Dogteam Theatre Project
Auditions and interviews for Building Summer 2026
Thursday 2/19 4:45-6:30pm
and Friday 2/20 4:30-6:00pm
Project dates: June 8-21, 2026, Middlebury, VT.
Housing, meals & a stipend provided for a cohort of 16 Midd students.
Auditions/Interviews are open to all Middlebury students and will be held in MAC 232 and 340.
Video auditions and/or remote interviews can be arranged for interested students who are unable to attend in person.
**Info session about The DogteamTheatre Project**
Thursday 2/19 at 4:30pm MAC 232
The Dogteam Theatre Project, now in its fourth season, is a professional theatre company structured around a series of building and producing summers, with the former dedicated to script development and training and the latter to rehearsing and producing 2 plays in rep in NYC. For this Building summer, we will welcome 12-16 students to join professional theatre makers for a two-week residency dedicated to script development and advanced training for actors, directors, designers, technicians, playwrights, and stage managers. The building summer culminates in public showings that will include design presentations and readings from new scripts and works in translation being considered for future professional productions.
Actors, directors and playwrights: Auditions/interviews will be held in MAC 232. Please sign up here.
Designers, stage managers, and technicians: interviews will be held in MAC 340. Please sign up here.
What to prepare:
All interested students should bring a resume to the auditions/interviews.
- Actors, please prepare a 1-minute monologue.
- Playwrights need to have taken Playwriting 1 and/or bring in a short writing sample.
- Directors will have ideally taken Directing 1 or have directed a project, but can also use this opportunity to learn more about directing.
- Designer/technicians and stage managers should bring in a portfolio if they have one.
Scripts currently under consideration:
Untitled OAKWOOD project. (8-10 roles)
Alum Lucas Kavner ’06.5 will workshop a new script drawn from his fascination with Oakwood, a North Hollywood apartment complex that houses young performers and their guardians during brief, hopeful stays in Los Angeles. Around the kids linger the half-permanent residents of a transient industry: an aging acting coach, a struggling actress who never left, college kids drawn by the cheap rent and dorm-like atmosphere. In Oakwood, nearly everyone is passing through, and nearly everyone is under pressure—to succeed, to belong, and to make the sacrifices mean something.
Disquiet, by Ivan Vyrypaev (6 roles)
In the Manhattan penthouse of reclusive, Nobel-nominated writer Ula Richte, a carefully staged interview with a Polish journalist is meant to cement her legacy. With her agent and lawyer steering every word, the evening begins under tight control—until the script falls apart. What follows is an unguarded reckoning with the dark side of success, the cost of denying one’s roots, and the fierce, exhilarating courage it takes to tell the truth.
For more info on Dogteam, visit our (soon to be updated) site:https://www.dogteam.org/
If you have questions, please reach out to Alex, Olga, Mark, or Todd, or feel free to contact one of the recent Dogteam alums listed below.
Alex Draper (adraper@middlebury.edu)
Olga Sanchez Saltveit (osanchezsaltveit@middlebury.edu)
Mark Evancho (evancho@middlebury.edu)
Todd Cannedy (tcanedy@middlebury.edu)
Hannah Alberti (halberti@middlebury.edu)
Alex Garcia (alejandrag@middlebury.edu)
Evan Berger (eeberger@middlebury.edu)
Ramyn Zhang (zhixunz@middlebury.edu)
Group photo of Dogteam 2025 company
What we do
The Dogteam Theatre Project provides transformative experiences for emerging and professional artists, creating meaningful theatrical engagements for diverse audiences. Among its programs, the Dogteam Theatre Project provides training opportunities for emerging theatre artists in all realms of the field, including but not limited to acting, directing, playwriting, and design disciplines. The Dogteam Theatre Project produces theatrical works, including works in translation, reflecting the stories of our more connected world.
Among our programs, we provide training opportunities for emerging theatre artists in all realms of the field:
- Acting
- Directing
- Playwriting
- Design & Technology
Structure
We operate on a calendar of alternating Building Summers and Producing Summers.
Building Summers
Building summers are dedicated to pre-professional training for student actors, designers, producers, playwrights, stage managers, technicians, and directors; script development workshops for plays in translation in which the students would be joined by 3-5 professional actors; and outreach programs folding in high school students from Middlebury Union High School.
