Frank Bluestein (Co-Founder) is the 1996–1997 Disney National Performing Arts Teacher of the Year and the 1994 Tennessee Teacher of the Year. USA Today named Mr. Bluestein as one of the top forty teachers in the United States in 1998. Until his retirement in 2013, he served as chair of the Germantown High School Fine Arts Department; as artistic director of the school’s theatre, the Poplar Pike Playhouse; and as executive producer for Germantown Community Television, the school’s nationally acclaimed television production center. Graduates from his program include Saturday Night Live star Chris Parnell; film, television, and stage actress Missi Pyle; Emmy-winning casting director Scott Genkinger (Desperate Housewives & NYPD Blue); NPR reporter Debbie Elliott; TSC’s Dan McCleary; and Blue Man Group actor Wes Day. Mr. Bluestein is a past winner of the American Theatre Association’s John C. Barner Award, and has served as an arts advisory panelist for numerous organizations, including the National Endowment for the Arts. In addition to acting as a senior advisor for TSC, he currently serves as executive director of the Tennessee Arts Academy, a leading professional development institute for arts teachers located in Nashville on the Belmont University campus. Mr. Bluestein spent several years as director of shows at Opryland, USA, and he most recently wrote and directed the national touring production of Beale Street Saturday Night starring blues legend Joyce Cobb. In 2013, he was inducted into the Educational Theatre Association’s Hall of Fame in Minneapolis.