Theater Arts Faculty

Howard W Blake High School of the Arts - Theater Arts Faculty

David Mann – Acting

David Mann is the Director of Acting Studies at Blake School of the Arts. Mr. Mann has worked as a professional actor for over fifteen years, appearing in playhouses in California, Pennsylvania, New York, Florida and others. Favorite lead roles include Brodie in “The Real Thing” at Pasadena Playhouse, Edgar in “King Lear” at the Orlando Shakespeare Festival, and Hamlet in “Hamlet” at New Theatre in Miami. He has been teaching acting for ten years, with previous appointments including the University of South Florida, Florida Atlantic University, and the New World School of The Arts in Miami. He is an active member of the actors' union, Actors Equity Association. Mr. Mann holds a B. F. A. from New York University and an M. F. A. from the University of San Diego/Old Globe Theatre. He lives in Temple Terrace with his wife and two children.

Michael Wood – Theater Design & Technology

Mike Wood has been a part of the theatre faculty at Howard Blake School of the Arts since 2010. He is a professional lighting designer whose work has been seen throughout the country. He recently returned from New York City, where he did the lighting design for Born Blue: A New Musical, written by Caren Tackett and directed by Anthony Rapp. Other recent major highlights include: 9 to 5, ‘SWonderful, The Piano Lesson, A Chorus Line, The Wizard of Oz, Forbidden Broadway, Chicago, Bat Boy: The Musical, West Side Story, Seussical The Musical, HAIR, The Rocky Horror Show, Gilgamesh (National Tour), Fiddler on The Roof, and countless others. He has designed lighting for The Straz Center, American Stage, The Mahaffey Theatre, The Gorilla Theatre, Theatre USF, The Plant City Players, The Frenzie-Life Theatre, Shorecrest Preparatory School, The Manatee Players and many many others.

Mike is also the lighting designer for The Frank Rey School of Dance, Karl & DiMarco’s American Dance Theatre, Rizing Starz Dance Academy, and The Cheryl Lee School of Dance.

Mike also owns a production company that has been providing production consultation, design, and staffing solutions for a wide variety of events ranging from weddings to corporate parties and trade shows throughout the past 6 years.

At Blake, Mike teaches the advanced level theatre design courses. He enjoys working with students and loves sharing his art and craft with them in order to inspire them. In the short time that Mike has been at Blake, he has worked to turn the program into one of the top training programs in the state – designing and overseeing a major renovation of the theatrical lighting systems at the school in 2011 has been one of his greatest accomplishments at Blake so far. He hopes to prepare his students to either get into college level design programs or to prepare them for careers in the live production industry.

Visit Mike's website and Mike Wood Lighting Design on Facebook.

Seth Travaglino (Musical Theatre)

Seth Travaglino is a graduate of the University of South Florida with a Bachelor of Arts in Theatre Performance. He studied under the late Jeff Norton in the Suzuki Method of Actor Training, the Alexander Technique, and through extensive physical training. His work has been seen all over the Tampa Bay area in more than 200 theatrical productions over the past 10 years. Mr. Travaglino has won awards for direction/choreography on productions of Cabaret and Urinetown as well as for performance as Daniel Kaffee in A Few Good Men. His directing/choreography credits also include such shows as Bat Boy, Footloose, Little Women, Company, Godspell, Beauty and the Beast, Fame, Les Miserables, Guys and Dolls, and many more. On stage he has performed professionally in productions of Fiddler on the Roof, Guys and Dolls, Brigadoon, The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas, & Las Musas Latinas. Other favorite roles include Harold Hill (Music Man), Hysterium (A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum), Pat Gilbert (State Fair), Paul/Al (A Chorus Line), Kodaly (She Loves Me), Geoffrey (The Lion in Winter), and countless others. Prior to his assignment at Blake, he worked as the Theatre Director of Mary Jo’s Performing Arts Academy (2000-2004) and as the Theatre Director at Independent Day School in Tampa (2002-2010). In both positions his students won the highest honors possible in multiple categories at District and State Thespian competitions as well as Access Broadway National competition.