Katie Pees Arber, a speech and debate coach, announced at Young@Art that she will be the new theatre director next school year. She has high expectations and big plans for the students next year for what they can accomplish.

“I’m most excited about getting to know the students here and seeing where they are in their creativity, learning, training, and getting them to that new exciting level of performance,” Pees Arber said.

Pees Arber is an Oakwood alumnae and has been teaching and directing shows for the past 15 years after graduating from Otterbein University with a degree in Musical Theater. She later headed to New York to perform professionally. Although it will be hard to coach speech and debate kids and conduct the theater kids as the new director, Pees Arber is confident that with the help from her students and teachers, she will be able to pull it off. She has many plans for next year. 

“For the fall play, we’re going to do a huge fundraiser, a “Mad Hatter Tea Party” and then for the musical, we plan on doing a costume contest as well as another community partnership with the University of Dayton Men’s Basketball,” Pees Arber said.

Pees Arber also announced the two shows for the next spring musical and fall play at Young@Art. The fall play will be “Alice in Wonderland” and the spring musical will be “The Addams Family”.