Ron Van Lieu: Tennessee Williams (11/16-11/18)
2024-11-18 10:00 - 13:00 (America/New_York)
In-Person Workshop

RON VAN LIEU:
Tennessee Williams
Weekend Workshop

Dates & Times
Saturday, November 16, 2024 – 11:00am-2:00pm
Sunday, November 17, 2024 – 11:00am-2:00pm
Monday, November 18, 2024 – 10:00am-1:00pm
Sat/Mon Location: Houghton Hall, 22 East 30th Street, 2nd Floor Ballroom
Sun Location: Actors Theatre Workshop, 145 West 28th Street, 3rd Floor
This workshop is open to observers and all company members are invited to attend.
About the Workshop
Revered acting teacher Ron Van Lieu, founding faculty member of The Actors Center and former faculty at NYU, Yale, and Columbia, returns for three days of scene study exploring the plays of Tennessee Williams. Participants are encouraged to play across type and gender if they desire. Sessions meet 11:00am-2:00pm on Saturday and Sunday, and 10:00am-1:00pm on Monday.
Ron will work on up to three scenes each day. You can sign up either together with a scene partner or as an individual and you will be paired with another individual. When registering, you may indicate your availability and you will have a one-hour time slot assigned for your scene accordingly.
You should be off-book and well rehearsed with your material for this workshop. If your schedule does not permit sufficient time to prepare, please sign up for a future workshop instead.
If you are looking for a scene partner, you may post in the comments thread, or you can also find contact information for all members in the member directory.
About Ron Van Lieu
Ron Van Lieu was the Master Teacher of Acting and eventually Chair of the NYU Graduate Acting Program where he taught from 1975 to 2004. In 2004 he was appointed the Lloyd Richards Professor of Acting and Chair of the Acting Program at the Yale School of Drama where he taught until 2017, and where he is now Professor Emeritus. In 2017, Ron was appointed Professor of Professional Practice at the Columbia University School of the Arts Graduate Actor Training Program.
Actors who have trained with Ron over the past 50 years have won every major award in the field of theater, acting, and dramatic arts, including the Pulitzer Prize, the Academy Award, Tony Award, Drama Desk Award, Golden Globe, Emmy, and Obie, among others.
In addition to his university work, Ron is a founding faculty member of both The Shakespeare Lab at the New York Shakespeare Festival Public Theater where he headed the actor training for 10 years, as well as The Actors Center, where is Artistic Director Emeritus.
Ron trained at New York University Tisch School of the Arts. His acting credits include major regional theaters, leading roles off-Broadway, New York Shakespeare Festival, The Public Theatre, Playwrights Horizons, and a member of the Milwaukee Repertory Theater’s acting company. His directing credits include productions at Playwrights Horizons, The Public Theater, Syracuse Stage, the Greer Garson Theater in Santa Fe, and over 50 productions at the NYU Graduate Acting Program. In 1993 he was awarded the New York University Distinguished Teaching Medal, the university’s highest award given in recognition of outstanding achievement in classroom teaching.
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Scene Partner NameScene Partner Email

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Sat. 11/16 - 11:00am

Sat. 11/16 - 12:00pm

Sat. 11/16 - 1:00pm

Sun. 11/17 - 11:00am

Sun. 11/17 - 12:00pm

Sun. 11/17 - 1:00pm

Mon. 11/18 - 10:00am

Mon. 11/18 - 11:00am

Mon. 11/18 - 12:00pm
What are you hoping to work on? / Partnering requestsIf you have any particular plays in mind, please list. Or if open to anything, simply put Any.

Also, if you have any requests for considerations regarding partnering with another individual, please share.

Participants
Enrollment is limited to 3 scenes each day.

