meet the Musical Maniacs
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CREATED BY
Billy Betsill
Totally Made-up Musical creator Billy Betsill has been performing plays, musicals, and other scripted work for decades. His improv and theatre journeys started in middle school, when he reluctantly signed up for a theatre class at his mother's recommendation. He immediately fell in love with the spontaneity and creativity that improv required, and, along with acting and singing, he continued to do improv throughout school. Billy has had the privilege of performing with several organizations, including: Sesame Street, Keith & Margo’s Murder Mystery, Comedy Sportz, Meow Wolf, and several others. He has also performed with several DFW theaters, including: Theatre 3, Pegasus Theatre, Theatre Arlington, and many more. Billy has won several awards throughout his career, including one for set design, and continues to stay very involved in the DFW theatre scene.
Billy didn’t pursue improv in earnest until about 15 years ago, when he joined several improv troupes throughout DFW and began attending classes and workshops. He has continued to perform ever since, educating himself and others by also venturing into improv as an educator. Improvised musical theatre is his newest love. It combines his love of theatre, music, and improv, and he hopes you get as much joy out of watching it as he does performing it. If you have never seen top-notch improvised musical theatre before, you are missing out!
Remember to follow your joy and SHOUT OUT those suggestions!
FEATURING
Anthony Nagid (Tony stride)
Meet our musical director, Anthony Nagid, also known as Tony Stride, a first-call player in the DFW music scene. Legend has it that Tony has played every key on the piano over 10,000 times!
His music director resume includes Carnival Cruise Lines, Four Day Weekend, and many of DFW’s top comedy clubs. He showcases his keyboard prowess as a founding member of ‘There I Ruined It, Live’, the viral music-comedy sensation with over 8 million fans. Anthony is a 6-time recipient of the McKinney Arts Commission’s Project Outreach Grant for his production and performance of shows such as The Vintage Piano Hour and Jazz at the Comedy Arena.
You can listen to Tony play almost every night of the week in some of DFW’s finest resort steakhouses such as The Omni PGA, The Hilton Anatole, and The Ricardo Marriott.
Not only a performer, Anthony is an author and educator via his popular music education platform, Piano Dojo, which includes his internationally popular book and YouTube series ‘Rhythm Training for Pianists’.
A natural fit for musical comedy, Tony blends world-class chops with a refusal to take any of it too seriously.
Leslie Collins
Leslie Marie Collins is thrilled to be performing with Totally Made-Up Musical! Her comedy roots run deep, with more than 25 years of training and performance in New York and Los Angeles. She studied improv at the PIT, Magnet Theater, UCB-NY, and The Groundlings, and performed improv and musical improv on house teams, sketch teams, and with Baby Wants Candy, including appearances at the Edinburgh Fringe, Sydney Opera House, and with the touring company.
Now based in DFW, Leslie performs theater and musical theater throughout the area and teaches improv at Stage West. Local credits include Dallas Theater Center, Theatre Three, Casa Mañana, Uptown Players, and Dallas Children’s Theater.
On screen, Leslie has appeared in national commercials for Progressive, American Express, and Cascade, as well as on television in The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, Maggie’s Market, and MTV’s Made. She also hosts the weekly podcast Sumo Kaboom and voices anime for Crunchyroll. Oh, and she loves pugs.
She's delighted to be making musical magic with Totally Made-Up Musical!
Shaina Stigler
Shaina is a multidisciplinary artist who was greatly influenced by Shelley Duvall’s Faerie Tale Theatre. She was trained in musical theatre performance at The American Dramatic Academy as well as improvisational comedy at The People's Improv Theatre and UCB NY.
You can see her crafting and performing murder mystery theatre parties all over DFW with Mystery Theatre Dallas. Some things she is proud of: creating and co-producing Bad Assery- the first-ever conference about women and their relationship with comedy in NYC; dreaming up and executing a guerilla style immersive theatre experience on the NYC subway system; co-producing 8 Million Protagonists with Leo Burnett NY- a crowdsourced off-broadway play written by the streets of New York.
Shaina is obsessed with the idea of expanding the way we experience theatre and the magical catharsis that can happen when people are given permission to play.
Rebecca Depew
Rebecca Depew is thrilled and grateful to be part of Totally Made-Up Musical! A Texas native with over 20 years of performing arts experience, Rebecca’s background spans musical theater, improv, sketch comedy, and more. She fell in love with the stage as a child in France after discovering the thrill of attention and applause. From that moment on, she began vigorously studying, performing in more than a dozen productions before graduating high school.
Rebecca earned an Associate of Arts in Theater from Collin College and a Bachelor’s in Sustainable Tourism & Hospitality Management, with a minor in Theater, from the University of Utah. Her credits include Rent (Ensemble), The Rocky Horror Picture Show (Ensemble), and Shari in the world premiere of Broken.
