Theater Education

If you want to build a ship, don’t drum up the men to gather wood, divide the work, and give orders.
Instead, teach them to yearn for the vast and endless sea.

Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

I have been an theater teaching artist for the past decade, teaching everything from Acting, Voice, Movement, and Dialects, to Clown, Shakespeare, and Songwriting.

I’m currently an Adjunct Professor at Southern Connecticut State University, teaching Voice and Diction in the Theatre Department, and I have taught, directed, and coached with Arc Stages, Stagedoor Manor, Treetop Arts, ACT of Ridgefield, Sharon Playhouse, White Plains Performing Arts Center, New Stage Theatre, Lighthouse Youth Theater, Westchester Broadway Theater, New Generation Theatre, and the South Dakota and Texas Shakespeare Festivals.

Teaching Philosophy

My teaching approach draws from Poetic Dynamics (including Commedia dell’Arte, Melodrama, and Clown), Miller Voice Method, traditional Stanislavski-based methods, and my experience in the field. My basic philosophy is: “Play the mask intuitively.”

• “Play” – From the spirit of play comes innovation, connection, and a willingness to engage with the unknown. From there, profound discoveries can be made, and what is discovered becomes more fodder for play. The spirit of play makes anything possible, which is one of the best parts of live theater, both in process and in performance.
• “The mask” – This could be a literal mask, the text of a play, the music of a composer, etc. Our side of the creative collaboration is to see and honor the mask – the external givens – through a combination of analysis and instinct. The mask leads us to discover new sides of ourselves, which allow us to be simultaneously genuine and transformative in our storytelling.
• “Intuitively” – Learning to listen to and act on our own intuition is one of the most important skills for artists (or anyone) to develop. We become willing to trust, to fail, to build resilience, to get out of our heads, and to shift our explorations of play away from being “right” or “good” or “correct” toward a pursuit of what’s alive and joyful.

I believe everyone benefits from participating in live theater whether or not they pursue a career in it. Through inhabiting characters we learn how people exist and co-exist in the world, cultivate empathy, and discover our authentic selves. Theater is the perfect medium for students to explore their unique perspective and develop an empowered sense of self to bring into all areas of their lives. Art and the creative process exist to reveal the capacity and scope of humanity.

Here’s footage from Treetop Arts’ 2018 End-of-Year production of Where the Mountain Meets the Sea, co-devised and co-directed for Drama, Circus, Dance, Tumbling and Parkour students with Treetop Arts Program Director Charlie Truscott.