Deborah Hedwall (head of acting) began her theater training at the University of Washington in Seattle. In New York, she graduated from the neighborhood Playhouse under the direction of Sanford Meisner and William Esper. Ms. Hedwall went on to train with Uta Hagen for four years as an actor and then as a teacher, and under the guidance of Ms. Hagen, she was given her own classes to teach. Ms. Hedwall has been teaching for the last 20 years, and while she has kept her own studio in New York, she has also taught at Sarah Lawrence College, Fordham University, Ensemble Studio Theater (where she has been a member for 22 years), and the Actors Center. As an actress, she received an OBIE Award for Outstanding Performance and a Drama Desk nomination for her work in the original Sight Unseen. In New York, both on and off Broadway, she has appeared in new plays such as Savage in Limbo, Extremities, Blind Date, Husbandry, Amulets Against the Dragon Forces, Why We Have a Body, and Iphigenia and the Other Daughters. Ms. Hedwall has been involved in the development of many new plays as a result of working at Long Wharf Theater, Yale Repertory, Arena Stage, Actors Theater of Louisville, Eugene O'Neil Theater Conference, Sundance Playwrights Conference, Ensemble Studio Theater, and the McCarter Theater, where she has helped to develop the new plays Greensboro by Emily Mann and Last of the Boys by Steven Deitz, both directed by Ms. Mann. On television she played the disturbed mother on the critically acclaimed series I'll Fly Away, and guest starred on numerous television movies of the week, HBO specials, and dramatic series, including The West Wing and Law and Order. Recent film work includes the independent features Shadrach, written and directed by Susanna Styron, Better Living with Olympia Dukakis, and Dirt, written and directed by Nancy Savoca.
John Basil (acting) is producing artistic director and founding member of the American Globe Theatre, where he has directed a variety of Shakespeare's works as well as the New York premieres of Passages and the award-winning Vandals. He has directed works--from King Lear, Richard III and Candida to Brighton Beach Memoirs--for the American Stage Theater, Asolo Theater, Bradley University, Long Island University, and the University of Colorado, to name a few. Equally at home with the camera, Mr. Basil has also been a director for NBC's Another World. His Playing Shakespeare Series continues to enlighten and inspire actors across the nation. He most recently helped launch the Sedona Shakespeare Festival in Arizona and has also presented his workshops for Columbia Teachers College and at Penn State, as well as having taught at Montclair State University. Mr. Basil has been recognized by the National Foundation for Advancement in the Arts, as well as being awarded the Richard and Gretchen Iben Memorial Lectureship for Shakespeare. John will lead the American Globe Theatre into its 19th season as director of The Winter's Tale. His book Will Power, How to Act Shakespeare in 21 Days was published by Applause Books in the fall of 2006.
Michael Blake (movement) holds an M.F.A. degree in dance from Purchase College. He received his early ballet and modern dance training from Rutgers University and Purchase College. He began his dance career in the Murray Louis Dance Company where he danced from 1982-1984. In 1985, he was the manager of Studio Dancin'; a dance studio based in Osaka, Japan. In 1986 he joined the Jose Limon Dance Company dancing principal roles until 1991. Mr. Blake danced with Donald Byrd/The Group from 1991-1998. He has also danced with David Rousseve Reality, Joyce Trisler Danscompany, Senta Driver, and Shapiro and Smith. He has appeared on stage in the Broadway national tours of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, Lenny and the Heartbreakers, and Cab Calloway's Cotton Club Review; at the Supper Club (NYC); and in the films The Adventures of Cri Cri and Unsettled Dreams. He has taught numerous workshops in the United States, Asia, and Europe. He is on the theater arts faculty at Rutgers and HB Studio in New York City, teaching movement for actors. Mr. Blake is currently dancing with PARADIGM Dance.
Lana Fritz (theatrical makeup) has a B.F.A. degree from the University of North Carolina at Charlotte and an M.F.A. from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She has designed costumes for several New York theaters and opera companies as well as A&E and Bravo networks. Regional theater work includes the Walnut Street Theatre, California Actors Theatre, Theatre Virginia, George Street Playhouse, Virginia Shakespeare Festival, the Theatre at Monmouth, Hartman Theatre, and National Theatre of the Deaf. Her work has been seen at the Edinburg Festival and the London Fringe. Designs for premieres include Sorry, Wrong Number (Beeson), Fefu and Her Friends (Fornes), New York 1937 (Yglesias), The Heart is a Lonely Hunter (McCullers/Bach), and Personal Affairs (Silverman). For the Center for Contemporary Opera, designs include Kafka: Letter to My Father (U.S., Walden), Markheim (NYC, Floyd), and Vera of Las Vegas (Hagen/Muldoon), among others.
