taught at Creative Arts Team at the City University of New York, New York Film Academy, University of Minnesota, Webster University, among others. chandra graduated, with honors, with a BA in Theatre Arts and BA in Sociology from Vanderbilt University in Nashville, TN and holds an MFA in Acting from Columbia University.

Leah Page Program Associate

Leah is currently pursuing her Masters in Applied Theatre at the City University of New York. Before coming to New York, she lived in Sarasota, FL where she worked as the Program Associate at Asolo Repertory Theatre. She has worked as a teaching artist at Two River Theatre Company, McCarter Theatre, Girls Inc., the YMCA, and Artsbridge America. As an actor Leah has performed at a number of professional theatre’s including Asolo Repertory Theatre, Seaside Music Theatre, and Reflections: A Contemporary Theatre Ensemble. Her proudest achievement has been facilitating and directing a devised documentary theatre residency with high school students. She has a BA in women’s studies from Concordia University and an MFA in musical theatre from the University of Central Florida.

Kaitlin Hines Development Associate
Kaitlin Hines is a fundraiser, writer, performer and all-around arts advocate living in Harlem.  In her 7+ years in New York city, she has had the privilege of working in nonprofit arts administration for Dance New Amsterdam, Doug Varone and Dancers, and Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater. She has written grants freelance for a number of dance and theater organizations, and has served as a consultant for fundraising on many independent projects.  While advocating for the arts, she continues to teach dance and perform throughout the city, as both a soloist and dance company member.  She is currently a member of the Dalia Carella Dance Collective and Sublime Dance Company, and has recently shown her own work at Dance New Amsterdam.  She is thrilled to be on the viBe staff, helping to empower girls to find themselves and explore new ideas through performance!

Andalusia Knoll viBeGirlsRadio Program Director

Andalusia Knoll is a multimedia journalist, popular educator and
organizer. She is a a program director with Brooklyn based VibeGirls Radio, a producer with the national Criminal Justice Dialogue Project Thousand Kites,  and a freelance journalist who has reported for various news outlets including Democracy Now! Free Speech Radio News, and TeleSUR. She is in love with that little box of technology known as the radio and has conducted  bilingual radio and video trainings with youth and social justice organizations across the United States and Latin America. When she’s not producing or teaching radio you can catch her riding her bike on the streets of Brooklyn.

rebecca mushtare Web Designer/Web Mistress
Rebecca is a digital media artist and a Communication Arts faculty member at Marymount Manhattan College. She earned her MFA in Computer Art from and her CAS in Women’s Studies at Syracuse University.  Visit her virtual homestead: http://www.cyberthread.net.