OUR TEAM

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SARAH AZCARATE | Founder & Artistic Director

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Sarah was born and raised in Southern California with an early love for music and local theatre. Her participation in musical theatre began a lifelong devotion to songwriting. At the age of 16, Sarah began recording professionally in Nashville, TN. Sarah’s latest releases were recorded in Los Angeles, along with her most recent single "Room For Love".

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Having founded the Altadena Music Theatre after moving to Altadena during the height of the pandemic, Sarah hopes to bring the community together, and inspire each other with a love and appreciation for the arts. www.sarahpetrella.com

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OLIVER AZCARATE | Director, HAIR and Cabaret

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Oliver Ixora Azcarate, ‘Aquarius’, is a screenwriter, playwright, and director who fondly calls Altadena, California home. He first fell in love with Hair at 12 years old, watching his mother perform in community theater and university productions of Hair in the San Francisco Bay Area, and now gets to realize a lifelong dream of producing and directing the musical himself.
Oliver is of Jewish and Colombian descent and is presently writing and producing a tv series that follows two families from 1986 to present day affected by the war on drugs and narcotrafficking. He’d like to thank theater director Sharon Boucher for her past and present mentorship, his wife Sarah Petrella-Azcarate for bringing her vision of the arts and live theatre
to all of us in the community, and the amazing freedom of expression-loving revolutionaries who dedicated their time, talent, sweat and soul to bring this beautiful show to life! Yip-yip-yippie!!!

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CHRIS WADE | Musical Director, HAIR and Cabaret

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Chris Wade is tripping his ass off that he’s doing HAIR with a groovy new theater right in his backyard! A resident of Pasadena, Chris is a music writer, producer, arranger, accompanist, music director, singer, and business owner in LA and NYC. Vocal Producer/Arranger: (via RAISE) REVIVE LA (current) AGT’s Game of Talents 2021, Oprah Tour & Daybreaker 2020, BMG Music, CW’s Christmas Caroler Challenge 2020. 

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TV/Commercials: Miracle Workers, Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade (Toys R Us), GEICO, LinkedIn, Comedy Central (all via #TheAccidentals), Letterman, 30 Rock, KFC, Mazda. Music Director/Accompanist: Curtis Theater, Sierra Rep, Children’s Acting Academy, RUSD, Valley Opera Performing Arts. 

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Original Musicals: www.29livestheseries.com (airing!), 29LIVES (13th St Rep, Arthur Seelen Theater - NYC, The Lex Hollywood), Such Sweet Sorrow (Fox Theater Riverside/Live Nation/RUSD, Theater for the New City NYC) 

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Cruise ships: HAL & Carnival (lead singer), P&O & NCL (pianobar). 

Education: , BMI Musical Theatre Workshop (Composer), Wagner College, CLU, LACHSA 

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www.chriswademusic.com IG @chriswademusicproductions @cw29lives 

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MELISSA SCHADE | Choreographer, HAIR and Cabaret

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Melissa Schade is a Los Angeles based choreographer. With work ranging from stage to screen, her movement tells stories, excites audiences, and brings music to life. Schade choreographs for the masses, and enjoys working with performers of any age, size, shape, color, gender or ability.  Some of her favorite projects include choreographing for Nike, Arcade Fire, Cover Girl, Benjamin Booker, Comedy Central, Fiat, and Vivienne Westwood just to name a few. Melissa also assists her mentor Ryan Heffington and recently flew to New Orleans to set 3 drag numbers for the reboot of Queer as Folk.

 

Schade is also a movement director. She collaborates with creative teams, working closely alongside directors and performers to realize the physical life of a work or production.  Some of her favorite jobs include Vogue, Vogue Italia, Vogue China, Harper's Bazaar, Vanity Fair, Apple Music, Samsung, and Abercrombie and Fitch working alongside world renowned photographers like Ryan McGinley and Tommy Dorfman. 

 

Melissa teaches contemporary, ballet, jazz, tap, and modern all over the United States to students whose experience ranges from beginner to professional. Over the past 22 years, some of her favorite faculty positions have included Ryan Heffington’s The Sweat Spot, Harvard-Westlake Middle School, and LA Contemporary Dance Company Summer Intensive. She holds a BFA in Dance from the University of Arizona.

 

Schade is also an entertainer, live events, shows at nightclubs, parties, variety shows, and immersive dance theatre experiences are some of the many ways Melissa loves to entertain. Melissa choreographs and curates some of the wildest and most well attended events in LA, chock-full of dance, theater, and music.  Recently she wrote and directed a quarantine film about the East LA dance community and beloved dance studio the Sweat Spot, called "Hey, it's me, Meliss! THE MOVIE."