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Contact us today about fall classes. Three out of four of our Fall classes are already full to capacity. Call today to get on the wait-list for the class of your choice or to register for one of the last available spots. Classes begin the week of September 5th. Our final student showcase will be on December 18th.
Want to learn more about us? This article is very informative and goes will beyond the scope of it's title. If you'd like to know more about what we do, check it out!
Last year, Dog Sees God was a huge hit for The Actor's Workshop Theater Co. This year, we'll be producing an entire season. We can now officially announce our first show, and in August we will reveal the details of our first full season.
We're proud to announce that we will kick off our first full season with the regional premiere of Orange Flower Water by Craig Wright. Our shows will primarily feature students and alumni, but this first show will be performed by Workshop director Eliza VanCort, Workshop instructor Katie Spallone, and Workshop alumni Lance Milne and Jonathan Meyerhoff. It will be directed by Amina Omari, Workshop instructor and director of Dog Sees God. The show will run Oct 1st, 2nd, 8th and 9th. This play pulls no punches, so leave the kids at home and prepare for a night of cutting edge theatre!
Praise for Orange Flower Water:
"Do not be deceived by the lyrical, gently perfumed title of Craig Wright's play... [Orange Flower Water] is at once fiercely adult, shrewdly observant, often painfully graphic and most definitely not for the meek." - Chicago Sun-Times
"It's simultaneously visceral, with crackling humor, and intellectual." - Star Tribune
We sent out an email to all Workshop students and alumni before announcing Orange Flower Water. This email outlined our vision for our Theater Co., our audition policy, and much more. If you did not get this email, please contact the Workshop right away and we will send it to you.
Congratulations to all of our students on a job well done in their showcases. You all worked hard and it showed. What fun! And thanks to our appreciative audiences. Nothing like packed houses every night peopled with great laughers who clap wildly. We thank you.
Our film directors continue to make us proud! Latest news. . . Becky Lane's short Hens and Chicks kicked off the 2010 festival circuit with its world premiere at the Buffalo Niagara International Film Festival in April where it won two awards for best youth performance. The film is also an official selection at Frameline34 in San Francisco, the biggest and most prestigious GLBT festival in the world. Her film continues to get requests for screenings from throughout the country and abroad. In October, Hens and Chicks will make its European premiere in Barcelona where it has been nominated for Best Short Film. Congratulations Becky! What an amazing directorial debut! Check out this article about a fundraising event for the film. And we're also so happy for talented director Jaime Lee (via Just2Me Productions) whose film Space Between is one of the official selections for Hoboken International Film Festival 2010. Hats off these great alum. Wonderful to see women directors receiving such recognition.
Congratulations to Esosa Edosomwan who is the grand prize winner of the Ford Fiesta Casting Call. She will be in Ford's ad campaigns for the Fiesta and heading to the 2010 BET Awards in LA. Stay tuned. We'll soon have a link to a behind the scenes look at the competition. And kudos to Esosa for booking the leading role of Natasha, a scandalous gold-digger, in the Nollywood film Beyond Pleasure.
Support your fellow Workshop students and grads! Check out Dee Levine, Michael Longo, Kristin Sad, Steven Barry, Dan Koski, Carolina Osorio-Gil and Abby Smith perform with the improv group The Left Wings at WildfFire this Friday, May 14th at 9pm.
Check out Helen Highfield's review in Backstage for her leading role in The Return of Peter Grimm at The Metropolitan Playhouse. If you want to cut to the chase, just read this choice sentence about Helen's work, "As the object of their affections, Helen Highfield focuses on Catherine's love for her guardian, making her sacrifice of her future happiness completely believable, then is equally convincing with her character's near-feminist awakening." Oh, and if one great review wasn't enough, here's another from NYTheatre. They have some wonderful praise for Helen in this article as well, so check it out.
Hope none of you missed Amanda Setton's hilarious guest starring role on NBC's Mercy. Great Job Amanda! You left us in stitches!
