Our Directors & Staff

David Skouson, Camp Director

A Broadway pianist and conductor, David has collaborated with some of the most widely recognized and respected performers in show business including Stephen Schwartz, Patti LaBelle, Wayne Brady, Anne Reinking, Walter Bobbie, and Rob Fisher. Currently musical director for the Red Mountain Choir, David maintains a full teaching and performing schedule.

Jeffrey Skouson, Artistic Director/Vocal Instructor

Jeffrey trains some 150 private students at Skouson Vocal Studios in Las Vegas.  As a Level 5 instructor for Speech Level Singing and a member of the SLS Instructor Management Team, he has lectured and taught in Europe and throughout the United States.  His clients include a wide array of pop, country, and Broadway stars, including lead performers in Mamma Mia, Les Miserables, and Hairspray. Jeffrey was Musical Director for the multi-million-dollar production of Utah! for two years at Tuacahn Amphitheater and Center for the Performing Arts in Utah. He currently serves as the Artistic Director and Conductor for the Red Mountain Music Company in Las Vegas.

Tammy Pessagno, Dance Instructor/Coreographer

Tammy began her theatrical career as a dancer at the age of 7 with the Salt Lake City Ballet Company, As a young teen she began teaching and choreographing for her hometown high school and college musicals. Upon graduation she moved to San Diego and attended U.S.I.U where she performed at Starlight amphitheater in such musicals as Oklahoma, Annie Get Your Gun & Pajama Game. After college Tammy joined the pre-Broadway tour of Little Johnny Jones starring David Cassidy, The show did eventually make it to Broadway, then starring Donny Osmond. Other credits include the Broadway bound Seven Brides for Seven Brothers, Nancy in High Button Shoes, and American Backstage Musical at the Goodspeed Opera House. Tammy was last seen in EFX playing opposite David Cassidy.

Directing and Choreography credits include Industrial shows for Paul Michell Systems, IBM, AT&T, The Red Cross and Saber Computers. Theatrical productions include; Damn Yankees, Guys & Dolls, 110 In The Shade, Cinderella, Annie Get Your Gun, Cabaret, How To Succeed in Business Without Really Trying (Nevada Conservatory), Beauty and the Beast, Honk, Jekyll & Hyde, Joseph And The Amazing Technicolor Dream Coat, Little Women ( Las Vegas Academy), and Ragtime (for the International Thespian Society’s 75th Anniversary Festival at the Las Vegas Academy for the Performing Arts). Tammy is married to actor Rick Pessagno, who will likewise be appearing at Red Mountain Music Camp to offer a master class in dance.

Saum Eskandani, Acting instructor

Saum is originally from Las Vegas where he grew up performing both in school and around the city in community theatre.  His most notable Vegas credit was playing Charlie Brown in the critically acclaimed Super Summer Theatre/Nevada Theatre Company production of You're a Good Man Charlie Brown as well as multiple outings with the emerging Red Mountain Music Company.  Saum left Las Vegas to attend The Boston Conservatory where he recieved his BFA for Musical Theatre with a minor in Directing.  After moving to New York in 2006 he secured a spot as a top ten finalist for the Broadway Idol competition at the annual New York Musical Theatre Festival.  Shortly after he left to see the country playing Appopolous in the 1st National Tour of Wonderful Town based on the Tony Award winning 2003 Broadway revival.  After hanging up his berets and sailor suits he dawned a cow boy hat playing Duncan in the mercifully short lived Off Broadway flop Idol: the Musical, based on the fan worship of Clay Aiken (who said of the show, "Well, you sure know how to make guy feel uncomfortable!").  After a long period of woe, despair, and apologetic offerings of ten dollars to passersby who recognized him from the show, he hopped over to White Plains to join the cast of How To Succeed In Business Without Really Trying.  He currently resides in midtown Manhattan, but is thrilled to be visiting the west again to inspire his future NYC colleagues!

Kelly Sweet, Guest Artist

Kelly was born into a musical household in Cape Cod, Massachusetts, one in which her jazz pianist father and her artist mother fostered a love and respect for music that began when she was an infant. She was raised on the jazz standards that were part of her father's repertoire, and Sweet learned musical notes soon after she could walk with her father's help. Her first public performance followed when she was 4 years old at the Cape Cod Conservatory. At the age of 7 began working regularly with a vocal coach and honed her skills as a performer by singing at state fairs, county festivals, and community theaters. At 14, the singer opened for Kenny Loggins in Las Vegas. After hearing Sweet's demo CD, the Los Angeles Lakers NBA team booked Sweet to sing the national anthem on three occasions. Sweet was featured in a USA Today article in July, 2006 on up-and-coming "serious female singers."

She opened for Paul Simon on tour in July and October, 2006, and also appeared at the New York Mets-St. Louis Cardinals NLCS baseball playoff game on October 17, 2006. Kelly sang the National Anthem before the San Diego Padres baseball game against the New York Mets at Petco Park in San Diego, California on July 17, 2007.

In October, 2006, Sweet released an EP from which the songs "We Are One" and "Ready For Love" have been used on episodes of two daytime dramas, the NBC TV series Passions and the ABC TV series One Life to Live, respectively. "We Are One" was also featured on the NBC series Las Vegas in the spring of 2007. Her cover of the Aerosmith classic Dream on is now being played on adult contemporary format radio stations such as Hartford's WRCH, Manchester's WZID, and Seattle's KWJZ.
Her debut album, entitled We Are One, was released by the Razor and Tie label on March 6, 2007.

