WHO'S WHO IN SARASOTA BALLET? Directors IAIN WEBB (Director) danced for 18 years with both the Sadler’s Wells Royal Ballet and The Royal Ballet. His leading roles included Ashton’s The Dream, The Two Pigeons, La Fille mal gardée, Cinderella; Bintley’s The Snow Queen; Fokine’s Les Sylphides, Petrushka; Balanchine’s Prodigal Son. Retiring from the stage in 1996, Webb took on the role of Rehearsal Director for Matthew Bourne’s Swan Lake and Cinderella, and later Assistant Director for Tetsuya Kumakawa’s K-Ballet. In 2007, Webb became Director of The Sarasota Ballet, introducing over 180 ballets into the Company’s repertoire, and following their 2014 Sir Frederick Ashton Festival, garnered national and international acclaim. MARGARET BARBIERI (Assistant Director) danced for 25 years with The Royal Ballet companies, performing most of the leading roles in the classical repertoire. She worked closely with Ashton, Cranko, de Valois, MacMillan, Hynd, Massine, Tudor, van Manen, and Wright. After retiring, she became Director of the Classical Graduate Program at London Studio Centre. In 2012, Barbieri joined The Sarasota Ballet as Assistant Director. Her stagings include Ashton’s The Two Pigeons, Façade, Birthday Offering, Les Patineurs, Les Rendezvous, La Fille mal gardée, and Jazz Calendar; de Valois’ The Rake’s Progress, Checkmate; Cranko’s Pineapple Poll; Wheeldon’s There Where She Loved, The American; Fokine’s Les Sylphides, Petrushka; and Wright’s Giselle, Summertide. JOSEPH VOLPE (Executive Director), spent 42 years working at The Metropolitan Opera rising from apprentice carpenter to General Manager. He conceived ‘Met Titles’, the multilingual operatic translations onto the backs of theatre seats and initiated the development of Tessitura—a customer relation management software, which is now licensed to more than 200 companies worldwide. Volpe is the author of The Toughest Show on Earth, My Rise and Reign at The Metropolitan Opera, consulted for Ron Howard’s 2019 documentary Pavarotti, and has lectured at numerous universities including Oxford. In 2016, he became Executive Director of The Sarasota Ballet.
Dancers
KAITLYN CASEY (Principal) was born in Staten Island, NY and trained at the School of American Ballet before joining Semperoper Ballet in 2015 and Boston Ballet in 2023. Casey joined The Sarasota Ballet for the start of the 2026 – 2027 Season as a Principal. Her leading roles in previous companies include Ashton’s Cinderella, The Dream; Balanchine’s Apollo, Symphony in C; David Dawson’s Giselle, Romeo and Juliet; Forsythe’s Herman Schmerman, The Vertiginous Thrill of Exactitude; Macmillan’s Manon; Nissinen’s The Nutcracker; Nureyev’s Don Quixote; Peck’s Everywhere We Go, Heatscape.