
Dr. Newman graduated from Louisville Male High School and taught in Tennessee before starting his career with JCPS as a teacher at Western High School. He taught English for a year before becoming the assistant principal there in 2007. He then served as the principal for seven years before transitioning to the State of Kentucky Public Protection Cabinet in February 2020.
Cayce Crowder Abellard is a 2008 YPAS Alum,and has traveled in all 48 contiguous states to provide theatrical enrichment and education to youth ages 5-18 in communities both urban and rural. She earned a BA with Honors in Theatre and a Minor in Dance from Morehead State University, where she studied as a recipient of the Presidential Scholarship for accolades in Theater. During her 7 years in New York City, she worked not only as a Professional Actor, but with ‘The Leadership Program’ as a Teaching Artist, a 21st Century Community Learning Centers Federal Grant Site Coordinator, and ultimately as a Community School Director in several NYC Public Schools establishing arts enrichment for schools. Cayce is passionate about impacting staff, students, and families in a positive light, hoping to uplift and enable success for all. She has two boys, Beaux (2) and Xavier (1), who keep her and her husband Kharl very busy. We welcome her back to the YPAS/Manual family.
Savanna McFarlan is a 2014 YPAS Alum and has been with JCPS since 2020 as a technology lead. She is a college graduate from Jacksonville University. She obtained her Bachelors of the Fine Arts in Dance with Magna Cum Laude, Dean’s Honors, and as a member of Alpha Psi Omega Theater and Dance Honors Society Phi Iota Cast. APO helped her branch into the musical theater world choreographing/performing in multiple cabaret fund raisers, and musicals. Durning her freshman year she helped establish the Jacksonville Sirens Dance Team which now holds Division 1 Athlete titles. While attending JU she received academic and talent-based scholarships, along with a Florida Dance Intensive scholarship. Savanna performed at the High School Dance Festival for 2 years and the American College Dance Festival for 4 years. As a Louisville native, she graduated as Dance Major of the Year from YPAS and trained at the University of Louisville Dance Academy for 10 years. Savanna is currently performing, teaching, and choreographing many genres of dance, and has a passion for freelance modeling.
Dr. Kevin Callihan, Director of Bands
Jason Gregory is in is 19th year of teaching and 12th year at duPont Manual HS and the Youth Performing Arts School in Louisville, KY. Mr.Gregory currently serves as the Assistant Director of Bands and the Director of Percussion Studies for the Youth Performing Arts School. He also serves as the Director of Athletic Bands for duPont Manual High School which includes a competitive marching band, basketball pep band and a newly formed winter color guard training program. His teaching responsibilities at YPAS include or have included Percussion Ensemble, Chamber Ensemble, Intermediate Woodwinds, Symphonic Band, Wind Ensemble, Conductor of the Pit Orchestra and Music Theory I. Mr. Gregory oversees all aspects of the woodwind and percussion curriculum at YPAS. In addition, he has taught AP Music Theory and Jazz Ensemble at previous schools. Since taking over the YPAS Percussion Ensemble full time in 2013, the ensemble was selected to perform at the KMEA state music conference (2014) with guest artist Michael Burritt of the Eastman School of Music, won the large ensemble division of the Black Swamp HS Percussion Ensemble competition (2015), was a featured ensemble at the Music for All/Sandy Feldstein National Percussion Festival (2016) and was selected to perform at the International Midwest Band and Orchestra Clinic (2017). In addition the YPAS percussion program averages 4-6 percussionists in KY All-State Ensembles each year.
Mr. Gregory also serves as freelance percussionist, arranger and adjudicator throughout the state of Kentucky and Indiana. Over the years, he has performed with the Louisville Orchestra, the Owensboro Symphony and the Evansville Symphony. While with the Louisville Orchestra, he performed with numerous artists including Luciano Pavarotti, Martina McBride, Frank Sinatra Jr, the Spinners and David Clayton Thomas of Blood Sweat & Tears. He is currently a member of the Chamber Winds of Louisville Concert Band, a community ensemble conducted by Dr. Frederick Speck, the Director of Bands at the University of Louisville.The ensemble recently performed at the 2013 Midwest Band and Orchestra Clinic and at the KMEA Music Conference in 2012. Prior to becoming a band director, Mr. Gregory served as a clinician for Yamaha “Sounds of Summer” Camps, taught percussion for numerous high school percussion programs and served as a Percussion Caption Head for a Senior Drum & Bugle Corps. Currently, he serves as a music, visual and percussion adjudicator for various KMEA sanctioned marching band festivals, concert band festival and Solo and Ensemble adjudicator throughout the state of Kentucky and Southern Indiana. As a percussion arranger, he has written for two Senior Drum & Bugle Corps, the University of Louisville and for numerous high school programs in the surrounding area including his own band program.
Mr. Gregory is a graduate of the University of Louisville School of Music (BME 2001) where his principal percussion teachers were Chad Stoltenberg, James Rago, Greg Byrne and Michael Ferraracio. He earned his Master Degree in Education from Indiana Wesleyan University (MED 2008). His professional affiliations include the Kentucky Music Educators Association, the Percussive Arts Society, the Jefferson County Teachers Association and NAfME, the national association for music education.
Jason Gregory currently resides in Louisville, KY with his wife Nikki, 20 year old son Cole and 13 year old daughter Hope.