Entries

Mahira KakkarRafael JordanSat. 11/16 - 11:00am

Celia Keenan-BolgerAndrea SyglowskiSat. 11/16 - 12:00pm

Delphi HarringtonChristopher KellySat. 11/16 - 1:00pm

David Dean BottrellAdinah AlexanderSun. 11/17 - 11:00am

Jess GaborStephanie KurtzubaSun. 11/17 - 12:00pm

Heather Alicia SimmsBen BeckleySun. 11/17 - 1:00pm

Carey CoxJoseph KiblerMon. 11/18 - 11:00am

Tina ChilipJulyana SoelistyoMon. 11/18 - 10:00am

Joanne KellyEmmy HarringtonMon. 11/18 - 12:00pm

Neal LernerJill LarsonWaitlist #1

Mary BaconDominic ComperatoreWaitlist #2

Walker JonesKa-Ling CheungWaitlist #3

James SeolChristine BrunoWaitlist #4

Rebecca HarrisBecca LishWaitlist #5

John Evans ReeseLynn HawleyWaitlist #6

Maggie BofillBecky LondonWaitlist #7

Kim AwonIvory AquinoWaitlist #8

Comments/Queries

Raja Feather Kelly: Behavior As a Way In (11/12-11/19)
2024-11-19 10:00 - 14:00
In-Person Workshop

RAJA FEATHER KELLY: Behavior As A Way In
2 Tuesday Mornings

Dates & Times
Tuesday, November 12, 2024 – 10:00am-2:00pm
Tuesday, November 19, 2024 – 10:00am-2:00pm
Gibney: Agnes Varis Performing Arts Center, 280 Broadway
Enter at 53A Chambers Street
We are unable to accommodate observers at this workshop.
About the Workshop

Choreographer and director Raja Feather Kelly returns to The Actors Center for a 2-day workshop exploring acting through the lens of human behavior. Discover the nuances of task engagement, idle time, and non-verbal expression, while experiencing Raja’s unique devised danced-theatre approach from his company, the feath3r theory. Through immersive exercises and collaborative scene work, participants will enhance their understanding of character, connection, movement, and interaction, unlocking new dimensions of storytelling. Sessions run Tuesdays 10am-2pm.

About Raja Feather Kelly

Raja Feather Kelly is a choreographer and director, and the Artistic Director of the feath3r theory (TF3T), a Brooklyn-based dance-theatre-media company that he founded in 2009. Over the past decade, he has created 18 evening-length works with the feath3r theory to critical acclaim.
Frequent collaborators include Lileana Blain-Cruz, Branden Jacobs-Jenkins, Sarah Benson, and Michael R. Jackson. His most recent choreography includes White Girl in Danger at the Second Stage Kiser Theater (2023), written by Michael R. Jackson and directed by Lileana Blain-Cruz. He choreographed the Tony Award-winning Broadway musical A Strange Loop (Lyceum Theatre, premiered off-Broadway at Playwrights Horizon) and Fairview (Soho Rep, Berkeley Rep, TFANA), both winners of the Pulitzer Prize for Drama. He was hailed by The New York Times as the choreographer who “can make your play move” for his extensive work Off-Broadway.
Other theater credits include Lempicka (Broadway and La Jolla Playhouse), Bunny Bunny (UC San Diego), We’re Gonna Die (Second Stage Theater—his directorial debut), SUFFS (The Public Theater), The Good Swimmer (BAM), The Listeners (Oslo Opera), Macbeth In Stride (ACT, STC, PTC), Teeth (Playwrights Horizons), and The Fires written and directed by Raja at Soho Rep.
He has received dozens of awards, fellowships and honors including a Princeton Arts Fellowship (2023-2025), a Mellon Foundation grant (2021), an Obie Award and Outer Critics Circle Award honor for choreography for A Strange Loop (2020), an inaugural Jerome Hill Artist Fellowship (2019-2021), a Randjelović/Stryker Resident Commissioned Artist at New York Live Arts (2019– 2020), a National Dance Project Production Grant (2019–2021), a New York Dance Performance Bessie Award (2009), a Creative Capital Award (2019), three Princess Grace Awards (2017-2019), a National Dance Project Production Grant (2019), a Breakout Award from the Stage Directors and Choreographers Foundation (2018), Dance Magazine’s inaugural Harkness Promise Award (2018), a Creator-in-Residence at Kickstarter (2018), and a Choreography Fellowship at the Center for Ballet and the Arts at NYU (2017), a Bessie Schonberg Fellowship at The Yard (2017), the Solange MacArthur Award for New Choreography (2016), an ImPulsTanz Festival DanceWEB Scholarship, and a New York Foundation for the Arts Choreography Fellowship (2016).

