Sarah Victoria, master instructor of PEM, joins actress and teacher Welker White on Thursday, November 21, 2024 at 7:00pm for an evening of conversation exploring our understanding of authentic emotion, reframing its role in acting and actor training, and supporting the emotional intelligence and wellbeing of actors.
Award-winning choreographer and director, Raja Feather Kelly, joins Ato Blankson-Wood on Tuesday, November 12, 2024 at 7:00pm for an intimate conversation exploring Raja's creative process, his unique devised danced-theatre approach from his company, the feath3r theory, the connection between physicality and emotion, and the power of movement in storytelling.
Acclaimed acting coach, Ted Sluberski, multi-disciplinary artist Budi Miller, and dramaturg Taylor Barfield join our Resident Company for the first time this fall for a series of artist development workshops focused on performance on-camera and embodying imagination through mask.
Award-winning playwright, screenwriter, actor and director, Stephen Adly Guirgis, joins Andrea Syglowski and members of The Actors Center's Resident Company on Wednesday, October 30, 2024 at 7:00pm for an intimate evening of conversation about his writing process and what it means to be a multi-hyphenate artist—how his acting informs his writing and how his writing informs his acting.
Leigh Kilton-Smith, teacher and acting coach, will join The Actors Center’s Resident Company in October 2024 for an artist development workshop. She will also lead a Scene Study workshop open to any professional actor to attend by application.
Award-winning playwright, screenwriter, director, and author, Theresa Rebeck, joins Mary Bacon and members of The Actors Center's Resident Company for an intimate evening of conversation about her creative process and her relationship with actors—exploring the unique collaboration between writer and performer and how she incorporates actors in the development of new work.
Patrick Page, acclaimed Tony-nominated actor and teacher, and Kathleen McNenny, actor, teacher, and Juilliard faculty member, will join The Actors Center’s Resident Company in September for a pair of artist development workshops devoted to the work of Shakespeare and Physical Acting using the tool of the Mask.
Teachers and Yale faculty members Jessica Wolf and Grace Zandarski return to The Actors Center to open the 2024-25 season. The pair of faculty are in residence leading a workshop devoted to body, breath, and voice.
This innovative 8-month initiative is designed specifically to support artists who are in the early stages of their acting careers, helping them bridge the crucial gap between training and a sustainable, fulfilling career. Learn more about the program.
Distinguished actor and Professor and Chair of Performance at USC School of Dramatic Arts, Michele Shay, joins the Resident Company this spring for an exploration on the artist’s role and responsibility for empathy building amid the current fractured global landscape.
Interdisciplinary artist and Alexander Technique teacher Fabio Tavares was recently in residence working with actors in our Resident Company. Executive Director Alex Birnie sat down with Fabio to chat about his artistic background, his development as a teacher, and the interconnectedness of everything in the body.
Evan Yionoulis, award-winning director, acclaimed acting teacher, and the Richard Rodgers director of the drama division of the Juilliard School, will be in residence with The Actors Center in June to lead a workshop focusing on the late plays of Norwegian writer Henrik Ibsen.
Alexander teacher, interdisciplinary artist, and Yale faculty member, Fabio Tavares, and Michael Chekhov teacher and artistic director of the Chekhov Studio NYC, Bethany Caputo, join The Actors Center's Resident Company in May for a series of artist development workshops focusing on movement, psychophysical approaches to acting, and freeing the body.
Acclaimed acting teacher, and former Yale, NYU, and Columbia faculty member Ron Van Lieu returns to The Actors Center in April for a teaching residency working with members of the Resident Company.
Haruna Lee, theater maker, screenwriter, and educator, and Peter Jay Fernandez, actor, teacher, and Co-Head of Acting at Columbia, are in residence this spring, leading creative development workshops with The Actors Center's Resident Company focusing on writing and scene work.
Tony nominee Ato Blankson-Wood speaks about the importance of the Resident Company at The Actors Center: “I think in a lot of spaces where actors commune there's a sense of the business. But what The Actors Center community offers is: How can I deepen my craft? How can I be a better human? How can...
Twenty-five years ago, our founder Michael Miller invited the incomparable Olympia Dukakis to give an inaugural address at The Actors Center's first annual symposium. Listen to Olympia's speech.
Company member Wayne Duvall stars in the new musical Swept Away on Broadway. With music and lyrics from the chart-topping folk-rock band The Avett Brothers, book by John Logan, and direction by Michael Mayer, Swept Away follows four survivors of an 1884 shipwreck off the coast of New Bedford, Massachusetts. As they struggle to stay alive, they must question whether or not they can live with the consequences of their actions, and discover how tragedy can lead to forgiveness. With a cast that includes Adrian Blake Enscoe, John Gallagher, Jr., and Stark Sands, the show is currently in previews at the Longacre Theatre and opens on November 19. Read the New York Times feature ‘How the Tale of a Brutal Shipwreck Became a Broadway Musical’
Company members Crystal Dickinson and Lynette R. Freeman are in The Blood Quilt, now playing at Lincoln Center Theater. In this eloquent and moving family story by Pulitzer Prize winner Katori Hall and directed by Lileana Blain-Cruz, four sisters gather at their childhood island home off the coast of Georgia for their annual reunion. They are creating a family quilt to honor their recently deceased mother. But when their reunion turns into a reading of their mother’s will, everyone must grapple with a troubling inheritance. Stitched with history, ritual, laughter and tears, will their “blood quilt” bind the family together or tear them apart forever? Crystal plays the role of Clementine and Lynnette is an understudy for two roles. Performances run through December 29.
