Meet the VHRP LIVE! Production Team

Alyce Mott (Librettist, Artistic Director), founder of VHRP Live!

Alyce Mott is proud to have assembled this talented roster and showcase the exquisite music of Victor Herbert. She became a Herbert librettist in 1995 with Babes In Toyland in Avery Fisher Hall (Lincoln Center) for the Little Orchestra Society of New York and now has more than a dozen new Herbert librettos to her credit. Mott became a Herbert director with the composer’s Fortune Teller in 1998 in Alice Tully Hall for the Little Orchestra Society and a Herbert publisher (on-line digital original performance materials) in 2008 with the founding of VHSource, LLC. She enjoyed a fifteen year Herbert collaboration with the talented conductor, the late Dino Anagnost. Mott became a NYC producer with the highly successful first full reading in 100 years of Victor Herbert’s grand opera Natoma with full union orchestra. That event launched the Victor Herbert Renaissance Project LIVE! She remains the only producer to have presented both of Herbert’s operas in New York City: Natoma in 2014 and Madeleine in 2020. A member of the Dramatist Guild, Society of Directors and Choreographers, Actors Equity Association, and the Screen Actors Guild, Ms. Mott holds degrees from Bowling Green State University, Siena Heights University (MI) and the University of Michigan. alyce.mott@vherbert.com

Michael Thomas (Music Director/Pianist)

Michael Thomas is a founding member of VHRP Live! He has conducted The Fortune Teller, Naughty Marietta, The Serenade, The Princess Pat, Eileen, The Red Mill, The Enchantress, Orange Blossoms, Sweethearts and The Debutante. He was music director/pianist for Cyrano de Bergerac, Angeline and Her Tattooed Man, Art Is Calling for Me, Son of Dublin, Ladies First, and Falling In Love For 160 Years and the 2020 virtual concert Heart O’Mine. For the Village Light Opera Group, he recently conducted Candide and On The Twentieth Century. Conducting credits include Light Opera of New York’s productions of Herbert’s Eileen, Sweethearts and Romberg’s The New Moon. Other credits include work with Light Opera of Manhattan, National Music Theatre Network, Jekylls Island Musical Comedy Festival and the Clarence Brown Company. He has accompanied singers in concert at Merkin Concert Hall, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and the Great Hall of the Cooper Union.

Christine Hall (Choreographer)

Christine Wisner Hall now the Resident Choreographer of VHRP LIVE! is also a writer and director living between New York City and San Diego.

She choreographed the original production of R-E-S-P-E-C-T at Lamb’s Players Theatre in Coronado, CA (written and directed by Kerry Meads). For the Victor Herbert Renaissance Project in New York City she has choreographed The Red Mill and Mademoiselle Modiste. Other choreography credits include The Sound of Music, Ragtime, The Music Man and Carousel. She served as assistant director/choreographer for Ain’t Misbehavin’ and Tintypes at Maine State Music Theatre.

Christine has written and directed numerous spoken word pieces and choreographed multiple concert works for venues such as Alvin Ailey studios and the 92nd St Y. She has also served as a teaching artist with the acclaimed National Dance Institute and Lincoln Center in NYC. As Global Arts Coordinator for Worldwide Orphans Foundation she created arts programming for children and trained local teachers in Ethiopia, Bulgaria, Vietnam and Haiti to bring the affirming power of the arts to orphaned and vulnerable children.

William Hicks (Resident Pianist)

William Hicks (Pianist) has been with the Company since it’s second season, providing all accompaniment for the operettas and musical comedies. In 2020, he served as music director and pianist for the last live performance of the Company before the pandemic lock down, Herbert’s 1914 opera Madeleine. He has recorded 127 pieces by Victor Herbert for New World Records and has had a lifelong love affair with the music of this composer. He currently works as a freelance pianist, voice coach, teacher, and conductor in New York, having worked at many of the world’s leading opera houses and having collaborated with many of the world’s leading singers, including The Metropolitan Opera Company and Luciano Pavarotti www.williamhicksonline.com

Emily Cornelius (Choreographer Emeritus/Asst. Director)

Emily Cornelius is a founding member of the Creative Team. Past VHRP LIVE! choreography credits include The Debutante, Orange Blossoms, Eileen, The Serenade, Angeline and Her Tattooed Man, The Princess Pat, Art Is Calling For Me, and The Fortune Teller. Her directing credits with VHRP LIVE! include the 2020 virtual concert Heart O’Mine, Song of Dublin and Ladies First. Other directing credits include Candide, The Pirates of Penzance, Iolanthe, Carousel and Princess Ida with The Village Light Opera Group.