David Letwin (script analysis for actors) has worked professionally in the theater since graduating from the State University of New York (Purchase) acting training conservatory in 1989. He has performed with the Reduced Shakespeare Company in the West End of London and was a founding member of Richard Schechner's East Coast Artists Theatre Company, with whom he appeared in Faust/Gastronome, The Three Sisters, and Hamlet. Directing credits include Laguna Beach at H.E.R.E., The Diary of Anne Frank at the Cohoes Music Hall, and the HB and Mile Square Theater summer festivals. He is the author of the children's play, The Trial of Goldilocks, and the coauthor of the upcoming book, The Architecture of Drama. At the Mason Gross School of the Arts, Mr. Letwin teaches theater history, dramatic structure, and script analysis for actors.
John Leys (movement) is a native of Antwerp, Belgium. He arrived in New York in 1980 and danced for five years with The Muller/Works. There he worked with choreographers such as: Jennifer Muller, Louis Falco, Margot Sappington, and Judith Jamison. He then turned to the theater and became a movement specialist under the tutelage of Loyd Williamson at the Actors Movement Studio. Mr. Leys directed The Raspberry Patch, which was presented as a special event at Yale University. Currently, Mr. Leys teaches the Williamson Technique (which includes period style) at Mason Gross School of the Arts. He also coaches and choreographs for Rutgers Theater Company productions, such as A Midsummer Night's Dream, The Rivals, and Arms and the Man. Most recently, Mr. Leys choreographed The Game, an original musical based on Dangerous Liaisons, at the Barrington Stage Company. He also teaches seminars and workshops to adults about the physical aspect of communication. He is doing this under the title "Listening With the Body."
Pat McCorkle (video auditioning) is the owner of McCorkle Casting, LTD. She is a member of the Casting Society of America. Broadway casting credits include: The Lieutenant Of Inishmore, The Glass Menagerie, Cat On A Hot Tin Roof, The Ride Down Mt. Morgan, Amadeus, A Doll's House, An Ideal Husband, She Loves Me, Blood Brothers, and A Few Good Men. Off-Broadway casting credits: Almost Maine, Address Unknown, Ears On A Beatle, Killer Joe, Visiting Mr. Green, and Mrs. Klein. Film: War Eagle, Bereft, Secret Window, Tony n' Tina's Wedding, Basic, The Thomas Crown Affair, The 13th Warrior, Madeline, Die Hard With a Vengeance, and School Ties. For television she has cast: 3 lbs., Barbershop, Chappelle's Show, Hack, The Education of Max Bickford, and Our Fathers.
Lenard Petit (physical theater) is a professional actor and director who resides in New York City. He has been working in theater for 30 years, collaborating with other artists to create original works for the stage, cinema, and television. This work has always been based primarily in movement or physical pictures. In New York he has been seen in works by Meredith Monk, Richard Foreman, Julie Taymor, Ping Chong, Otrabanda Company, and Creation Company. Lenard has directed plays on Broadway, off Broadway, and around the world. Prior to his arrival in New York, he was the artistic director of his own theater company for four years in New Orleans. He has taught theater workshops and master classes on the acting techniques of Michael Chekhov in schools, colleges, and theaters in the United States and throughout Europe. His training has been varied and ongoing, but his most important influences are the great French master Etienne Decroux, with whom he studied in Paris 25 years ago, and Michael Chekhov, whose technique continues to be a great source of inspiration. Mr. Petit is the artistic director of the Michael Chekhov Acting Studio in New York City. He received his B.A. degree in 1974 from Franconia College and, more recently, studied with William Esper in New York.
Heather Rasche (voice) is an actress, a scholar, and an associate teacher of Fitzmaurice Voicework. As an actress she premiered works by many playwrights including Susan Kim, Joyce Carol Oates, and Shel Silverstein. She received the Santa Barbara Independent Award for best actress for her work in Lee Blessing's play Eleemosynary. She holds a doctorate in drama from University of California. Her research concentrates on the training and working lives of professional actors. Her master's thesis was a study of the pedagogy of Sanford Meisner and her dissertation, Actresses, Age, and Anxiety: The Midlife Actress in Filmed Performance, is an examination of gendered ageism in Hollywood. She has presented her work at several national academic conferences and on two nationally syndicated radio shows. Prior to joining the Rutgers faculty, Ms. Rasche taught at the University of Southern California School of Cinema and Television and at the University of California (Santa Barbara).
