Camp Instructors
Hannah Brown
Hannah Brown’s lifelong love of teaching began at age 15 when she had the opportunity to assistant teach a dance class and she was hooked!
Hannah is thrilled to be returning to The Historic Elitch Theatre after co-producing the inaugural summer camp with Roberta Hamilton-Griggs, and performing In The Secret Garden here in 2024!
She has choreographed more than 20 musicals and taught numerous musical theatre dance workshops and summer camps throughout Denver.
Hannah studied vocal performance at the Lamont School of Music at the University of Denver where her passion for performing turned to a career in teaching. She found a home alongside Roberta working in the after school theatre program at St. Mary’s Academy. During her 17 years there some of her favorite shows were Peter and the Starcatcher, Beauty and the Beast, Seussical, the Musical, The Wizard of Oz, Little Women and The Little Mermaid!
Hannah has also taught with Performing Arts Academy and is currently choreographing Mary Poppins for the Wesley Players 25th Anniversary Season. She is a co-founder of Theatre Source for Kids and developed a theatre curriculum for preschools using fairy tales and children’s literature to teach beginning theatre concepts and introduce children to the magic of theatre.
Hannah has performed with numerous theatre companies including Performance Now Theatre Company, The Aurora Fox, and she most recently performed on the Historic Elitch Theatre stage in The Secret Garden.
As her passion for movement and health evolved, Hannah received her Bachelor of Science in Human Nutrition & Dietetics and is working toward her teaching certification in Essentrics.
She is grateful to her husband, Doug and her son, Hudson for all their love and support!
Roberta Hamilton-Griggs
Roberta Hamilton-Griggs has been performing in and directing musicals, plays, commercials, and operas since she was a child in her backyard, telling her sisters where to move and how to sing.
Some of her favorite performances have been Audrey in Little Shop of Horrors, Viola in David Amram’s opera, Twelfth Night (conducted by David Amram), Maggie in A Chorus Line, Laetitia in Menotti’s Old Maid and the Thief, and Mother in Night, Mother. Memorable performance experiences include working as a singing telegram artist (ask her about having Ben Vereen sing to her while she was wearing a yellow bird costume!) and busking on the streets of Europe for three months with her soon-to-be husband, Patrick Griggs.
Roberta has enjoyed a career of performing and developing amazing life-long friendships at Littleton Town Hall Arts Center, Country Dinner Playhouse, The Arvada Center, Boulder’s Dinner Theatre, and Aspen’s Crystal Palace.
She has also directed and produced well over 100 plays, musicals and operas including Starmites, Seussical, the Musical, Fiddler on the Roof, Peter and the Starcatcher, Beauty and the Beast, and Little Women, the Musical.
Just last fall, Roberta had the honor of directing and producing the first major musical back to the Historic Elitch Theatre stage after a 33 year hiatus: The Secret Garden. Since the last major musical on this stage was the 1991 production of The Robber Bridegroom, in which she performed, the completion of this full circle makes her very happy. With a master’s degree in vocal performance and pedagogy from The University of Denver Lamont School of Music, Roberta founded the Ensemble Experience and has taught in private and public schools during her fulfilling career as a performing arts educator. Though she still teaches private acting, singing and audition lessons for people ages 7-77, Roberta has exited the classroom to explore other facets of life: In the fall of 2022, Roberta joined the board of the Historic Elitch Theatre, and by the spring of 2023, she took on the Artistic Director role for The Wesley Players Theatre Company (www.wesleyplayers.com). She is also co-founder of The Performing Arts Academy, EyesofWonderJourneys.com, and TheatreSourceforKids.com, the producing company behind the Historic Elitch Theatre Summer Camps–now in our second year!
She could not be more thrilled to join her two good friends, Jeff and Hannah, in developing this exciting summer program and she believes that Mary Elitch welcomes these campers with open arms–just as she always welcomed the little children who enjoyed her gardens over 130 years ago!
