Harriton Theater coaches are drawn from Philadelphia’s theater community and provide coaching for performance, technical, and business aspects of theater.
Dani Tapper: Director
Dani Tapper is an award winning composer/lyricist. Earlier in her career, under the stage name Dani B, Dani recorded and released several original children’s albums and performed hundreds of concerts around the country. More recently, Dani has focused on musical theatre, composing three original musicals: Class Reunion, Brilliant, (nominated for Best Off Broadway musical 2021) and Cool at Camp which she is presently touring throughout New Jersey, New York, and Pennsylvania. Before joining the team at Harriton, Dani was the theatre Director at Jack Barrack Hebrew Academy and at Shipley’s Lower School, where she founded their program. She is so grateful for this opportunity to work with such talented, independent, and creative kids
Jeff Smith: Music Director
Jeff is very excited to work with HTC’s cast and production teams on their musicals! He has music directed and/or performed in the pit orchestra for theatre companies all around the Delaware Valley, including PCS Theater, Media Theater, Footlighters Theatre, Penn Players (University of Pennsylvania), and the Lower Merion and Lower Moreland school districts. Favorite past productions include The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee (HTC), Into the Woods, Fiddler on the Roof, Newsies, Legally Blonde, Once on this Island, RENT, Godspell, and A Gentleman’s Guide to Love & Murder. In August 2024, PCS Theater presented A Midsummer Night’s Dream set at Woodstock with Jeff’s original music, and in January 2025, PCS Theater will present Network with Jeff’s original incidental music. He has served as a Staff Accompanist for the musical theatre program at Rider University and has played close to 300 gigs with his jazz combo (www.jazz180.com). Jeff serves on the Board of Directors and Finance Committee for Theatre Horizon, a professional not-for-profit theatre company in Norristown.
Mary Fishburne: Costumes Coach
Mary Fishburne is thrilled to return to HTC this year! She recently moved to Narberth with her family. Before that, she was in Charleston, SC where she founded the educational branch of the Village Repertory Playhouse and directed/musically directed/choreographed three shows a year for their teenage/advanced group. As an actor, Fishburne has worked throughout the country performing in musicals and plays. Administratively, Mary worked at the York Theatre in New York, an off-Broadway company, as well as Footlight Players in Charleston, SC. As a composer/lyricist/playwright, Fishburne has written a musical, Boundless, that is being performed at high schools throughout the country this fall with an upcoming spring workshop in NYC. Mary holds a B.A. from Vanderbilt University with a double major in Vocal Performance and Human Organizational Development and a Masters (M.A.) from Temple University in Musical Theatre Studies.
Micah Wagman: Technical Director
Micah Wagman is a graduate of Harriton High School and a former member of HTC and is super excited to be back and supporting HTC as the technical director. Micah graduated from Bloomsburg University in 2020 with a theater minor and is glad he’s able to put that to use. Micah had been acting in local community theater at Old Academy Players in several one acts and as Adam Kent in their production of A Rainbow Holiday. He is thrilled to be back at Harriton and get to work with such amazing and creative students!