Our Staff

Molly Buchmann (Artistic Director) is co-artistic director of BRBT, co-owner of The Dancers’ Workshop and retired Director of Dance for the LSU Department of Theatre. She has choreographed over 50 musicals for professional, community and university theatres and is currently choreographer-in-residence for Swine Palace. Named a Louisiana Division of the Arts Choreographic Fellow in 1982, she has created ballet and modern works for BRBT, LSU, Western Oklahoma Ballet and San Antonio Metropolitan Ballet with works for both BRBT and San Antonio chosen for Regional Dance America Galas., Ms. Buchmann has written dance and fine arts curriculum guides for the Louisiana State Department of Education and served as dance clinician for teachers throughout the state. She holds a master’s degree in dance and has taught choreography, dance history and dance performance at LSU where she won a TAF Award for Outstanding Undergraduate Teaching and also serves on the graduate faculty. She has studied and performed with ProDanza Italia and studied with noted teachers in New York City including Leon Daneileon and Bertram Ross. In 1999, she and Ms. Mathews received the Mayor-President’s Award for Excellence in the Arts from the Arts Council of Greater Baton Rouge, and in 2003, she was inducted into the Baton Rouge High School Hall of Fame. In 2007, she and Ms. Mathews received the Baton Rouge Area Foundation’s John W. Barton Excellence in Nonprofit Management award. She is an ABT Certified Teacher who has successfully completed the ABT Teacher Training Instutute in Primary through Level 7 and Partenering of the ABT National Training Curriculum.

Sharon Mathews (Artistic Director) is co-artistic director of BRBT and co-owner of the Dancers’ Workshop. She worked as Dance Director for Baton Rouge High School from 1976 until her retirement in 2014. Ms. Mathews holds a BS and MS in dance from Louisiana State University. The Louisiana Association of Health, Physical Education, Recreation and Dance have named her Outstanding Dance Educator in Louisiana. Ms. Mathews serves on the Board of Directors of Regional Dance America Southwest, and is a member of the Superintendent’s Task Force for Arts in Education and the State Arts Contents Standards Committee. She has written curriculum guides for dance at the state and parish levels. Ms. Mathews was resident choreographer for the Baton Rouge Opera and has choreographed for Baton Rouge Gilbert and Sullivan Society, LSU Opera, LSU Theatre, and Baton Rouge Little Theater. Her choreography includes Carmen and The King and I for LSU and Oklahoma! and West Side Story for Baton Rouge Little Theater. In 2003, she was inducted into the University High School Hall of Distinction and Baton Rouge Magnet High School Hall of Fame. In 2007, she and Ms. Buchmann received the Baton Rouge Area Foundation’s John W. Barton Excellence in Nonprofit Management award. She is an ABT Certified Teacher who has successfully completed the ABT Teacher Training Instutute in Primary through Level 7 and Partenering of the ABT National Training Curriculum.

Christine began her dance career in New Orleans, studying with Joseph Giacobbe, Ceyhun Ozsoy, and Mary Munro and later moving to the stage with Delta Festival Ballet. While receiving her master’s degree in Speech-Language Pathology, she taught and performed in Shreveport, LA with Louisiana Dance Theatre, performing lead roles in pieces by Dianne Maroney and others. After moving to Baton Rouge, Christine joined Baton Rouge Ballet where she performed roles such as the Arabian, Spanish, and Azalea Fairy in the Nutcracker and pas de deux roles in both Les Sylphides and Sleeping Beauty’s Bluebird. She is now an Assistant Artistic Director for BRBT, creating and directing its newest community engagement program, Ballet for Every Body.