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Participants
Enrollment is limited to 14 participants. Participants are expected to attend both days in full.

Entries

Neal BledsoePending

Sohina SidhuPending

Welker WhiteParticipant

Maria-Christina OliverasParticipant

Purva BediParticipant

Jeb BrownParticipant

Ivory AquinoParticipant

Emma O'DonnellParticipant

Denise CormierParticipant

Chris McLindenParticipant

Annie MeiselsParticipant

Judy KuhnParticipant

Maggie BofillParticipant

Carmen LoBueParticipant

Jess GaborParticipant

Rafael JordanParticipant

Ellen AdairWaitlist

Dominic ComperatoreWaitlist

Kathleen Turco-LyonWaitlist

Comments/Queries

Weekly Community Space
2024-11-19 11:00 - 12:30, 2024-11-26 11:00 - 12:30, 2024-12-03 11:00 - 12:30, 2024-12-10 11:00 - 12:30, 2024-12-17 11:00 - 12:30, 2024-12-24 11:00 - 12:30, 2024-12-31 11:00 - 12:30, 2025-01-07 11:00 - 12:30 and 7 more dates
Company CoLabs

Community Space
Tuesday Mornings

Dates & Times
Every Tuesday – 11:00am-12:30pm ET

Launch Zoom Link
Meeting ID: 837 0411 7798
Passcode: [REDACTED]
Hosted by Jodie Lynne McClintock
About the CoLab
Started three years ago at the height of the Covid-19 lockdown as a way to connect, it has continued weekly as a family of actors navigating the changing landscape of our times. Here you will find a supportive, safe virtual space where artists in our company bring their stories, concerns, questions, recommendations, and inspirations in a free-wheeling but facilitated discussion. With no set agenda, we delve into whatever is of interest or concern in any given week. We explore what it means to be an actor and what place our art holds in the world. People suggest balm for body and soul while walking hand-in-hand along the actor’s way.
About the Series
Company CoLabs are a series at The Actors Center that offer a framework for collaborative explorations and community programming among company members. Company members host or facilitate projects—play reading groups, explorations of new material or approaches, writing labs, devising work, field trips, retreats—in short, anything inspiring to explore among peers. CoLabs offer creative outlets to explore work you might not otherwise have the opportunity for, while continuing to share resources and deepen connections among our Actors Center community.
Comments/Queries

Dominic Comperatore: Money Masterclass
2024-11-20 16:00 - 18:30
Career Support

DOMINIC COMPERATORE:
Money Masterclass

Dates & Times
Wednesday, November 20, 2024 – 4:00pm-6:30pm
ART/New York, 520 8th Avenue, 3rd Floor, Bruce Mitchell Room
About the Event
Company member Dominic Comperatore leads a one-day Money Masterclass: Everything you were never taught about money and how to take better control of it—specifically as an actor. We’ll cover the basics of taxes, income and deductions, how to budget on an unstable income, investing for retirement, record keeping, best practices, common pitfalls and more.
In addition to being an actor, Dominic has been a professional tax preparer specializing in actor taxes for 17 years. He is the founder of Empire Tax Prep and has worked as a preparer in both Los Angeles and New York. He has been a frequent guest lecturer on taxes and money for artists at many organizations, including The Entertainment Community Fund (formerly The Actors Fund), The SAG Foundation, NYU Tisch Grad Acting, HB Studio, The Arts in Education Roundtable, The Global Thinking Foundation, The Artists Financial Support Group and others.
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Deborah Hecht: Accents & Dialects
2024-12-03 10:00 - 13:00, 2024-12-05 10:00 - 13:00, 2024-12-10 10:00 - 13:00
In-Person Workshop

