Kristel Jelinek Brown (she/hers) is an actor, director, intimacy choreographer, and community-based arts and sexuality educator, interested in working to educate and engage a variety of diverse age groups and communities through the performing arts. Her artistic career has spanned the spectrum from commercial theatrical performance to community-based arts activism and education. Kristel has worked with people of all ages, abilities, and identities in the North Denver-Boulder metro and NYC-metro areas, including community centers, nursing homes, classrooms, traditional arts’ spaces, non-profits, community-based organizations, music festivals, and Broadway audiences.

Originally from Colorado, Kristel holds a BFA in Theater Performance from the University of Colorado at Boulder, a masters degree in Applied Theater from The City University of New York (CUNY), and is currently pursuing a Certification in Holistic Sexuality Education from the Institute for Sexual Education, and Enlightenment. Additionally, she holds a graduate certificate in Disability Studies from CUNY and has studied intimacy choreography with Theatrical Intimacy Education (TIE).

As a director, choreographer, and teaching artist, she has worked with such organizations/institutions as Spellbound Theatre, The CAT Youth Theatre, The Denver Center for the Performing Arts, the Crested Butte Music Festival, The Bayview Music Festival, Mackintosh Academy, Imagine Colorado, FRIENDS of Broomfield, Metropolitan State University, The Northglenn Youth Theatre, and Parlando School of Musical Arts, where she served as Director of Voice and Theatrical Education until 2019. Kristel is one of the co-founders of Dandelion Arts Collective, a woman-owned Denver-based nonprofit organization that promotes and advances health equity through community-based performing arts practices. She is passionate about arts access for all and the reinvention of art-making & arts spaces as radical, inclusive, and democratic. Kristel is a mama to two humans, one tiny dog, and resides with her family in Denver, Colorado. 

Some of her favorite performance credits include: Lysistrata Jones (Cleonice), Grease (Frenchy), Aida (Ensemble), Aladdin (Princess Jasmine); National Tour Urban Cowboy, the Musical (Ensemble), and as a principal vocalist for both Norwegian Cruise Lines (2007-2010) and Harrah’s Showboat Casino in Atlantic City.

Directing/choreography credits include: Honk Jr, Hansel and Gretel, James and the Giant Peach Jr, die Fledermaus, You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown, Xanadu, Joseph & the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, Little Shop of Horrors, The Sound of Music, Le Nozze di Figaro, Joseph and the Technicolor Dreamcoat, The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee, The Merry Widow, Bye, Bye Birdie, and Seussical.