Shelby Herbert is a teacher, musician, artist, and writer, who loves to garden, travel, adventure, and explore. Shelby began her journey at Mountain City Center for the Arts when the stars aligned, and on a whim, she auditioned to become a member of MCCA’s professional performance company in 2013.  After several months working at MCCA as a professional performer, Shelby was invited to join the teaching faculty as an acting teacher and the rest, as they say, is history. Currently, Shelby serves as the director of the Musical Theatre Program and teaches a variety of classes and private lessons.  Shelby has also served as Music Director and Costume Designer on many MCCA productions, as well as occasionally directing MCCA productions.  Seven productions for which Shelby served as Music Director received national awards at the world’s largest celebration of musical theatre for young people, The Junior Theatre Festival. Three of those productions received the highest festival honor of Outstanding Performance. In 2023, Shelby had the privilege to music direct the debut performance of 13 Jr. with MCCA at JTF.

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While studying in the department of Theatre and Dance at Frostburg State University, Shelby appeared in many productions at the University and professionally.  In her time at FSU Shelby also served as an assistant teacher to Nicole Mattis, assisting with Voice and Movement and Voice and Speech classes for two years.  For the classes she led as the culmination of her assistant teaching, Shelby chose to focus on the use of The Eight Efforts: Laban Movement in combination with the voice to create open, believable characters.  Upon graduation, Shelby was invited to return to FSU to professionally costume design a production.

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Shelby is thrilled to have partnered with other organizations in the area to share the significance of the arts with the community.  Shelby worked with MCCA and Evergreen Heritage Center, to create and present an arts education program, Dancing in Van Gogh’s Garden, to all third-grade students in the Allegany County Public School System.  In the seven years since the program’s inception, it reached approximately 5,000 students, who were able to share in the joy of creating art, music and movement.  Shelby has been invited as a guest speaker and teacher with area organizations, including The Allegany Arts Council, Allegany County Public Schools, FSU’s Cultural Events Series, and Evergreen Heritage Center. In the fall of 2022, Shelby was thrilled to travel to New Orleans to music direct the initial staged reading of The Dirty Little Mermaid (Book by Kristen Evans, Music by Kristen Evans, Shelby Herbert, and Jody Mosser). The Dirty Little Mermaid is an original rock and roots twist on the sordid old fairy tale that promises to take audiences to the bottom of the Mississippi River and back again in an epic and irreverent story of water, garbage and revenge. Shelby will continue her work on The Dirty Little Mermaid in the coming months as years as it continues on the journey to a workshop and full run in New Orleans. In her spare time, she creates art with her wife for their Etsy store, gardens, gigs, and travels as much as she can. A lover of any music with soul, Shelby takes every chance she gets to see live music. Shelby calls Morgantown, WV home, where she lives with her wife, Kate, and two crazy cats.

cool cats.