Gyuli Kambarova, accompanist, is a classically trained pianist and composer who graduated from the prestigious Rostov State Rachmaninov Conservatory where she received a double Masters of Music, with honors, in Piano Performance and Music Composition.Her career began in Southern Russia where she composed, performed and taught. In 2010, she moved to Louisville, Kentucky. Her work in the United States includes performances at the University of Louisville School of Music, Youth Performing Arts School, Louisville Academy of Music, and other venues in Kentuckiana as a pianist and composer in collaboration with many of the gifted and talented musicians and dancers of the area.
She has released three CDs: “Dreams” (2014), “My Way” (2016), and “Memories” (2018). These recordings include several different styles such as classical, romantic, jazz, contemporary, and cinematic. Mrs. Kambarova lives in Louisville and works at the University of Louisville School of Music, the Louisville Academy of Music, Youth Performing Arts School, and gives private piano and composition lessons at her own studio.
Huadong Lu grew up in Guangzhou, China. Upon graduation from the Guangzhou Conservatory of Music, he became a violinist of the Guangzhou Symphony and performed under many internationally acclaimed conductors. While attending Kent State University under full scholarship, he received a Masters of Music in violin performance and Masters of Arts in Teaching. He has performed with numerous orchestras around the world such as the Guangzhou Symphony Orchestra, Akron Symphony Orchestra, Lincoln Symphony Orchestra, and the Greater Newburgh Symphony Orchestra. He started his teaching career in the US in the fall of 1993. Since then he has taught in public schools and youth symphonies in NE, NY, NC, SC, and colleges (Union College in Lincoln, NE; University of North Carolina at Pembroke). His public school orchestras consistently received top ratings at state performance assessments and were selected often to perform at state music conventions. He led his school orchestras and youth symphonies to perform in England and Scotland, Prague, in Europe; Soul, South Korea, Hong Kong, and Beijing, China. During each summer, he has been invited to guest conduct orchestra summer camps and to give master classes in Singapore, Hong Kong, Guangzhou, and all over China.
Mr. Lu brings to the classroom 20+ years of professional experience and a passion for teaching young musicians
As a musicologist also trained in dance, Dr. Ertz studies music and dance, particularly ballet music from the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. She has published research on George Balanchine, Schneitzhoeffer’s score to Filippo Taglioni’s La Sylphide, Nijinska’s and Stravinsky’s Les Noces, and Salvatore Viganò’s La Vestale. Recent research includes "Risorgimento Themes in Italian Ballets of the Nineteenth Century," and the 2016 article "Scoring the ballo fantastico: supernatural characters and their music in Italy’s ballets during the Risorgimento." Her dissertation, “Nineteenth-century Italian Ballet Music before National Unification: Sources, Style and Context,” covers largely uncharted territory in music and dance scholarship and draws on manuscripts from the Harvard Theatre Collection and the New York Public Library Research Collections. Ertz is the recipient of the 2011-2012 “John M. Ward Fellowship for Dance and Music for the Theatre” from the Houghton Library Visiting Fellowship Program at Harvard. Ertz is an active member of the American Musicological Society and its Music and Dance Study Group.
The Great Gilly Hopkins (New Victory Theater), Tom Sawyer (Promenade) HomeFires (Jack Hiefner world premiere at Arkansas Repertory Theatre), A Midsummer Night’s Dream (New York Renaissance Festival), The Imaginary Invalid (Idaho Repertory Theater), and Hello Dolly! (Galveston Island Musicals). She has appeared at Actors Theatre of Louisville and STAGE ONE in several productions over the past twenty years. Favorite directing credits include Bang Bang You’re Dead, 44 Plays for 44 Presidents, 13 the Musical, Little Women, and Shrek the Musical at YPAS; A Year with Frog and Toad for Music Theatre of Louisville, and Bunnicula for Stage One. Katie received her BFA in Performing Arts at Western Kentucky University and her MFA in Acting from the University of Texas at Austin.
Jane B. Jones is excited to start her first year on the theatre faculty at YPAS. Previously Jones was the Director of Education at Actors Theatre of Louisville, where she worked for nine years. From Culpeper, Virginia, Jones has been a theatre educator in Virginia, Massachusetts, Kentucky, and Scotland. Jones worked for the American High School Theatre Festival at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival for ten years. At Actors, Jones has taught playwriting to middle and high school students, acted as Literary Manager of the New Voices Young Playwrights Contest, and headed the theatre’s lobby enrichment initiative. Jones has developed work with the Professional Training Company, directed in the New Voices Young Playwrights Festival, and directed A. Ray Pamatmat's Electric Harvest as part of the 2018 PTC Season. In 2012, Jones’s short play, Dress Up, was produced in the Tens at Actors and she was commissioned to write TMI: a sex-ed puppet show for Squallis Puppeteers. Jones is a former board member and contract artist for Squallis Puppeteers where she has developed several original puppet shows. Jones earned an MFA in Playwriting at Spalding University; she graduated cum laude from Smith College with a BA in Theatre.
YPAS Main Office 502-485-8355
Manual Main Office 502-485-8241
Fax 502-313-3560
EMAIL ADDRESS
ypas@jefferson.kyschools.us
PHYSICAL ADDRESS
1517 South 2nd Street
Louisville, KY 40208