Staff
Jerry Sipp - Producing Artistic Director
North Carolina director, actor and educator Jerry Sipp has been appointed as The Justice Theater Project’s (JTP) Artistic Director. Sipp will be the company’s second artistic director.
A veteran professional theatre artist, Sipp has served as Producing Artistic Director for Temple Theatre in Sanford, The Playhouse Theatre in Rocky Mount and Granville Little Theatre in Oxford. Sipp is the co-founder of Trio Productions, a professional touring educational theatre with an 18-year touring history across the U.S. and Scotland. He has directed well over 100 productions and performed in over 100 shows. Sipp is a member of Actor's Equity Association, the union of professional stage actors in the U.S. He served for three years as a member of the Board of Directors of the NC Theatre Conference. Sipp has also seen 12 of his original scripts produced and has won several awards for his playwriting.
For JTP, he has directed the musicals Ragtime and Grey Gardens, played the lead role of Mitch Albom in Tuesdays with Morrie and has worked with JTP as their 2017-2018 season-long producer of A Soldier’s Play (October, 2017), Black Nativity (December, 2017), and Bent (February 2018) to critical acclaim. He directed JTP’s June 2018 musical Oliver! and performed the role of Fagin. In 2019 he directed the critically acclaimed Sweat. 2020 found Jerry reprising for film his one man show “Shadows,” based on the life of Robert Louis Stevenson.
Matara Hitchcock - Executive Producer
Matara Hitchcock is a practitioner and strategist passionate about creating stories that connect and inspire. Hitchcock hit the ground running in the Triangle theatre scene, having worked with PlayMakers Repertory Company, Burning Coal Theatre Company, Vault Theatre, and Sweet Tea Shakespeare in artistic and administrative capacities since moving to the area in September 2022. While getting her MBA and MA in Theatre & Performance Studies at the University of Colorado Boulder, she worked for the Colorado Shakespeare Festival for four years. Recent traditional acting credits include Viola ("Shakespeare in Love"), Lucy et. al ("The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe"), Chloe ("Arcadia"), Beatrice ("Much Ado About Nothing"), Agnes ("She Kills Monsters"), Claudius/Polonius/others ("Hamlet"), Dina ("The Dead Man"), Syme ("Thursday"), Lady Katherine ("Falstaff in Love"), and Miss Havisham ("Great Expectations"). She was a swing for Colorado Shakespeare's productions of "Two Gentlemen of Verona," "The Book of Will," and "Charles III."
Hitchcock was a founding and resident artist of the CU Playback Ensemble, focused on creating space for dialogue amongst communities in conflict and directing workshop participants and audience members towards increased agency and avenues for active change. She learned to devise with l'Atelier de Théâtre in Orléans, France, where she helped create the show "Trans-borders." Her immersive credits include "Information for Foreigners" and "A Dickens Experience" in Denver. In Spring 2022, her play "A Book of Modern Prayer" debuted with the CU New Play Festival, where she was previously a committee member. Hitchcock was a McDermott Scholar at the University of Texas at Dallas, where she studied media, opera, and alternative storytelling. She is particularly passionate about creating sustainable labor systems for professional and semi-professional artists and is excited to explore how data-driven innovation can make participating in the local theatre ecosystem more feasible for regional artists.
Marguerite LeBlanc - Business Manager
Marguerite is an avid JTP supporter, a former Board of Directors Executive Committee member, and former Chairperson of the Development Committee. Marguerite earned a B.S. degree in Political Science from Wilkes University in Wilkes-Barre, PA and an MBA from Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, OH.
Melissa Reilly (Theater Administrator)
Melissa graduated from Muhlenberg College, Allentown, PA with a BA in Human Resources and Psychology. She has lived in Raleigh, NC for 25 years with her husband and two children, ages 20 and 22. Melissa has worked with JTP for the past 4 years assisting the Artistic Director and Managing Director doing administrative work for all productions and camps. Some of her responsibilities include issuing contracts and collecting actor bios, ticket sales, and camp registration and payment. Melissa’s contributions to JTP continue to grow over time and she has proven to be a valuable staff member, ensuring things function smoothly behind the scenes for JTP.
Sara Thompson -
Community Engagement Coordinator:
Sara Thompson is excited to share her nerdy interest in the cultural and historical contexts of theatre productions (both the contemporary context of when a play was written and the current world in which it is produced). She holds a PhD in Theatre and Performance Studies from the University of Maryland, where she wrote her dissertation on alternative Shakespeare companies and methods of attracting the postmodern hipster audience demographic. Sara has an MA in Shakespeare Studies from the Shakespeare Institute in Stratford-upon-Avon, England, and BAs in Theatre, English, and History from UNC-Greensboro. A cultural historian, her research interests extend beyond theatre history and Shakespeare to the production of cultural capital, audience and reception studies, and interpersonal and intercultural communication. Her other passion is helping folks become more confident and authentic speakers, which she does online as That Presentation Coach (she’s on Instagram and TikTok @thatpresentationcoach). As a dramaturg in Raleigh, she has worked for JTP, Raleigh Little Theatre, Burning Coal Theatre Company, and the Women’s Theatre Festival. Further afield, she has dramaturged with the Georgia Shakespeare Festival in Atlanta and Triad Stage in Greensboro, as well as in the Washington, DC area on productions of The Matchmaker, Moliere, Impromptu, and Troilus and Cressida. Sara is the Resident Dramaturg for JTP and spends her daytime hours as the Communications and Program Development Manager for Habitat for Humanity of North Carolina and the social media manager for her dog Linda’s thriving Instagram account (@LindainHR).
Juan Isler - Resident Sound Designer
Juan is a music business graduate of Winston-Salem State University. He has experience on and behind the stage. His acting ability was seen in The Wiz (Burning Coal Theatre), Porgy and Bess (JTP) Memphis (Raleigh Little Theatre) and Ain't Misbehavin' (NRACT). His sound design was heard in Bent (JTP) King Charles III (Burning Coal) Blood Done Sign My Name (RLT) and Ain't Misbehavin' (NRACT).
Slee Arnold - Marketing and Communications
Olivia Allen - Artistic and Administrative Associate
Olivia is excited to make her return to live theatre in her hometown, Raleigh. She graduated with a BFA in Directing from Emory & Henry College in 2019. Some of her favorite stage management credits include Eurydice, Cabaret (E&H), and The Lion King Jr (The Dreamland Stage Company). Her favorite directing projects include RENT: School Edition at Seattle Children’s Theatre (asst. director), No Exit, and Rodgers and Hammerstein’s State Fair (E&H). Before moving back to Raleigh, she interned at Georgia Ensemble Theatre where she served as the assistant director for their productions of Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, Night Must Fall, and Leading Ladies.
