Arts Staff
LAHSA offers rigorous classes in the performing arts and technical theatre; provides opportunities for students to be involved in the season of plays; and creates opportunities for students to observe and work in the professional arts community. As a faculty we model that the Arts are powerful, it is evident by how fearlessly our students are willing to take that same journey.
Juan Parada
(He/His) is a Long Beach based actor, director and educator. He holds a BA from CSU Long Beach in Theatre and an MFA in acting from CalArts and his Single Subject Teaching Credential from CSUDH. He is a founding member of Off The Tracks Theatre Company, a Spanish Language Theatre Group. Acting: Oregon Shakespeare Festival, Cornerstone Theatre Company, Watts Village Theatre Company, 24th Street Theatre. Teaching: CTG, OSF, Shakespeare Center LA, About...PD. Directing: Henry 4th P1, Macbeth, Comedy of Errors, eye:Witness, Cosas Pequeñas y Extraordinarias, A Christmas Carol. Mr. Parada is the Lead Theater Teacher at LASHA - Los Angeles High School of the Arts on the RFK Campus.
Bernard Addison
As an actor, Mr. Addison was last seen on the LA stage at the Mark Taper Forum in Water by the Spoonful. He also has appeared in the world premiere of Citizen: An American Lyric at the Kirk Douglas Theatre and the Fountain Theatre, As You Like It and The Curse of Oedipus at the Antaeus Theatre, where he is a company member, and Prometheus Bound at the Getty Villa. He also appeared in the West Coast premiere of The Ballad of Emmett Till at the Fountain Theatre, a production that has garnered numerous awards in 2011, including the Ovation Award for acting ensemble, the Backstage Garland Award, and the Los Angeles Drama Critics Circle Award. He has also performed in the Ovation Award-winning Los Angeles production of Joe Turner’s Come and Gone as Herald Loomis at the Fountain Theatre and was nominated for the 2006 LA Weekly Theatre Award for Lead Actor, as well as a Garland Award Honorable Mention.Mr. Addison reprised the role of Herald Loomis at the Lorraine Hansberry Theatre in San Francisco.
Other LA productions include the Theatre@Boston Court ( Mother Courage ) the Odyssey ( Macbeth ) and the Ahmanson Theatre (Romeo and Juliet , directed by Sir Peter Hall). Prior to moving to Los Angeles in 2000, Addison has performed at many regional theatres across the country, including Santa Cruz Shakespeare, Oregon Shakespeare Festival, California Shakespeare Festival, the Denver Theatre Center, the McCarter Theatre, the Long Wharf Theatre and many years at the Shakespeare Theatre in Washington, D.C.New York credits include Broadway ( Electra ); Off-Broadway (Incommunicado at the Judith Anderson,Uncle Jack at the Worth Street Theatre, as well as various productions at the Pearl Theatre) and Off-off Broadway.
Television credits include Modern Family, Rake, Castle, Ugly Betty, and Desperate Housewives , to mention a few. Film credits include Woody Allen’s Celebrity and narration for the documentary The Farm (1998 Academy Award nominee for Best Documentary). Addison holds a bachelor’s degree from the University of South Carolina, Columbia, and holds an MFA degree in Acting from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
He is originally from Columbia, South Carolina.
William Honigstein
​
has been teaching design and tech at LAHSA for almost a decade. He has over 25 years experience working as a Technical Director for Theater throughout the Greater Los Angeles Area. He worked many years as the Technical Director for the Cornerstone Theater Company, a Master Electrician for Top Idol at ETTV Studios and a Production Manager for the Network of Ensemble Theaters among many other credits. Within education, he was the shop foreman for the Cal State Northridge Theater Department as well as a Technical Director at East Los Angeles Community College and built the technical program at the School for History and Dramatic Arts on the Sotomayor Campus before joining the LAHSA team. Mr. Honigstein has a Bachelor in Theater from Cal State Northridge and his Master of Fine Arts in Technical Direction from the California Institute of the Arts.
JessieAnna Wilton
​
is a founding teacher of the LAHSA Theatre Department, working at the school since 2008. She is a member of I.A.T.S.E, Local 800 as a Scenic Painter and has worked on projects for Carlos Santana, and Trace Adkins, The Cheesecake Factory, Pacific Theatres: The Americana, and many more. She has worked for Center Theatre Group as both a Scenic Artist and Props builder, and as the Lead Scenic Artist for the West Coast premier of the 2018 tour of School Girls; Or, The African Mean Girls Play. As a professional Props builder she has worked with Culture Clash on the 2015 production of Chavez Ravine, as well as nearly a decade of working at CalState Northridge’s Teenage Drama Workshop as a Scenic Designer. She was also the onsite scenic for the MSG Sphere Studios in Burbank. Ms.Wilton has her Bachelor’s in Scenic Design and Chicano Studies from Colorado State University and her Master in Fine Arts from the California Institute of the Arts. She is currently a Candidate for the National Boards teacher accreditation.
Johana Macdonald
​
Briefly introduce yourself and share something interesting with website visitors. Double click to edit the text.
