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

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The Young Shakespeareans

OUR TEACHING ARTISTS

SONYA SHEPHERD

Sonya is a credentialed LAUSD teacher as well as a professional actor with wide range of stage, film, and TV credits including Lion King (Broadway), Twelfth Night, Mule Bone, A Chorus Line, Big River, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, Shameless, This is Us, Scandal, and many others. She received a BA in Theatre and Communications from the University of Alabama at Birmingham. Sonya joined The Young Shakespeareans in 2018, co-directed and choreographed Romeo & Juliet, and is thrilled to combine her love of the Arts with her passion for educating youth.