DEBORAH HECHT: Accents & Dialects
4 Tuesday & Thursday Mornings

Dates & Times
Tuesday, December 3, 2024 – 10:00am-1:00pm
Thursday, December 5, 2024 – 10:00am-1:00pm
Tuesday, December 10, 2024 – 10:00am-1:00pm
Thursday, December 12, 2024 – 10:00am-1:00pm
ART/New York, 520 8th Avenue, 3rd Floor, Leynse Studio
We are unable to accommodate observers at this workshop.
About the Workshop

Voice, speech and dialect coach and teacher Deborah Hecht joins The Actors Center for four days of accent and dialect work. The workshop is intended to help the actor feel secure in preparing for a role or, especially, an audition requiring an accent or dialect. Deb will guide participants in looking at a contemporary English-language dialect and using it to explore muscular shifts, vocal placement shifts, primary and secondary speech sound shifts, rhythm, word linkage, corresponding body language, and the influence of climate and topography.
The approach is physical, auditory, and visual and will also look at tips and tricks to make the application of dialects and accents practical and useful for the individual actor. Participants are encouraged to also tackle an accent or dialect of their choosing and work on it during the workshop. There will be individual focus as well as group exploration. Sessions run Tuesday and Thursday mornings over two weeks from 10:00am-1:00pm.
About Deborah Hecht
Deborah Hecht is an internationally known voice, speech and dialects coach. On Broadway she has coached 99 productions including The Great Gatsby, Sweeney Todd, The Ferryman, Hangmen, and the original and recent productions of Angels in America. Complete list at iBdb.com. Off-Broadway her coaching has been heard in hundreds of productions at Playwrights Horizons, Manhattan Theatre Club, the Signature, MCC, Classic Stage Company, New York Theatre Workshop, and more. Deborah has coached shows in England at the National and the RSC. Film and TV work includes Moana, We Were the Lucky Ones, Tokyo Vice, and many others. Actors she has taught and/or worked with include Angela Bassett and Courtney B. Vance, Marisa Tomei, Andre Holland, Patrick Stewart, Vanessa Redgrave, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Liam Neeson, Laura Linney, Michelle Williams, Sterling K. Brown and many others. She has taught voice and speech, dialects, and Shakespeare text at Juilliard, NYU Graduate Acting, the Yale School of Drama, ACT in San Francisco, and UNC Chapel Hill. She also taught voice at The Freedom Theatre in the West Bank.
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Participants
Enrollment is limited to 14 participants. Extremely limited conflicts may be accommodated.

Entries

Ivory AquinoPending

Valeri MudekParticipant

Ramsey FaragallahParticipant

Rebecca HarrisParticipant

Karl BuryParticipant

Patrick KerrParticipant

Jo MeiParticipant

Brian Scott McFaddenParticipant

Becca LishParticipant

Joe HoltParticipant

Joanne kellyParticipant

Lynnette R. FreemanParticipant

Madeline WiseParticipant

Molly CampParticipant

Mandy SiegfriedParticipant

Katie FirthWaitlist

Emma O'DonnellWaitlist

annie meiselsWaitlist

Judy KuhnWaitlist

Ethan DubinWaitlist

Christine BrunoWaitlist

Liza FernandezWaitlist

Edward O'Blenis Jr.Waitlist

Emmy HarringtonWaitlist

Maggie BofillWaitlist

Rafael JordanWaitlist

Dominic ComperatoreWaitlist

Adinah AlexanderWaitlist

Comments/Queries

Jeff Crockett: Embodied Presence (12/7-12/8)
2024-12-07 10:00 - 16:00, 2024-12-08 10:00 - 17:00
In-Person Workshop

