Michele Rubino, the founder and Executive Director of the Ahwatukee Children’s Theatre has been a performer and lover of the performing arts for years. Beginning at age 7, she was seen in a starring role in the off Broadway Production of “Really Rosie”. Throughout her childhood and adolescence she performed in all-county and all-state choirs and received gold and first place soloist awards at musical festivals in New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, Arizona and California . She was privileged enough to take private vocal lessons from Howard Bost for 5 ½ years as well as being able to work with Patricia Burch, Steven Pagano, Carol King and Maurice Sendak. She performed as leads and ensemble roles in dozens of productions. Some of her favorite roles include “Lola” from Damn Yankees, “Leisel “ from the Sound of Music and “Louise” in Carousel.

Michele decided she would rather be an educator than a performer and received a BA in child psychology and education from ASU in 1995. She also holds a minor in family studies, child development and Spanish. After graduating, Michele worked as a teacher, administrator and even a substance abuse counselor before her love for the arts called her once again. In 1997, she began teaching private vocal lessons after performing in a local community theatre production of “The Music Man”. She received such positive feedback from families and had so many requests for more performance opportunities for local children that she created the Ahwatukee Foothills Children’s Chorus in the spring of 1997. The chorus was such a success that she decided to quit her current job and focus on her true love of children and the performing arts. She founded the Ahwatukee Children’s Theatre in 1998 and has since produced almost 20 shows and has seen the theatre grow from 30 families to its current 250 families. In 2006 she worked on her biggest production yet, her son Mikey! She is honored and thrilled to be a part of such a wonderful organization and is happy as can be in their new home! She can’t wait to see what the future holds for her and the entire ACT family.

Michael Rubino assisted his wife Michele in founding ACT.  Besides being a local actor himself, and Zoni award nominee, Michael is integral in assisting with the technical side of the theatre.  You can see Michael doing everything from teaching, working on lighting or sound, building sets and even on stage himself every year as Scrooge!  During the day Michael is an ergonomic specialist, but he's lucky to be able to explore his passion for the arts in the evening and on weekends as well.  Michael assisted with the design of the new ACT building and is very excited to see himms vision come to life before his eyes!

Polly Beauchamp joined ACT in the Fall of 2003.  She grew up near Des Moines, Iowa, and enjoyed theatre and music in high school.  She graduated from Simpson College in 1985, where she also performed in theatre and majored in Elementary Education with an emphasis in theatre.  After moving to the Phoenix area in October of that year, she went into the corporate banking world, but still performed at her church in various functions.  Polly started at ACT doing voice lessons, and has since included teaching, directing Tweens, and directing plays.


Melissa Snow grew up in southern California where she had the opportunity to study with some of the greatest dance instructors in the country.  She was an apprentice in a regional ballet company at the age of 12.  She also was a member of Junior Dance Artists, a company that performed at numerous community and private functions in California.  While Melissa was studying dance, she also studied voice and took an interest in acting.  She became involved in theater at the age of 6 performing in Gypsy.  She studied acting and musical theater, and was involved in theater in high school performing in numerous plays and musicals.

When Melissa was 16, she successfully auditioned for Disneyland to be a parade performer.  She continued to work for the Disney Company for 6 years.  It was while she was at Disney that Melissa was given many opportunities to expand her performance career.  She filmed numerous television specials and commercials for the company and also did print work.  She culminated her career with Disney with two stage shows in which she was a principal dancer.

Melissa also dabbled in television working on such shows as Family Ties and Rags to Riches as a dancer.

While working Melissa attended college and received her certification in Early Childhood Development.

Melissa moved to AZ in 1992 and began teaching at Kimberly Lewis School of Dance.  She heads the tap department directing 4 award winning tap competition groups.  In 1999 Melissa was asked to help choreograph and direct The Ahwatukee Foothills Nutcracker Ballet.  This has become a highlight of the year for her.

In 2005 Melissa was approached by Michele to teach a musical theater dance class for ACT.  Melissa was happy to expand her work with children in the area and be able to return to her love of the theater.  Upon changes at the theater, Melissa was asked to choreograph for the Select Show Choir.  When it came time for the annual production of Christmas Carol, Melissa was thrilled to be given the opportunity to choreograph the musical.

Melissa always had an interest in working with children and is happy to be able to pass on her knowledge of the arts to the young talent she works with.  "The kids here in Ahwatukee are incredibly talented and seem to have an unending desire to learn and grow.  That is a choreographer's dream!"


Bailey Isenberg is a 16 year old Junior at Corona del Sol.  She has been with ACT for 8 years.  She has been taking private voice for 9 years and teaching it for two.  She has taken many classes with ACT including Musical Theatre Acting, Intermediate Musical Theatre Acting, Select Show Choir, and Musical Theatre Dance.  She has been in over 15 of ACT's musical productions including "Aladdin", "Music Man", "Footloose", "Grease" and "Bye, Bye Birdie".  She enjoys acting, singing, and dancing and hopes to continue it in her future!  She loves working with kids, especially little ones!  She is very dedicated and an extremely hard worker!


Katie Olawski has been with ACT ever since she was 8 years old and is now a college Freshman at Chandler Gilbert Community College.  Katie has participated in every class ACT has ever offered and volunteered her time helping with the Ahwatukee Children's Chorus before studying to teach voice lessons.  She was a member of ACT on Tour; a Broadway Touring Troupe, and many of your children may remember her as Cinderella in ACT's produciton of Cinderella, or most recently Sandy in ACT's summer produciton of Grease at the Herberger Theatre.  Katie has performed in every musical ACT has produced, except for one!  She has also assisted with sound and lighting in the productions she was not performing in.  In high school, Katie was active in Advanced Acting and Directing classes and was the teacher's assistant in that class for her senior year.  Currently she still learns about voice (and life) from Michele Rubino, and is adding to her knowledge of voice teaching techniques by studying the Seth Riggs method at The Voice Institute in Scottsdale and she will work towards her certification in Speech Level Singing with Seth RIggs.  She was privileged to be chosen from among hundreds of valley teens to participate in  Uniting Artists 2006; a charity variety show sponsored by The Voice Institute, whose proceeds benefited childhood cancer survivors through A Hand of Hope.  As Katie enters college, her major will be Elementary Education with a specialty in theatre.