Jeff LaGreca
Jeff LaGreca has studied and worked with Amy Poehler, Tina Fey, Jeff Richmond, (30 Rock, The Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt, Second City) Adam McKay, (Anchorman, The Big Short) Todd Stashwick, (12 Monkeys) Mick Napier,(The Annoyance Theater, Chicago) Matt Besser (Improv4Humans), Matt Walsh (VEEP), Ian Roberts, (Upright Citizens Brigade) Gary Austin, (The Groundlings) Hilary Stern, (The Groundlings) Tom Chalmers, Tom Bolster, Gotham City (Groundlings East) , Armando Diaz (The Magnet, UCB) Kevin Mullaney, (Upright Citizens Brigade), David Fino (Brooklyn Puppet Collective), Ali Faranakhian, (SNL, The PIT), Jay Rhoderick (Second City, Burn Manhattan), and Kevin Scott, (Second City, Centralia). Jeff is a writer/creator of Minimum Wage, an a cappella musical, which had an Off-Broadway run at the Bleecker Street theater in association with The Lion King producers, Aruba Productions. Minimum Wage made its stage debut at the New York Fringe festival where it received the Producer’s Award and “Outstanding Musical Comedy ” by BackStage magazine. In Montreal, Minimum Wage was seen as part of the St. Ambroise Fringe Theater Festival and in Dallas at the WaterTower Theater.
Jeff has taught theater and music regularly with companies like Broadway Classroom, an educational program that lets middle school and high school students work on their craft alongside working Broadway & Theater professionals. He was with the prestigious 52nd Street Project in New York City, where he taught, performed and made foam-core sets. He did four years with the Centre Stage program with Queens Theater in the Park, a playmaking program that teaches young people to write and perform their own work, from inception to production. The past three years, he has worked for Swallow Hill Music Association, developing their summer theater/music camps and collaborating with the students on creating original musical works. In Los Angeles, he taught and directed youth programs with YADA, the Youth Academy of Dramatic Arts.
Jeff most recently directed the world premiere of a new rock opera, The Android’s New Soul, which is nominated for 10 Broadwayworld Awards of which he is also Co-Book Writer. He has directed The Gargoyle Garden (Fringe NYC Excellence Award), Minimum Wage, (Excellence Award winner), Lysistrata Raps, Little Cool Papa Little Bell and 95% Chance They’ll Wind Up Like Larva for the NYC Fringe Festival as well as numerous short films, sketch, corporate, regional and improv shows. He has taught privately and at Broadway Classroom, Gotham City Improv, Voodoo Comedy Theater and Queens Theater in the Park.
He wrote a contemporary re-telling of Prokofiev’s (The Trial of) Peter and the (Were) Wolf for the Astoria Symphony and was also commissioned by them to adapt his children’s story, The Gargoyle Garden into a children’s opera which had its premiere at the Bleecker Street Theater in NYC. In association with the Gentile Entertainment Group, he wrote the book and lyrics to Bijou and the Bots, a new children’s musical being developed for theatrical production in New York.
He completed work on his first full length YA novel and is working on his second, has written for the U.N. comic book, Earth Defenders, and has two comic books in the works, Deadstone Tales and Burger Boy Adventures. He’s had stories published in Birdy Magazine (Elfland Stories) and Wide Awake Press (Hideously Heinous.)
Online, Jeff created the Quarantine Mystery Theater, (a horror anthology radio show) and Simon & Simone (an educational children’s program. He also runs an event company, Nerdorriffic, is a cofounder of DiNK, the Denver Independent Comic Expo and played in the nerd rock bands, Daenerys and the Targaryens and H2Awesome!
NEW YORK THEATER: Minimum Wage, “666” “The 13 Hallucinations of Julio Rivera.” NAT’L TOUR: Bye, Bye Birdie. LOS ANGELES: Silence, The Musical. REGIONAL: La Mancha, Guys & Dolls, Drowsy Chaperone, Up On The Roof, West Side Story. UCB & The Groundlings.