JEFF CROCKETT: Embodied Presence
Weekend Workshop

Dates & Times
Saturday, December 7, 2024 – 10:00am-4:00pm
Sunday, December 8, 2024 – 10:00am-4:00pm
Gibney: Agnes Varis Performing Arts Center, 280 Broadway
Enter at 53A Chambers Street
We are unable to accommodate observers at this workshop.
About the Workshop

Voice teacher and longtime former A.C.T. faculty member Jeff Crockett joins The Actors Center for the first time for a weekend devoted to awakening your inner resources of wholeness, vitality, and spontaneity. Based on the teachings of Ilse Middendorf and principles from the Alexander Technique, the penumbra method is a movement and meditation practice that centers on the breath as an agent for integration and personal direction. During our time together, we will engage in a dialogue with our active imagination and unconscious. Informed by your unique lived experience, the work offers insight, a sense of your wholeness, and is uniquely personal to you. You will begin to discover you are no longer observing yourself with an eye toward correcting habits, but instead, allowing habitual patterns to unravel and facilitate movement that unifies the entire body, so that you are in command of your presence, both in your work and life. Sessions run 10:00am-5:00pm on Saturday and Sunday.

About Jeff Crockett
Jeff Crockett was Head of Voice at The American Conservatory Theater in San Francisco for 22 years. He was resident voice coach at the Children’s Theatre in Minneapolis. Other coaching credits include: Theatre de la Jeune Lune, Mixed Blood, Theatre Manoeuvres (London), Berkeley Repertory Theatre, California Shakespeare Theater, Word for Word and Shotgun Players, and with Play On Shakespeare and The Public in New York.
He was a regular guest faculty member at l’Accademia Nazionale d’Arte Drammatica “Silvio D’Amico” in Rome for 11 years. Also in Italy, he taught at Prima del Teatro, San Miniato and Teatro Due in Parma. He has been a guest teacher at Columbia, DePaul University, the University of Maryland, Stanford, Classic Stage Company and Chautauqua Theater Company. He is currently an adjunct faculty member at NYU.
He trained at The Royal Central School of Speech and Drama in London, where he received an Advanced Diploma in Voice Studies (Distinction). He is certified to teach the FM Alexander Technique and is a certified practitioner of Middendorf Breathwork. His article on Middendorf Breathwork, published in the Voice and Speech Review, has become a chapter in the book, Vocal Traditions: Training in the Performing Arts.

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Your Name*Your Email*

Participants
Enrollment is limited to 16 participants, who are expected to attend both days in full.

Entries

Ivory AquinoPending

Joel Van LiewPending

Heidi ArmbrusterPending

Nicole ShalhoubPending

Rafael JordanPending

LaTonya BorsayPending

Alexandra NeilPending

Julyana SoelistyoParticipant

Kate AbbruzzeseParticipant

Ka-Ling CheungParticipant

Eva KaminskyParticipant

Maria-Christina OliverasParticipant

Liza FernandezParticipant

Christian CoulsonParticipant

Welker WhiteParticipant

Neal LernerParticipant

John RothmanParticipant

Reynaldo PiniellaParticipant

Helen CoxeParticipant

Lizan MitchellParticipant

Christine BrunoParticipant

Elizabeth StahlmannParticipant

Ronald PeetParticipant

Ramsey FaragallahWaitlist

Richard PoeWaitlist

Dominic ComperatoreWaitlist

Maggie BofillWaitlist

Clark JacksonWaitlist

Brian Scott McFaddenWaitlist

Comments/Queries

2024 Holiday Party
2024-12-15 18:00 - 21:00
Company Event

2024 Holiday Party!

About the Party
Sunday, December 15, 2024 – 6:00pm-9:00pm
7 East 20th Street, Apt 5F
Please join us for our first Holiday Party in six years, hosted generously by Polly Adams! A festive opportunity to come together and celebrate.
All members of our company and mentorship program are invited to attend. Due to the size of the company, we unfortunately can’t accommodate guests or children.
While snacks and drinks are provided, we encourage you to bring food and drink to share as well.
Looking forward to seeing you all!
RSVP

