People

Irene Miller—Director
Text Box: Irene Miller has been involved in theatrical productions since 1970 . Her experience ranges from acting in theatre, opera, film and commercials, to doing puppetry, teaching acting classes and directing plays. She has a degree in Theater and Communication Arts from the University of Iowa. Mrs. Miller is a founder of Crystal Sea Drama Company along with Marla Ripps. Since 2001 Mrs. Miller has taught acting to students in elementary, middle school and high school. She has also directed ten plays during that time period. Some of these shows include Little Women of Orchard House, Help Wanted, This is a Test, Shakespeare!, and A Century of Broadway. Some of the roles that she has performed are Elizabeth Proctor in The Crucible, Marian in The Music Man, Mary Contrary in Babes in Toyland, Elma Duckworth in Bus Stop, and Winifred the Woebegone in Once Upon a Mattress. Other shows in which she has performed include Godspell, 110 in the Shade, Madame Butterfly, West Side Story, Tartuffe, My Fair Lady, and Don Pasquale. She has a wide range of experience with all ages of students as she has nine children of her own, with 16 years between the youngest and the oldest, all of whom she has homeschooled throughout their school years. She was married in 1982 to Larry Miller, a safety engineer and now a board member for CSDC.

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Victor Lamphier—Technical Advisor
Text Box: Victor Lamphier has been married since 1971 to Claudette, and they have one child, Autumn.  His love for the theatre came in the third grade when his class took a weekend field trip to London where he saw his first professional play.  His fascination with the technical aspects of the theatre led to many years as a tech/actor and spending long hours working backstage where his teachers could always find him when he did not show up for class--not that he recommends anyone else do that!!  He became a Thespian in 1969; however, community theatre as well as school productions took a backseat when his artistic abilities led to many one-man shows in various community art galleries.  He joined the military in 1970, holding several AGSC's during his career, ending as one of the few military medical illustrators in the Air Force.  He retired in 1995 and was taking his retirement very seriously until he joined Crystal Sea Drama Company in the spring of 2004.

Marla Ripps—Tech Director
Text Box: Marla Ripps is actually a civil engineer who received her bachelor’s degree from Texas A&M. After marrying Gerald Ripps and having 2 boys, she was led by the Lord to begin homeschooling in 1991. She began to work for FEAST in 1993 where she organized and ran their co-op from January 2000 to July 2004. Because of her love of theatre which began in the late 1960’s with Fiddler on the Roof (as performed by Centenary College’s theatre department in Shreveport, LA), she co-founded CSDC at FEAST with Irene Miller in 2002. Marla became the Tech Director by default since at that time there wasn’t anyone else who could run the sound board. Her true love and gift, however, is designing and creating costumes. Teaching the CSDC students all aspects of technical theatre comes a close second. Some of Marla’s other talents include teaching chemistry and financial classes for AACE, Inc., more affectionately know as Friday School.

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