Producing Summers
Producing summers begin with three weeks of rehearsals in Middlebury followed by a 5-week run, during which the company presents two productions in rep at Atlantic Stage 2 in NYC.
The first Building Summer is June 13-24, 2023.
The Team
Alex Draper
Co-Artistic and Producing Director
Alex Draper is a founding member of The Dogteam Theatre Project and Co-Artistic Director. As a professional stage, film and television actor, his twenty-five-year career includes performing with the Mabou Mines in Paris, France, filming the Bollywood extravaganza Kalapani in the Andeman Islands, and appearing in the New York premieres of Dare Clubb’s Obie Award-winning Oedipus, starring Billy Crudup and Frances McDormand, Erin Courtnry’s A Map of Virtue, the Presnyakov Brothers’ Terrorism, Neil Simon’s Rose’s Dilemma and Phillip Ridley’s The Pitchfork Disney. Regional work includes productions at Arena Stage, Yale Rep, the McCarter, Williamstown, the Westport Playhouse, the Huntington, and the Berkshire Theatre Festival. Film and television credits include: No Pay, Nudity (upcoming),Yellowbrickroad (Best Feature, New York Horror Film Festival), Joshua, Hysterical Blindness, Simply Irresistible, The Photographer, Hard Shell, John Adams, The Good Wife, Sex and the City, Law and Order, Law and Order SVU, Law and Order: CI, Suddenly Susan, Ed, and Dellaventura. He received his BA from Middlebury, and his MFA from the Yale School of Drama, where he was the recipient of the Oliver Thorndike Acting Award.
Olga Sanchez Saltveit
Co-Artistic and Producing Director
Olga Sanchez Saltveit is Artistic Director Emerita for Milagro, the Pacific Northwest’s premier Latinx arts & culture organization, following her service as the company’s Artistic Director from 2003-2015. She is an actor, director, devisor, and arts activist, whose work has been seen throughout the US and in Peru, Venezuela, Honduras, and Cuba. Olga served as co-artistic director of the People’s Playhouse in New York City, artistic director of Seattle Teatro Latino, and co-founder of La Casa de Artes, a Seattle-based non-profit organization dedicated to celebrating the beauty of Latinx arts and cultural heritage. Her ¡O ROMEO! received a Portland Drama Critics’ DRAMMY award for Outstanding Achievement in Devised Work, and her Como Agua para Chocolate (Like Water for Chocolate) was nominated for several BroadwayWorld awards, including Best Direction. Olga served on the Executive Committee and the Diversity Task Force on the TCG (Theatre Communications Group) board of directors. She serves on the Advisory Committee of the Latinx Theatre Commons, in partnership with HowlRound Theatre Commons, Emerson College. Associations and affiliations include: Actors Equity Association, SAG-AFTRA, Society of Stage Directors and Choreographers, and the Association for Theatre in Higher Education. B.A., Theatre, Hunter College, C.U.N.Y.; M.A., Human / Bicultural Development, Pacific Oaks College; Ph.D., Theatre Arts, University of Oregon. Research interests include BIPOC theatre and activism, Latinx feminisms, and the commons.
Todd Canedy
Production Designer, Theatre - Company and Budget Manager, Dogteam Theatre
Mark Evancho
Resident Designer
Mark Evancho previously taught at Drew University, NJ, and at Allentown College, PA. Mark has designed for the New York Shakespeare Company, NYC; New Jersey Shakespeare Festival, NJ; Blue Light Theatre, NYC; Potomac Theatre Project, MD; Olney Theatre Center, MD; Pennsylvania Stage Company, PA; Bucks County Playhouse, PA; and The National Opera Co., NC. In the New England area, Mark has designed for Vermont Theatre Company, Burlington, VT; Creative Video/ CH12, Concord, NH; Lyric Theatre Co, Burlington, VT; and Lost Nation Theatre, Montpelier, VT. Mark attended Lester Polakov’s Studio & Forum of Stage Design, NYC; Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, PA; and graduated from Western Illinois University, and Baldwin-Wallace College, OH.
The Dogteam Theatre Project Fund
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