Your Name*Your Email*

Attending

Entries

Adinah Alexander

Alex Birnie

Alison Cimmet

Andres Santiago Piña

Angel Desai

Anney Giobbe

Annie Henk

Armand Schultz

Arturo Luíz Soria

Barbara Garrick

Becky London

Ben Beckley

Ben Mehl

Beth McGuire

Brian McManamon

Brian Scott McFadden

Carmen LoBue

Carole Monferdini

Celeste Arias

Chris McLinden

Christine Bruno

Cindy Cheung

Crystal Dickinson

Cynthia Darlow

David Dean Bottrell

Dee Pelletier

Edward O'Blenis

Elizabeth Stahlmann

Erik Liberman

Fay Simpson

Geneva Carr

Gerardo Rodriguez

Jill Larson

Joe Holt

Joel Van Liew

John Evans Reese

Joshua David Robinson

June Ballinger

Kate Abbruzzese

Kenneth Lee

Kim Awon

Kim Sykes

Laura Sametz

Linda Powell

Lizan Mitchell

Lynnette R. Freeman

Magaly Colimon

Maggie Bofill

Malcolm Gets

Maria-Christina Oliveras

Max Wolkowitz

MaYaa Boateng

Mel House

Michael Cuomo

Michael Mastro

Patrick Mulryan

Peter Jay Fernandez

Veraalba Santa

Veraalba Santa

Walker Jones

Welker White

Yadira Correa Ortiz

Comments/Queries

Kenneth Noel Mitchell: Prescriptive Scene Study (2/13-3/6)
2025-02-13 14:00 - 17:00, 2025-02-20 14:00 - 17:00
In-Person Workshop

KENNETH NOEL MITCHELL:
Prescriptive Scene Study
Four Thursday Afternoons

Dates & Times
Thursday, February 13, 2025 – 2:00pm-5:00pm
Thursday, February 20, 2025 – 2:00pm-5:00pm
Thursday, February 27, 2025 – 2:00pm-5:00pm
Thursday, March 6, 2025 – 2:00pm-5:00pm
Houghton Hall, 22 East 30th Street, 2nd Floor Ballroom
This workshop is open to observers and all company members are invited to attend.
About the Workshop
Acting teacher Kenneth Noel Mitchell leads a workshop with The Actors Center for the first time, crafted to nurture and ignite each actor’s distinctive journey over four weeks. You will have the opportunity to articulate a specific acting challenge that you aspire to tackle throughout the workshop. With Kenneth’s guidance, you will select a scene and character that resonates with your goals, ensuring that your experience is both focused and challenging.
You may sign up as an individual and you will be paired with another member to work on a scene. Each scene pair will work twice over the four weeks. You should be off-book and rehearsed with your material for this workshop. Sessions run Thursday afternoons, 2:00pm-5:00pm.
About Kenneth Noel Mitchell
Kenneth Noel Mitchell was the director of Musical Theatre for the School of Dramatic Arts at the University of Southern California. Before that, he was the founding head of acting for the New Studio on Broadway and the associate chair of the New York University (NYU) Department of Drama. Kenneth served as the coordinator of acting at the University of Minnesota/Guthrie Theater BFA Professional Theatre Training Program. Currently, he is teaching acting for the Experimental Theatre Wing at NYU. As a director and actor, Kenneth’s work has been represented in New York and regionally. Kenneth has served as the Artistic Director for American Stage. He has been affiliated with the New Shakespeare Festival and Circle Rep. Kenneth was a company member of the American Globe Theatre for over twenty years. He was chair of the YoungArts Theatre Panel and a member of Actors Equity.
Register Now

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Your Name*Your Email*

Participants
Enrollment is limited to 12 actors. Each scene pair will work twice over the four weeks. Slight conflicts can be accommodated.

