Two of my former students received Academy Awards this year. I have never written that sentence before! Mahershala Ali (NYU Tisch Graduate Acting) in “Moonlight” for Best Supporting Actor and Viola Davis (Juilliard) in “Fences” for Best Supporting Actress. The academy awards made history this year with “Moonlight”. This was the first film with an all African-American cast to win …
I recently assigned Shakespeare monologues to the students in my Advanced Class. For many of them it is their first time doing Shakespeare monologue coaching. We finished a series of scanning exercises, which included discussions about short verse lines, long verse lines, shared verse lines, epic caesuras, elisions, stretching a word, and acting on the verse line. Now the fun …
My First Year students in the Graduate Acting Program at NYU have been very enthusiastic about using the Audio Shakespeare Pronunciation App as they rehearse “Hamlet” and “Macbeth”. They told me that at the beginning of the rehearsals, they used it every night to check the pronunciations of the unusual words and the character and place names in Shakespeare plays. …
Joe Girgis completed my Voice and Speech program in February, auditioned for the BADA (British Academy of Dramatic Arts) Summer program and was accepted! I am so proud of him. BADA‘s intensive summer conservatory program for serious actors, is held at Magdalen College, Oxford, in association with the Yale School of Drama. The program concentrates on classical acting with an …
Harry Ford (one of my students from NYU’s Graduate Acting Program), just completed filming his first TV show, “Code Black” and he was terrific. He came to NYU to be on a panel of alums who talked to the actors who were Called Back to the final audition of the Grad Acting Program. The panel is an opportunity for the …
Last night I saw a wonderful production of Julius Caesar directed by Jeff Wise (NYU Grad Acting Alum) at The Wheelhouse Theater Company. Very impressed with what Jeff did with a cast of six. They told the story with a clarity and excitement that is not often seen in a company with a much larger cast. In the company were former Grad …
Latest News Update The Audio Shakespeare Pronunciation App is now available in both the Google Play store and Apple store. To download your copy click below. About the Shakespeare Mobile App This new and unique app is an essential tool for actors, producers, professors, students and everyone who enjoys the plays of William Shakespeare. The Shakespeare Mobile App contains AUDIO …
The Shakespeare Audio Dictionary was an idea that kept coming to me over a few years. Whenever I was working on a production of one of Shakespeare’s plays, either a professional production or the student productions in New York University’s Graduate Acting program where I teach, I noticed the actors holding my book “All the Words on Stage, a Complete …
I went to see my former student Margy Love in The Black Book by Phil Blechman, playing at The Sargent Theater. She was terrific, and the voice/speech/text work was excellent! “The Black Book” is a new play about an afflicted college student, Collin Archer, who secretly leaves a veiled suicide note in the form of a poem on the desk of …
Last class with my NYU Graduate Acting Third Year students in Techniques of Voice and Text class. Their work this semester on their Shakespeare monologues was excellent. They put all of the pieces together – voice, speech, breathing, scanning the verse, using the techniques they have been learning for two years, and acting. It has been a joy to be …