I teach this course as a way to shift students’ mindsets from showing to revealing, acting to being, performing to doing. We start with the premise that acting is doing truthfully under imaginary circumstances, then we dive into all the tenets of the classical training system to unpack how to make that happen. I guide students on the path towards discovering what burns white hot for them, and what makes telling the truth not only easy and fun, but necessary. I think Acting One is the most important class young actors take, because it sets the tone for how they will engage will all their future classes.

This two-semester long course for sophomore BFA Acting and Musical Theatre majors covers the Kristin Linklater progression in its entirety, then continues with instruction in the IPA utilizing Louis Colaianni’s phonetic pillow games. By the end, students are prepared to dive into my next class: Dialects for the Stage.

Utilizing Knight-Thompson speech work along with other techniques, students discover how to break down and interpret any dialect without sacrificing their own unique voices. Students learn several dialects over the course of the semester-long class, including one of their own choosing, which they research and share with the class as a final project.

This improv-based course builds on Moment Work, a devising method used by Moisés Kaufman’s Tectonic Theatre, to create original pieces of theatre in a multitude of forms.

This course for BFA majors gives actors the tools they need to interpret, record, edit, market, and audition for voice acting work. I focus predominantly on commercial VO, but also expands into animation and video game voiceover.