Board of Directors
Sharon D. Tolczyk, Artistic Director & Crozet Arts Co-Founder
Sharon Donohue Tolczyk previously taught ballet on the faculties of the Boston Ballet School, Walnut Hill School for the Arts (Natick, MA), Boston Ballet’s Children’s Summer Dance Workshop, Amherst Ballet Centre (MA), Schwarz School of Dance (Dayton, OH), Wright State University’s PRODANCE (Dayton, OH), Albemarle Ballet Theatre, and at the Greenwood Community Center. At Walnut Hill School, she was a member of the dance department’s ballet faculty, and Director of the Dance Extension Division and Summer Dance Workshop. Prior to her teaching career, Sharon danced with the Dayton Ballet Company and Peridance, a contemporary ballet company in New York City. While in Dayton, she also served as Ballet Mistress for the company and apprentice company, Dayton Ballet II. She has choreographed for the Amherst Ballet Theatre Company, Dayton Ballet II, Walnut Hill, and Albemarle Ballet Theatre. Sharon received her early training at the Princeton Ballet and in London, England. She studied at Walnut Hill School and the Amherst Ballet Centre during high school, and completed the Major Exams for the Royal Academy of Dancing, London, qualifying her as an Associate Member. After graduating from high school, she was a scholarship student for two years at the School of the Pennsylvania Ballet where she trained with Lupe Serrano and performed in the Pennsylvania Ballet’s Nutcracker. During her professional dancing career, she studied in New York City with Maggie Black, Marjorie Mussman, Benjamin Harkarvy, Larry Rhodes and others. She attended workshops with the Twyla Tharp and Paul Taylor dance companies. Since moving to Charlottesville in 1996, Sharon has studied art at PVCC with Chica Tenney, John Hancock, and Rebekah Wostrel, and at Mary Baldwin College with Sue Marion. She was a T.A. at Murray Elementary School, where she also served as Chair of the PTO’s Cultural Enrichment for three years, and was an Art Print volunteer. She is a member of the Phi Alpha Theta History Honor Society. She and her husband, Dariusz, a Professor in the Slavic Department at the University of Virginia, have two adult children, Adam & Aleksandra, and live in western Albemarle.
Carolyn Lawlor, Board Chair, retired in 2011 after 14 years as Head of School at The Free Union (VA) Country School, preschool through 5th grade. She served for five years on the Charlottesville/Albemarle Commission For Childen and Families and is now a Literacy Volunteer and a Certified Pet Therapy volunteer with her Australian Shepherd, Bentley, at The Kluge Rehabilitation Center for Children, UVA Hospital Coronary Care Unit and The Lodge at Old Trail. Carolyn moved to Charlottesville in 1997 and then to Batesville in 2006. She joined the Crozet Arts Board in 2014 and has served as Chair since 2015.
Suzanne Reid, Secretary, moved to Crozet after retiring from Emory & Henry College in southwest Virginia where she was an Associate Professor, teaching English and Education classes. Always an appreciative audience for the arts, she believes in the therapeutic qualities of a solid arts education to awake and maintain a sense of glory.
Justine Donnelly, Co-Treasurer (bio coming…)
Ellen Doyle, Co-Treasurer (bio coming…)
Sue Chase (bio coming…)
Elizabeth Nisos, a long-time resident of Charlottesville and owner of the company Mountain Masonry, practices the art of stone masonry, which she also taught at CATEC for 15 years. Also a hand percussionist, she is active in the local music and art scene and values Crozet Arts for the opportunities it can offer for a wider and more diverse audience.
Susan Otis-D’Aniello (bio coming…)
Advisors to the Crozet Arts Board:
Dr. Elizabeth Cantrell, “Dr. Beth,” is the Director of Suzuki Cello at Crozet Arts, in Residence at Crozet Arts. She teaches cellists of all ages throughout the US and the UK. She is very active with the Suzuki Association of the Americas, which reaches from Alaska to Patagonia, as a Registered Teacher Trainer, and as former Chair of its governing board. She has taught children and adults at Suzuki Institutes and workshops throughout the United States and abroad for over 30 years.
Locally, Dr. Beth maintains an active private studio at Crozet Arts. She performs as principal cellist of the Waynesboro Symphony, is a member of the Afton String Quartet, and plays regularly with groups throughout the region. She was, for many years, principal cellist for the Atlanta Ballet Orchestra, and was on the faculty of Kennesaw State University and Mary Baldwin University.