While living in Utah, Rebecca discovered improv comedy and subsequently joined Crowdsourced Comedy in Salt Lake City, where she performed, hosted, and taught while studying with UCB-LA alumni and performing at festivals throughout Utah and Los Angeles. Now back home in Dallas, Rebecca performs with Musical DiComedy, Revolusical, Game Nite, and Dallas Comedy Club’s Crimetime, as well as Four Day Weekend–Fort Worth and Primetime at Dallas Comedy Club. (@rebecca_laughs on Instagram)
Emily Sue Tomac
Emily Sue was a theatre kid who peaked early, when she had the chance to direct high-school productions of Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night and The Taming of the Shrew. She may have been an English major, but don’t worry - she never really grew up! Nowadays her creative life is full of improv comedy, poetry, and collage, among other pursuits.
She has performed at iO Fest in Chicago, RISE Comedy Festival in Denver, Twin Cities Improv Festival in Minneapolis, The Nestival in Columbus, and the Nantucket Poetry Festival. Emily Sue has a generous sense of humor. She believes in the healing power of laughter, and in her experience, there is nothing that captures the human spirit better than putting on a show.
Musical improv reminds her how much she used to love narrating her life in song as a child. It was usually “opera” while grocery shopping, much to her mother’s chagrin! In addition to playing with Totally Made-Up Musical, you can find Emily Sue onstage at Dallas Comedy Club in Primetime as well as other long and short-form shows in the DFW area.
Chris Sanders
Chris Sanders is excited to return to improv with Totally Made-up Musical. Chris has been training in improv for over 20 years, throughout NJ and TX. Chris has also taught short form improv throughout the DFW area.
In theatre, Chris had her stage directorial debut with SheDFW's production of The Danger Year. Chris has also directed several staged readings, including Frozen Fluid for Echo Theatre's Echo Reads series, Ashes of Aquitaine with Altered Shakespeare and Parent, Legal Guardian, Angel, Other with Undermain Theatre. Chris was the Assistant Director for The Complete Works of William Shakespeare at Shakespeare Dallas and A Strange Loop at Circle Theatre. She has also done dramaturgy with Echo Theatre and Turtle Creek Chorale.
As an actor, she performed locally with DTC, Circle Theatre, Theatre 3, Amphibian Stage Productions, Jubilee Theatre, Soul Rep Theatre, and Second Thought Theatre. She'll be in the upcoming co-production of F.Punk Junkies with Soul Rep and Cara Mia Theatres. Chris earned her MFA in Acting from SMU. She is a member of Actor’s Equity Association, and is represented by the Mary Collins Agency. Chris's VO Site: https://voiceactor.com/site/cchsanders
Elisa JAmes
Elisa Danielle James, a newborn improv baby, is tickled pink to be among the ranks of the staggering improv greatness known as the Totally Made-up Musical team!
She’s a theatre girly in the DFW metroplex, having worked with multiple houses playing roles such as The Chaperone (The Drowsy Chaperone), Lady Macbeth (Omen, A New Musical), Lily (The Secret Garden), Mrs. Fiona Blair (MacMurder!), and upcoming as Mrs. Lovett in Sweeney Todd.
In addition to live theatre, Elisa is a voice actor working with Crunchyroll in such titles as Wistoria Wand and Sword, Ameku MD, and Let This Grieving Soul Retire. Outside of performing, she most enjoys eating queso with her new husband, Brian Hathaway, and spending time with their criminally cute clowder of cats.
Will Holston
Will Holston walked into a drop-in improv comedy class on his birthday four years ago and hasn't looked back since. A graduate of Stomping Ground Comedy Theater's improv and musical improv programs, Will has performed in four of the theater's house teams and a number of mainstage shows. At Stomping Ground, he is currently in the casts of 'Total Fiasco' and 'Shenanigans: A Family-Friendly Interactive Comedy Show'. His teams I'm Not Attached To It and Rainbow Rats, the theater's all-queer house team, also have monthly performance slots on the 2nd and 4th Fridays of every month, respectively.
Outside of Stomping Ground, he has performed with indie teams PB & Jest, Meat Cute, and Musical Di-Comedy. He currently teaches improv Level One and Two at Stomping Ground, training up the next generation of improvisers who will soon make him irrelevant.
Two-time winner of the Olivia Newton John Award for Most Physical Performer at the SG Awards, Will can frequently be seen stretching backstage. Tomorrow's knee replacement surgery is today's pratfall! The best reviews he's ever received were for playing Lewis & Clark's singing dog in the 6th grade and for playing a dead body on stage for 45 minutes. Follow him on Instagram @subatomiccowboy.
Micah Brooks
Micah is an upright citizen unsullied by brigade.