New Orleans native Melanie Hebert is an Emmy-nominated veteran news anchor and reporter with an extensive background in dance, communications and entrepreneurship that spans throughout the U.S.  For more than a decade she was a lead anchor and television personality at several major network affiliates, most recently in New Orleans.  Prior to that she anchored a newscast in Southern California that was top rated and earned an Emmy award during her 3 years there, while she also freelanced as a reporter for the film industry in Hollywood. She has played the role of a newscaster in several major motion films and network shows. The Women in Film and Television of Louisiana presented her with the Iris Empowered Woman Award for Outstanding Contribution to Women in Film and Television in 2021, and the Millennial Awards honored her with the Outstanding Millennial Award for Media and Journalism in New Orleans in 2013.   After she became a mother, Melanie retired from television news and made a family-based move to Baton Rouge.  She then served as an adjunct media writing professor at LSU where, as a lifelong Tiger fan, she had earned a Bachelor of Arts in Mass Communication and a Minor in Dance under the direction of Molly Buchmann. As part of her dance minor program Melanie studied at NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts on scholarship. Melanie’s love for ballet began with the late Reginald Denney in New Orleans before she was accepted into and graduated from the dance program at the prestigious New Orleans Center of Creative Arts (NOCCA) in 1998.  She was invited to return to NOCCA to speak at the commencement years later as a media professional.  Melanie remains an active community speaker and strong supporter of the arts.  She has worked as a professional choreographer and dance judge for many years across the U.S. including in Los Angeles, Phoenix, Oregon and throughout the South where she coached the LSU Tiger Girls to a 2nd place national ranking and greatly advanced the program while partnering the team with Dancers’ Workshop.  She was a four-year member and captain of the LSU Golden Girls Dance Line and has judged auditions for Tiger Girls, Golden Girls, New Orleans Honeybees, and numerous high school dance teams.  Melanie served as the BRBT Publicity Director during the 2003-2004 season while she simultaneously began her broadcast journalism career.  During that time in Baton Rouge she created, produced and co-anchored the two-week local Olympic newscast ‘From Baton Rouge to Athens’ and she was the Creator and Executive Producer of two half-hour specials on the Miss Teen USA pageant when Baton Rouge served as the host city.  Melanie is thrilled to be back at BRBT.

Rebecca Mathews Acosta (Associate Artistic Director) is a full-time teacher with East Baton Rouge Parish Public Schools at Baton Rouge Magnet High School. As director of their dance program, Ms. Acosta provides choreography for the BRMHS theater department and orchestra productions as well. She is the director of the BRBT Youth Ballet and teaches intermediate and advanced ballet at The Dancers’ Workshop. An LSU graduate, she also earned a nursing degree from our Lady of the Lake College. She has appeared in numerous principal roles with BRBT including Azalea Fairy in The Nutracker, the Fairy Godmother in Cinderella, the Lilac Fairy in Sleeping Beauty, Myrtha in Giselle, the Mother in “Family Secrets” and Mother in “Women of Acts”. Rebecca studied on full scholarship at the Joffrey Ballet, New York, and on scholarship with the Eglevsky Ballet, where she appeared as a demi-soloist in Swan Lake and a soloist in Paquita. She also appeared in several LSU opera and theater productions and in West Side Story with Theatre Baton Rouge. As an ABT Certified Teacher, she successfully completed the ABT Teacher Training Institute in Primary through Level 7 and Partnering of the ABT National Training Curriculum with ABT New York. Outside of teaching dance, Ms. Rebecca is also mom to Marc and Lizzie, a Kappa Delta Alum, and a sustaining member of the Jr. League of Baton Rouge.

Jonna Cox (Assistant Director) began her ballet training in Corpus Christi, Texas, with Larry and Bettye Roquemore and then Christina Munro.  She received a BFA in ballet from Texas Christian University, where she attended on a Nordan Fine Art Scholarship.  She danced professionally for the Dayton Ballet, where she performed in Pas de Quatre, Swan Lake, Carmina Burana, and others.  In 2006, her choreography for BRBT was selected for Regional Dance America Southwest’s Emerging Choreographers Performance where it won the outstanding choreography award garnering her a scholarship to the Choreography Conference at University of Utah.  She has danced a number of principal roles for BRBT including Azalea Fairy in Nutcracker.