Eric Dodge, Guest Artist

Eric has worked with Seth Riggs, “vocal coach to the stars,” in Hollywood, and with Jeffrey Skouson in Las Vegas. He's performed hundreds of shows all over the United States and Canada. In the process, Eric has shared the stage with many of Nashville's finest country music stars, including the late Chris Ledoux, Diamond Rio, Little Texas, Collin Raye, SHeDAISY, and many other talented artists. In 2004, Eric was named the Southern Utah winner of the Colgate Country Showdown.

Eric recorded his debut album at OmniSound Studios in Nashville, Tennessee, where he worked with the best producers, songwriters, and musicians in the industry. In March of 2006, his first radio single "Anything for You" was released and hit #19 on the New Music Weekly-Independent Artists chart. Eric has been featured in America's largest country music magazine "Country Weekly" and on the popular website, Music News Nashville.

Eric has also appeared live on many television shows. While performing on “Good Things Utah” on ABC, he met the very popular author and website mentor, Marla Cilley (a.k.a. the “FlyLady” of www.FlyLady.net). She was so impressed with Eric and his talent that she asked him to record a song for her new FLY album: a collection of inspirational and motivational music. The CD was released in September of 2006 and included Eric performing "Why Not Today.” The CD has been a huge success and sold all over the world. Eric has accompanied FlyLady to her nationwide events to perform for the crowds.

Eric Dodge is a country boy at heart. When not on stage performing his favorite country songs, you can find him out riding horses or 4 wheelers or camping out at his family's ranch. Red Mountain Music Camp is thrilled to welcome Eric back to the nearby El Splendido Ranch for its 2008 session.
For more information about Eric Dodge, visit www.ericdodge.com.

Brian Vaughn and Melinda Pfundstein, Guest Artists / Masterclass

One of the Utah Shakespearean Festival’s favorite couples (on stage and in real life) will be returning this summer in the lead roles in Cyrano de Bergerac. Brian Vaughn and his wife, Melinda Pfundstein, will be performing in the roles of Cyrano and his timeless love, Roxane.

“We are excited for them to be returning to Cedar City,” said R. Scott Phillips, Festival executive director. “They both have performed here many times over the years and have become a favorite of our patrons. The fact that as a married couple they are deeply in love will add another layer to this romantic and beautiful play.”

Both Vaughn and Pfundstein attended Southern Utah University in Cedar City, and both have acted in numerous roles at the Festival (Vaughn in over forty roles since 1991, and Pfundstein in over twenty roles since 1996).

Director David Ivers is also excited for the chance to work with Vaughn and Pfundstein. “There was never any question about casting Brian as Cyrano and his wife Melinda as Roxane,” he said. “Our great, personal friendship aside, Brian and Mel are two of the most versatile, authentic and generous actors in the country. Their language skills, integrity, and work ethic are astonishing.”

Vaughn’s first role at the Festival was as Castrone in Volpone (1991). He has followed that up since with such diverse roles as Hysterium in A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum (1994), Smudge in Forever Plaid (both 1997 and 2004), Laertes in Hamlet (1997), the Pirate King in Pirates of Penzance (2001), Cloten and Posthumus Leontus in Cymbeline (2002), Prince Arthur in Camelot (2005), and Charlie in Stones in His Pockets (2005).

He is also remembered for his critically acclaimed turn in the title role of the troubled Danish prince in Hamlet (2006), a production which Dana Gioia, chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts, called the best Hamlet he had ever seen.

Vaughn is currently performing as Mellersh Wilkins in Enchanted April at the Milwaukee Repertory Theatre where he is a resident acting company member. He has performed in over twenty-five productions there, including The Nerd, The Voysey Inheritance, A Month in the Country, Laughing Stock, Bach at Leipzig, Arsenic and Old Lace, Proof, Wit, Buried Child, The Leenane Triology, Inventing Van Gogh, The Glass Menegerie, The Tavern, The Shaughraun, and Amadeus.

He has also appeared at the Arizona Theatre Company, the Chicago Shakespeare Theater, the Kennedy Center, the Nebraska Shakespeare Festival, PCPA Theatrefest, Phoenix Theatre, and Red Bull Theatre.

Pfundstein’s first role at the Festival was in the chorus of The Mikado in 1996. Since then she has appeared as Gloria Tharpe in Damn Yankees (1999), Rose in Pirates of Penzance (2001), Audrey in As You Like It (2002), Clarice in The Servant of Two Masters (2003), Ronette in Little Shop of Horrors (2003), Martha Jefferson in 1776 (2003), Lady Percy in Henry IV Part One (2004), Eliza Doolittle in My Fair Lady (2004), The Princess of France in Love’s Labour’s Lost (2005), Emma in Johnny Guitar (2006), and many others.
She recently appeared at the Milwaukee Repertory Theatre as Betty Haynes in White Christmas and as Tansy McGinnis in The Nerd and she has appeared in numerous roles in regional theatres across the country.

In addition to their roles in Cyrano de Bergerac, Vaughn will be playing Launce in The Two Gentlemen of Verona, and Pfundstein will play Tzeitel in Fiddler on the Roof.