The Young Shakespeareans
ALISON KORMAN Artistic Director / Founder
Alison is an entrepreneur and classically trained actor who, after working in Mexico and Senegal, returned to New York City's Metropolitan Opera and 92nd Street Y before founding her own arts management company, Korman+Company. During 25 years procuring and producing $5 million annually in still photography, she simultaneously performed off-Broadway and in various theatrical venues abroad. Living in Los Angeles since 1997, she has served as an Account Director for the Taproot Foundation, performed for hundreds of schoolchildren with the LA Assistance League’s Nine O’Clock Players, and began teaching Shakespeare to Title 1 elementary school children in South Los Angeles in 2009. She conceived the idea for The Young Shakespeareans Program in 2010, officially founded the organization in 2017, and has developed its curriculum in the conviction that unleashing the awareness and potential of Title 1 public school children transforms their lives while serving the broader community. Alison continues to perform in theatre, film and television. She received her degree in Special Education and Foreign Language from Washington University in St. Louis.
of John Adams Middle School
ARIEL HART
Ariel is an actor/writer who studied stilt walking, puppetry, and Commedia dell’Arte at the Friches Theater Urbain in Paris, completed the Meisner Training Program in San Francisco, and has trained at UCB and The Groundlings. She has performed on many stages throughout Los Angeles including with the LA Opera, starred opposite Natasha Lyonne in the film "All About Evil", and created and starred in a web series titled "Petunia P.I.". Ariel joined The Young Shakespeareans as a Teaching Artist in 2018 to inspire and empower others, and co-directed "A Midsummer Night’s Dream" at Nevin Avenue Elementary School, and was deep into a production of "Romeo & Juliet" with her Nevin students when COVID hit in Spring 2020.