Entries

Joel Van LiewPending

Brian Scott McFaddenPending

Adinah AlexanderParticipant

Julian Elijah MartinezParticipant

Kate AbbruzzeseParticipant

John RothmanParticipant

Ben BeckleyParticipant

Emmy HarringtonParticipant

Allison Briner-DardenneParticipant

Mary BaconParticipant

Emma RamosParticipant

Christine BrunoParticipant

Becky LondonParticipant

Clark JacksonParticipant

Sarah MantonWaitlist

Comments/Queries

Crystal Dickinson & Brandon Dirden: August Wilson (2/22-2/24)
2025-02-22 10:00 - 17:00, 2025-02-23 10:00 - 17:00, 2025-02-24 13:00 - 17:00
In-Person Workshop

CRYSTAL DICKINSON & BRANDON DIRDEN:
August Wilson
Three Day Weekend

Dates & Times
Saturday, February 22, 2025 – 10:00am-5:00pm
Sunday, February 23, 2025 – 10:00am-5:00pm
Monday, February 24, 2025 – 1:00pm-5:00pm
Sat: Atlantic Theatre Company Stage 2, 330 West 16th Street, Studio A
Sun/Mon: Houghton Hall, 22 East 30th Street, 2nd Floor Jefferson
This workshop is open to observers and all company members are invited to attend.
About the Workshop
Actor, educator, and company member Crystal Dickinson and actor, director, and NYU faculty member Brandon Dirden join The Actors Center for the first time for three days exploring the plays of August Wilson. The pair will work with company members on select scenes from Wilson’s plays, alongside discussion of his work and context of his plays, their interaction with current culture and society, and the rhythm and specificity of his language. This workshop is open to company members of all backgrounds and races. Sessions run Saturday and Sunday, 10:00am-5:00pm, and Monday from 1:00pm-5:00pm.
About Crystal Dickinson & Brandon Dirden
Crystal Dickinson is an actor, educator and a New Jersey native. Her New York career began at The Signature Theater alongside her husband, Brandon Dirden, and brother-in-law, Jason Dirden in Leslie Lee’s First Breeze of Summer, which starred Leslie Uggums and was directed by Ruben Santiago-Hudson. She went on to perform on Broadway in the Tony Award winning play, Clybourne Park, for which she received an illustrious Theater World Award, and the Tony nominated play, You Can’t Take It With You, alongside James Earl Jones and Rose Byrne.
She has performed Off Broadway at Lincoln Center, The Public Theater, Playwrights Horizons and Theater for A New Audience and The Atlantic, among others, and worked with Thomas Kail, Michael Greif, Scott Ellis, Bryan Cranston, Wendell Pierce, Pam Mackinnon, Lila Neugebauer, and Leigh Silverman. Her film and television credits include: I Origins, The Good Wife, New Amsterdam and recurring roles on Showtime’s The Chi and the second season of ABC’s For Life.
Crystal has also had an illustrious career teaching acting at Stella Adler Studio, Spelman College, NYU, Princeton, Pace University, University of Arkansas and both of her Alumni schools, University of Illinois and Seton Hall and helped countless students get into the best graduate training programs across the country. She believes theatre is both an individual and a communal celebration of humanity and those who choose to educate performing artists must provide their students with an inclusive awareness of theatre and all its facets. Actor training can begin with technique, but it must also prepare the actor for the creative world in which he/she/they will enter.
A proud MFA graduate of The University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana, she also studied at the London Academy for Music and Dramatic Art and is an elite member of the Lincoln Center Directors Lab. Currently, she is involved with an artist collective called, The Commissary, which creates and examines work around issues of racial and social injustice in America.
Brandon J. Dirden is an actor and director perhaps best known for portraying Martin Luther King Jr. in the Tony Award-winning Broadway production of Robert Schenkkan’s All The Way opposite Bryan Cranston’s Lyndon B. Johnson. In 2017, he starred in the Broadway premiere of August Wilson’s Tony Award winning Jitney, directed by frequent collaborator, Ruben Santiago-Hudson.
He made his directorial debut with August Wilson’s Seven Guitars at Two River Theater in Red Bank, NJ to great acclaim in 2016 and in 2018 he returned to Two River to direct Wilson’s King Hedley II to a sold-out run. Brandon played Agent Dennis Aderholt on FX’s hit series The Americans. Other television appearances include Baz Lehrman’s The Get Down for Netflix, FX’s Mrs. America, and ABC’s new hit drama For Life.
His work onstage has been recognized with a Theater World Award, OBIE award, AUDELCO award, Drama League distinction, Lucille Lortel nomination and others. He has been a guest lecturer at Black Arts Institute, Spelman College, Yale University, Princeton University, Brown University, Columbia University and Juilliard.
Brandon is Associate Arts Professor in the Graduate Acting Department. He received his B.A. in Mathematics and Drama from Morehouse College and his MFA in Acting from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
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Registration Type*