Dr. Cantrell earned degrees in cello performance and music history from the Oberlin Conservatory of Music, Florida State University, and the University of Georgia. Prior to moving to Virginia with her family in 2001, she was principal cellist for the Atlanta Ballet Orchestra, and was on the faculty of Kennesaw State University. She was active in the Atlanta area for 18 years as a teacher, chamber and orchestral performer, adjudicator, and recording studio musician.
Boomie Pedersen, Artistic Director and Co-founder of Hamner Theater, in residence at Crozet Arts, was born and raised in New York City and was for many years a professional-track scholarship student with the Joffrey Ballet. She gave up the dance to attend Princeton University, where she eventually majored in English and Theater and won the Frances LeMoyne Paige Prize at graduation for both theater and dance. She spent 10 years on and off in Tokyo, Japan, where she did professional voice-over work, ran Tokyo Theater for Children, was actor, director and board member for Tokyo International Players and wrote several commissioned pieces for Earth Day and other special events. She also taught English at several Tokyo colleges and worked with a group using drama to teach language skills, as well as doing a stint at Temple University as a theater teacher. Next came a brief 18 months in Los Angeles, where she was involved in the Asian Theater Lab and acted in the premiere performance of Widescreen Version of the World by Han Ong, as well as working with the Los Angeles Shakespeare Festival. When she relocated to Charlottesville in 1995, Boomie became involved at Live Arts both as an actor (Scrooge, Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf, Assassins, Edward the II, Copenhagen, Noises Off, Old Times) and a director (Three Tall Women, Buried Child, Play About the Baby, The Underpants, Glengarry Glen Ross). She also worked with the Nelson County Drama Foundation and mounted an outdoor production of Earl Hamner’s The Conflict at Mountain Cove Vineyard in 1998 and 1999. She has worked with Offstage Theater, Four County Players, Piedmont Virginia Community College, UVA’s Drama Department, Heritage Rep and Wintergreen Performing Arts. She taught theater at Renaissance School in Charlottesville for four years, served as an adjunct theater teacher at the Governor’s School in Fishersville and was adjunct professor of Acting and Directing at Randolph College in Lynchburg. Boomie lives in Crozet with three of her six children, a husband/theater collaborator and several cats and dogs. She has been Co-Artistic Director of the Hamner Theater with Peter Coy since the theater opened in 2005 and has directed and produced over a dozen productions there. She served as Artistic Director for the Earl Hamner Playwrights Conference (now the Virginia Playwrights’ Initiative) in 2006 and 2007 and continues in that capacity for the Virginia Playwrights and Screenwriters Initiative. She recently saw her long-time vision of theater collaboration come to fruition with the founding of the Central Virginia Theatre Alliance (CVTA) of which the Hamner is a founding member. Boomie recently completed her MFA in Pedagogy and Performance at VCU.
••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••
Crozet Arts Artistic Advisors (click here for bios):
Dr. Elizabeth Cantrell, Music
John A. Hancock, Art
Boomie Pedersen, Theatre
Elizabeth Roberts, Music
Sharon D. Tolczyk, Dance
••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••
Past Board Members:
Mollie Washburne, Crozet Arts Co-Founder
Mollie Washburne holds a B.A. in Journalism and Theater from Indiana University, Bloomington. A lifelong ballet enthusiast and supporter, Mollie began her dance training at the Montgomery School of Ballet in Alabama and danced with the Montgomery Civic Ballet, under the direction of Audrey Gryder and Duane Dishion. She went on to train with George Verdak, formerly of the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo, and with Jürgen Pagels at Indiana University. She also studied at the Briansky Ballet Center and was a scholarship student with the Joffrey Ballet in New York City. Mollie and her husband, Jake, retired General Registrar for Albemarle County, have lived in Crozet with their three children, Spalding, Ben, and George, since 1988. Mollie established the Art Print program at Brownsville Elementary School and has taught ballet at the Lexington School of Ballet (Virginia) and more recently at Albemarle Ballet Theatre. She is the Managing Editor of New Literary History, a journal of theory and interpretation at the University of Virginia.
Laura Allen
Elizabeth Aronson (Secretary)
Lee Ann Bass Barber (Secretary)
Bobbie (Roberta) Dill (Co-Treasurer)
Leslie Dudley
Kacie-Linn Engle
Lisa Goehler
Emily Mora
Melissa Morrison (Chair)
Mary Scott Neisser
Linda L. Parker
Vasantha Reddi
Jessica Sever