Company member Mel House is in Thistles written by Cyndy A. Marion and directed by Dev Bondarin, presented at 59E59 by White Horse Theater Company in association with Anthony W. Lopez. After fleeing New York City for the countryside during a global calamity, Rebecca finds herself alone in her family’s neglected farmhouse. She must do her best to manage the anxieties and expectations of her aging relatives as they clash over whether to sell the old house, all while surrounded by doorknobs and relationships that are in desperate need of repair. Thistles keenly explores family secrets, queerness, and the desperate desire to be accepted. Tragedy lurks as emotions are buried under ancestral floorboards. Performances run through December 1.
Company member Stephen McKinley Henderson will be honored for his lifetime of contributions to the American Theater as an inductee to The Theater Hall of Fame on November 18 at the Gershwin Theatre. Stephen is a two-time Tony nominee, having received a nomination in 2010 for his featured turn in Fences and his leading role in 2022’s Between Riverside and Crazy. In 2023, he received lifetime achievement awards from both the Drama Desks and the Lucille Lortels. This year’s honorees also include Donna Murphy, Boyd Gaines, Charles Busch, William Finn, Elizabeth Ashley, David Rabe, and Todd Haimes. The Hall of Fame was founded in 1970 by James M. Nederlander, Earl Blackwell and Gerard Oestreicher. Eight honorees are selected annually by over 200 theater critics and past inductees. To be eligible, each individual must have worked in professional theater for over 25 years.
Company member Irene Sofia Lucio is in The Civilian’s Sex Variants of 1941, A Study of Homosexual Patterns. Co-conceived by writer/director Steve Cosson, James La Bella, and multimedia artist Jessica Mitrani, Sex Variants of 1941 is a kaleidoscopic fantasia adapted from a medical study of queer sexuality. Drawing on the study’s explicit interviews, pseudoscientific analysis, “medical” diagrams, and glossary of era-specific slang, the company uses scenes, songs, and visuals to celebrate an undersung community—and subvert the pathologizing gaze of the medical establishment. Featuring original songs by Martha Redbone, Stephen Trask, the late Michael Friedman, and others, this unabashedly queer, unabashedly screwball show paints a radically candid portrait of queer America in the 1930s—racy bits and all. Performances run through November 24.
Company member Vivienne Benesch directs Summer, 1976, written by David Auburn at Studio Theatre in Washington, D.C. It’s midsummer in the mid-seventies—the second wave of feminism is cresting somewhere while two very different women are thrown into one another’s orbit in college-town Ohio. Iconoclast artist Diana looks down on faculty wife Alice, but their young daughters’ friendship forces them together. Auburn’s play traces each woman’s growing disquiet with the compromises they’ve made and the transformative power of a friendship at the right time. Performances run through December 22.
Company members Lisa Arrindell and Joe Holt are in the feature film Albany Road, directed and written by Christine Swanson, now released in theaters nationwide. On her way to the most important meeting of her career, a New York executive is forced to share a rental car with her ex-fiancé’s mother, only to discover that the mother is hiding a major secret. The cast includes Renée Elise Goldsberry, Lynn Whitfield, J. Alphonse Nicholson, and Gary Dourdan. Albany Road received the Best Feature Film award at the Martha’s Vineyard African American Film Festival. Watch the trailer.
Kelly AuCoin appears on American Sports Story, Season 1, Episode 9, ”What’s Left Behind” on Hulu/FX
Stephanie Kurtzuba returns to Blue Bloods, Season 14, Episode 14 “New York Minute” on CBS/Paramount+
Ellen Adair appears on Found, Season 2, Episode 6 “Missing while Gabi Mosely“ on NBC/Peacock
Arturo Luíz Soria appears on Found, Season 2, Episode 7 “Missing While Hated” on NBC/Peacock
Sarah Victoria, master instructor of PEM, joins actress and teacher Welker White on Thursday, November 21, 2024 at 7:00pm for an evening of conversation exploring our understanding of authentic emotion, reframing its role in acting and actor training, and supporting the emotional intelligence and wellbeing of actors.
Company member Tatiana Wechsler is in the short film Netuser, written and directed by Eric Rosen and starring Denis O’Hare, now available to stream on Tiny Scripted. When political analyst Peter Sardovski dreams of an LGBTQ candidate’s assassination, he risks everything to expose a potential threat. Despite severe backlash and his family in hiding, Peter’s haunting revelation becomes a disturbing premonition as he faces dark forces beyond his control. The cast also includes Claybourne Elder and Johanna Day.
Company member Pernell Walker is in the feature film Weekend in Taipei, directed and written by George Huang, and starring Luke Evans, Gwei Lun-mei, and Sung Kang. Years ago, committed DEA agent John Lawlor fell in love with Joey Kwang, a Taipei-based transport driver working in the criminal underworld, but was forced to flee due to tragic circumstances. Now, the duo reunites when Lawlor blows his cover as a chef and takes an off-the-books weekend mission to Taipei to bring down a billionaire drug kingpin… who just so happens to be Joey’s new husband. From the creators of Taken and The Transporter, Weekend in Taipei is now in theaters nationwide.
Company member Christopher Ryan Grant plays Johnny Cash in The Ballad of Johnny and June, a new musical directed by Des McAnuff, written by Robert Cary and Des McAnuff at The Citadel Theatre in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. The production, which previously ran at La Jolla Playhouse and also stars Patti Murin, explores the life and careers of country music legends Johnny Cash and June Carter Cash, told through the eyes of their son John Carter Cash. From their first meeting in 1956 at the Grand Ole Opry to fame, life on the road, controversy, and family, this is a whole-hearted and clear-eyed telling of one of the most iconic love stories in music history. Performances run through December 8.