I love to teach.
I’ve been teaching performance skills since my second year of grad school. I started as a T.A. at the Yale Summer Conservatory, and after I finished my MFA I began subbing for friends who were adjuncts at universities around NYC. Not long later I became an adjunct professor myself teaching Shakespearean scene study, and then one year after that I was promoted to full time and given the reigns to create and run a brand new BFA program in Acting for Film and Television at Pace University. It turns out, I love to teach this stuff. There’s something profound about helping people allow space for their own vulnerability and to listen and speak with power, nuance, and truth.
As I’ve grown as an artist I see more and more that these skills, the skills of true and powerful communication, are not reserved for professional actors. They are foundational skills for all sorts of professions. And at the same time my first love of teaching acting technique has grown to encompass coaching for more elements of storytelling, writing, dramaturgy, etc. I continue to love coaching actors for auditions and gigs, but for years now I have been getting a particular thrill working with writers, lawyers, candidates for public office, keynote speakers, and a global cadré of Walt Disney Imagineers. Professionals with passion and a vision and a case to make.
I know the pain of telling a muddy story. The thud of a mushy, nervous delivery. The feeling of an opportunity squandered.
I also know the feeling that comes when you finally get to say the thing you’ve been wanting to say, just the way you wanted to say it. The adrenaline, the wide open heart. There’s nothing like it. What gets you there isn’t magic. It is learnable, practicable skills. It just feels like magic.
I could tell you more about how I work, but I think you’ll get a better sense hearing it from folks who have experienced it themselves.
If you are ready for this kind of coaching, I would love to talk with you about it.
Speakers
Actors
Writers
The opportunity to teach is more than just the work to impart marketable skills. It’s the chance to teach values. The values that contextualize those skills and give them meaning beyond your ability to pursue employment. I believe that performing is an act of service. Service to the writer. Service to the greater story you are telling. Service to your audience.
When I was creating the rebellious little BFA in Acting for Film, Television, Voice Over, and Commercials Program at Pace University (that, through impeccable stewardship, has since evolved into their powerhouse BFA in Acting for Film and Media program) I knew we had a rare responsibility. Because there was no track record, we had no long-tenured faculty, no alumni base, indeed not even any upperclassmen to model for the incoming students who we are and what we believe… we had no ethos. It would be hard enough to train young actors at a high enough level to find work in one of the most competitive industries in the country while bucking 75 years worth of traditional, stage-based curriculum. But my real goal was beyond even that. Not merely to train actors who can do good work, but who are good to work with. Performers who are professional, prepared, compassionate, and humane. So that one day when a friend calls me up and tells me one of my alums is cast alongside them I can confidently tell my friend how fortunate they are. That script, that audience, will be well served.
Anyway, this is all preamble so that I can completely fawn about how much I love the students I got to work with at FTVC. Now, just like any other college major, not all of the alums of our program went on to pursue careers in the thing they studied. I am just as proud of my students who have gone on to become psychologists and sommeliers as the ones who have become famous actors. But, and although the program is still quite young I think we can say this with confidence, we hit our goals.
Students I was lucky enough to teach during my time at Pace have gone on to book co-star, guest star, and series regular roles on CBS, NBC, Fox, FX, HBO, Netflix, Hulu, and Amazon, as well as supporting and lead roles in major studio films, independent features, national commercial campaigns, and on Broadway. Not only is the work good, I would work alongside them any day.
Here is an non-exhaustive list of some folks you might recognize:
Chris Briney (Team Conrad, obvs)
And if you find yourself working with any of these fine actors… lucky you.