TEACHING ARTIST
As a teaching artist, I draw from my own varied actor training in order to empower my students, and to equip them with the best tools to help them succeed in this industry. I bring to the classroom over a decade’s worth of work and training, from regional stages to independent productions to Off-Broadway houses to film/tv/commercial sets.
Acting students require at once specific techniques to tackle individual projects as well as an underlying foundation in training that can root them in truthful storytelling no matter the circumstances. I believe the goal of actor training is to foster artists who are open and available to the present moment, and this openness comes from a framework of trust, that is in turn built upon a foundation of respect. Each of my classes follows this trajectory from respect to trust to openness, as does the greater arc of my semester course. In a movement class, this looks like using my training as an intimacy director to establish and readily communicate boundaries, then teaching technique along with its context, and finally encouraging exploration and interpretation. In my acting classes, this usually starts with text analysis and breakdown, builds with an understanding of medium-based storytelling (frame or stage), and then unleashing creativity and in-the-moment response.
As a graduate of both a BA in Theatre Arts and an MFA in Acting, I recognize and have experienced the merits of both interdisciplinary theatre study and rigorous actor training. As a working actor and fight director in New York, I am familiar with the industry in this moment, and what it demands of actors who are to succeed in it. And as one of only a handful of teaching artists holding Teacher Certification with the Society of American Fight Directors, training and experience as an Intimacy Director/Coordinator, and an MFA in Acting, I believe I can bring a unique interplay of skills to your students’ actor training. Indeed, I currently use this wide range of skills and experiences to teach almost every acting and movement class offered by New York Film Academy, so I am familiar with creating and teaching an array of classes that I would look forward to bringing to LIU Brooklyn: Movement, Acting for Film, Acting Technique & Scene Study, Combat for Stage & Screen, Shakespeare and Restoration Comedy, Industry Showcase, and directing department productions.
My teaching style is also interdisciplinary, which both cultivates collaboration in young artists and exposes them to the many facets of performance into which they may be interested in growing. For example, I may bring film techniques into my stage combat classes to highlight the concept of forced perspective, or introduce improv exercises from my time studying at Second City to build bravery and line generation into an Acting for Film class. I am also open to using my wide skillset to serve your faculty in other ways - consulting on projects as fight director or intimacy director, directing productions, and mentoring graduate auditions, among others.
As a teaching artist, I look forward to bringing these skills as well as my professional experiences and techniques to your classrooms, and developing many more in collaboration with — or to fill the needs of — your teaching faculty and the students you serve.