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Your Name*Your Email*

Scene Partner NameScene Partner Email

Anything in particular you're hoping to work on?If you have a particular character or play in mind, please list. Or if open to anything, simply put 'Any'.

Also, please share if you have any requests for considerations regarding scene partners.

Participants
Enrollment is limited to 12-14 actors. Each scene pair will work twice over the three days. Slight conflicts can be accommodated.
Comments/Queries

Tonya Pinkins: Radical Authenticity in Your Life & Art (2/25-3/14)
2025-02-25 10:00 - 13:00
In-Person Workshop

TONYA PINKINS:
Radical Authenticity in Life & Art
Six Tuesday & Friday Mornings

Dates & Times
Tuesday, February 25, 2025 – 10:00am-1:00pm
Friday, February 28, 2025 – 10:00am-1:00pm
Tuesday, March 4, 2025 – 10:00am-1:00pm
Friday, March 7, 2025 – 10:00am-1:00pm
Tuesday, March 11, 2025 – 10:00am-1:00pm
Friday, March 14, 2025 – 10:00am-1:00pm
Houghton Hall, 22 East 30th Street, 2nd Floor
Tuesdays in the Ballroom, Fridays in the Jefferson
This workshop is open to observers and all company members are invited to attend.
About the Workshop
Award-winning actress, filmmaker, and teacher Tonya Pinkins leads a workshop with The Actors Center devoted to cultivating radical authenticity in your life and art through the Meisner method. Over six sessions, Tonya will guide actors through the principles of the method, emphasizing active listening and truthful, spontaneous reactions. Offering tools to connect actors more authentically with their scene partners, their characters, and their own emotions, this workshop will not only support greater honesty in performance, but support actors in being more present and self-aware in their lives.
Martha Graham once said “There is a vitality, a life force, a quickening that is translated through you into action, and there is only one of you in all time.” Now and in the future, as actors compete with AI versions of themselves and others, it is critical to tap into that unique spark and to allow it to grow and bloom in ways that no algorithm can ever replicate. Sessions run Tuesdays and Fridays from 10:00am-1:00pm.
About Tonya Pinkins
Tonya Pinkins is an award winning actor. She has been in nine Broadway shows, two day time soap operas, numerous episodic television shows and feature films. Some of her awards include a Tony, Obie, Drama Desk, Outer Critics Circle, 3 Lortels, the 2020 Franky Award for long term impact in contemporary theater, and the 2021 Rachel Crothers Leadership Award from The League of Professional Theater Women. She has been nominated for the Olivier, Ovation, Helen Hayes, Noel, Jefferson, and NAACP Theater awards among others. Tonya has been a Fulbright Scholar and a Beinecke Fellow at Yale. Her debut Feature film, Red Pill has won numerous best feature and best director awards around the world. She is the author of “Get Over Yourself: How to drop the drama and claim the life you deserve,” published in 2006 by Hyperion, and “Red Pill Unmasked” available on Audible. Her essays on America Theater can be found on Medium.
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Enrollment is limited to 12 actors. Slight conflicts can be accommodated.
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