When not performing regularly with Totally Made-up Musical, Micah acts and sings around the DFW metroplex, sometimes on stage.
Recent appearances include The Importance of Being Earnest and The Play That Goes Wrong at Stage West; King James at Circle Theatre; Cabaret and Black Comedy at Theatre Arlington; we are continuous at Uptown Players; The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe at Dallas Children's Theatre; Goin' Hollywood and The Play That Goes Wrong at Watertower Theatre; Puffs at Imprint Theatreworks; Scrooge in Rouge at Theatre Three; and Bright Star and Beauty and the Beast at Firehouse Theatre, and more.
Samantha Padilla
Samantha Padilla is a DFW-based performer, director, choreographer, and lover of musical theatre. She’s usually most comfortable when someone has kindly provided her with lines, blocking, choreography, and preferably several weeks to obsess over all of the above. So naturally, joining an improv troupe seemed like a great idea.
While Samantha dabbled in improv in college, Totally Made-up Musical is her first improv troupe. Apparently, “making things up onstage and hoping for the best” is a skill you can pick back up decades later. Who knew?
Samantha has also written and performed her one-woman cabaret, I Don’t Date, proving she’s perfectly capable of making things up onstage—as long as she writes them down first.
Huge thanks to Billy and Alli for the opportunity to stretch some very rusty improv muscles, make ridiculous choices, and play pretend with some of the funniest, most creative humans around!
Jaime Zolfaghari
Jaime Zolfaghari is a freelance musician with a wealth of experience as a professional percussionist and drum set player. Jaime has played drums and percussion for over 130 musical theatre productions, including premieres and pilots, at over 50 theatre companies and schools across the Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex.
While musical theatre has been at the forefront of his professional career, JZ's experience further includes having performed in many civic orchestras, wind ensembles, contemporary new works ensembles, recording projects, and bands covering styles from rock and pop to jazz and Latin. He also has some singer/songwriter experience having written and performed over 50 original songs.
After graduating from Onondaga Community College in Syracuse, NY (his hometown) with Applied Associate degrees in Music and in Business Administration, Mr. Z studied Percussion Performance and Music Education at Southern Methodist University in Dallas, TX. In addition to freelance performance work, Jaime Z has instructed several school percussion ensembles and continues to offer coaching and private lessons on drum set and mallet percussion.
"Totally Made-up Musical is beautifully bonkers and one of the best experiences in my career!”
Hannah Sligar
Hannah Sligar is a singer, clown, and character actor working primarily in improv and musical comedy across the Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex. Since starting improv in 2022 with Theatre Arlington’s Comedy Club, she’s performed in over 150 live shows ranging from family-friendly to late-night comedy, and is particularly active at the local nonprofit Stomping Ground Comedy Theatre, with credits including That Bites: A Paranormal Romance, Versus!, Shenanigans, and the genre parody Now That’s What I Call TV: The Improvised 90’s Show.
Hannah co-produces The Upside Down Comedy Show, a variety showcase built around challenging seasoned improvisers, regularly clowns with Misfit Circus Texas, and is newly producing clown shows of her own across the metroplex after training at École Philippe Gaulier’s clown school in France in the summer of 2026.
Hannah’s special skills and interests include musical improv, physical comedy, piano, ukulele, yoga, occasional standup, and juggling — but her real specialty is relentless commitment to the bit.
Ian Mead moore
Ian Mead Moore is a Dallas-based musician, actor, singer, and voiceover artist whose work spans the stage, the pit, and the recording booth. As a music director and arranger, he has lent his talents to UTD, Ochre House Theatre, Theatre Three, Hopeful Theatre Project, JCC, and GCT, shaping the sound of productions from the ground up. As an actor, Ian has appeared on stages including Uptown Players, WaterTower Theatre, Lyric Stage, Theatre Three, and Wingspan, bringing a musician's ear for rhythm and nuance to every role.
He also moonlights as a "guitar lurker," contributing live guitar work for WaterTower Theatre, UNT, and Junior Players. In the voiceover world, Ian has voiced a range of characters both large and small, including work with Crunchyroll.
A proud member of Actors' Equity Association.
Gabo Espinoza
Gabo is an artistic multi-hobbyist—a self-proclaimed “jack of all trades, master of none.” He is constantly seeking new artistic projects to immerse his mind in, whether it’s embracing the chaos of an improv comedy show or teaching himself to play the piano, the search for true artistry continues!
He began his improv comedy journey in 2021 in both New York City and Dallas, training at the Upright Citizens Brigade, Dallas Comedy Club, and Stomping Ground. Since then, he has performed and continues to perform with a variety of long-form and musical improv shows.
Outside of the stage, Gabo is an award-winning architect, recognized for his residential designs in Dallas, where he currently resides. He enjoys outdoor climbing because, in his words, “It helps me embrace and push past my fears.”