Greg Seel (Alexander Technique) graduated from Wilmington College in Ohio before training at the Drama Studio in London. He first studied Alexander Technique with Walter Carrington and Mary Holland, later trained in Meisner with Kathryn Gately, was certified in Alexander technique under Judith Leibowitz in 1983, continued with Mr. Patrick MacDonald, and was S.T.A.T. certified in 1987. He trained in voice for the actor for four years under Frederick Wilkerson. He was a founding member of the Riverside Shakespeare Company and associate director of the Mint Theater Co., where he both acted and directed. He has worked with Ray Yeats of the Abbey Theater (Dublin) and on Brendan Kennelly's Antigone and Medea. He has directed an all-Irish cast of Picnic and, more recently, The Widow's Blind Date. Faculty appointments have included the State University of New York (Purchase), The Actors Center, Columbia University, New York University's Classical Studio program and its Meisner Extension, the School for Film and Television, Matthew's School of the Alexander Technique, and the Institute for the Alexander Technique; he is past chair of the AmSAT Professional Conduct Committee. His teaching matures through The Actors Center Teacher Development Program, Jessica Wolf's Art of Breathing, and Seido Karate (under Kaicho Nakamura), where he has attained the rank of Yondan. He also maintains a private teaching practice.
William Serow (video auditioning) has had a long and varied career in show business. He started acting at the age of 6 and worked professionally from the age of 16, appearing on several national tours of Broadway shows, as well as on stage in New York and on television. Mr. Serow received a B.A. degree in theater at Ohio Wesleyan University and had the great privilege and fortune to study with both Sanford Meisner and William Esper at the Neighborhood Playhouse, where he currently serves on the board of directors. Mr. Serow decided to put his acting career on the back burner indefinitely in his late 20s and went to work for an off-Broadway theater as a director and producer, helping mount such successful original cast productions as On Golden Pond and Da, launching what would be a long career as a casting director. As an owner of Godlove, Serow & Sindlinger Casting, he cast hundreds of commercials, comedy specials, and some independent films. In 1997, he decided to switch gears yet again and joined the William Morris Agency to work in the commercial department. After spending four years there, he landed at Abrams Artists Agency, where he has spent the past six years, spearheading the voice-over department. Mr. Serow has also been teaching audition workshops at Rutgers for the past six years.
J. Allen Suddeth (stage combat) has worked professionally for the past 30 years out of the New York area. He is ranked as one of 14 fight masters in the United States by the Society of American Fight Directors. For Broadway, he has staged fights for Saturday Night Fever, Jekyll & Hyde, Angels in America, Loot, Saint Joan, A Small Family Business, Hide and Seek, and Gem Of the Ocean. Off Broadway, he has worked on productions for the Manhattan Theater Club, Playwrights Horizons, the New Group, the Public Theater, Brooklyn Academy of Music, and many others. Regionally and in the League of President Theatres he has worked for CENTERSTAGE in Baltimore, The Arena Stage, and the Shakespeare Theater Company in Washington, DC, as well as the Denver Center, the Empty Space, the Hartford Stage, the Goodman Theater, and the Actors Theater of Louisville, among others. As a master teacher, Allen has trained actors for the Juilliard School, Mason Gross School of the Arts at Rutgers, and The Lee Strasberg Institue. For television, he has staged action sequences for over 750 programs on ABC, CBS, NBC, and HBO. He is the author of Fight Directing For The Theater, published by Heinemann Press.
Maggie Surovell (speech) has taught voice and speech at Yale University, Wagner College, Sarah Lawrence College, and the University of Georgia. She has dialect and voice coached productions for Cherry Lane Theatre, New York Stage and Film, Ensemble Studio Theatre, Saint Anne's Warehouse (with Les Freres Corbusier), The Clurman Theatre, the New York Fringe Festival, and the Midtown International Theatre Festival. Ms. Surovell has worked extensively with Pamela Prather and Beth McGuire, both at the Yale School of Drama, to learn the Kines Phonetics approach to teaching speech and dialects. She is an assistant Fitzmaurice voice teacher and holds an MFA in acting from the University of Georgia. Ms. Surovell continues to work as a professional actress and dialect coach in NYC and has performed at Cherry Lane Theatre, the Alliance Theatre, Saint Anne's Warehouse (with Les Freres Corbusier), P.S. 122 (with Young Jean Lee's Theatre Company), SoHo Rep. (with Nature Theatre of Oklahoma), and Brat Theatre Productions. She is also an artist member of P.S. 122.
Beth Wicke (auditioning) is certified by the Royal Academy of Dance. She trained at the Cincinnati Conservatory of Music and holds a B.A. degree in theater from the Catholic University of America. Her credits include manager of casting, East Coast for ABC Television; supervising the casting of Loving, All My Children, One Life to Live, and General Hospital; and contributing to prime-time pilot projects. She also was the director of daytime programming for ABC, where she was responsible for creative supervision of East Coast serials. Wicke initiated the AFTRA/ABC committee to address minority and disability hiring practices. She now casts independent projects, most recently SoapLine for Gottlieb Enterprises, and she works as a private acting and audition coach. She has taught extensively at universities and theaters throughout the United States. She is a certified yoga instructor.