Thanks to current student Alan Smith and alumni Carolina Osorio Gil for treating us to a night of wonderful comedy in Queermonsterfreaks. Here's a review from the Ithaca Times.
Great job Saramoira Shields! We enjoyed your performance on Law and Order!
Here's a link to Tom Knight's wonderful Garbage Monster video. If you have kids, let them watch; it's wonderful!
Kudos to Workshop T.A. Masa Gibson. He receiving rave reviews for his work in the action/horror flick Patriotic Danger.
Hats off to Workshop alum Amanda Setton who one rave reviews for her role on One Life to Live. Look at page 1-2 and page 3-4 to read her latest press in Soap Opera Dig advanced/langs/en.js" type="text/javascript"> est. To learn even more about Amanda, check out these links from Fuse and People Magazine Online. Finally, we don't usually post excerpts of reviews, but this most one from soapcentral.com is just too good not to print for you:
Just like in Showgirls, the supporting character is more interesting than the lead - Kim is Gina Gershon to Stacy's Elizabeth Berkeley. Amanda Setton has clear acting chops, and in just a week she's done something as Kim that Stacy never has - she made me laugh. Kim may (or may not) be just as trashy, slutty, and morally void as Stacy herself, but somehow, Setton's warm, enthusiastic embrace of the madness has suddenly elevated this storyline. With Kim around, Stacy is almost bearable; the gaudy bimbos suddenly become sort of a Marx Brothers-by-way-of-thongs. There's just no way not to giggle as these two tramps strut around town enactin g their "brilliant" plan to get several uninterested guys, two of whom are gay, to sleep with Stacy - they think they're so smart, but we know they're in for a letdown. That's what makes this fun, all of a sudden: For the first time, we knew Stacy was going to fail at something, and we knew she was going to fail before she even got started. In the past, she's just been smug, cold and invincible. Now, thanks to Kim's enervating presence and the screwball antics bound for catastrophe, Stacy's portion of the storyline has become e /javascript"> ntertaining. I still don't care what happens to Stacy, but I find her watchable because the tone of the story has shifted, almost to a quasi-Tina comic level, with Setton-as-Kim pulling most of the weight. Setton may be a keeper if they can allow Kim to begin to feel remorse, or disgust with Stacy's toying with a child's life. When Kim spoke to Schuyler en.js" type="text/javascript"> on Friday about Stacy's delusions, the character danced the knife-edge between truth and put-up job; you knew she was there to try and soften Sky to Stacy, but you couldn't say for certain whether despite her friendly assistance, Kim might also believe what she was saying about Stacy being delusional about Rex, and lost in her fantasies. If that is the case, Kim has a shot at longevity on the show. Stacy, on the other hand, can still hit the bricks. Her Nomi is nothing without Kim's Cristal. [emphasis added]
Congratulations to the cast and crew of Dog Sees God. The show was a hit and you all did an amazing job.
Check out this incredible Ithaca Times cover story by Jim Catalano about the show.
And. . . check out Anne Marie Cummings terrific cover story in the Ticket section of the Ithaca Journal.
We've been getting a lot of inquiries about when we'll be producing our next full length play. We're reading plays and as soon as we find one as riveting as DSG, we'll launch out next show. We promise!
At the Workshop we're proud of our student's successes. Our staff loves getting regular updates from our alumni about their most recent accomplishments. While most of your headshots and resumes hang in the wall of the greenroom, we want to know what you're doing now! Please email Eliza your recent news at: elizavancort@mac.com. This goes for all of our artistic grads, including singers, dancers, songwriters, filmmakers, and of course actors.
I can honestly and whole heartedly say that without my experience at the Actor's Workshop under the instruction of Eliza VanCort, I would not have the necessary tools or confidence to be a working actor.
- Amanda Setton
Taking the class started me on an incredible journey that changed my life. I'm now a successful actress in film and theater ... Though I'm far from Ithaca now, I will never, ever forget the amazing place I started.
- Esosa Edosomwan
[The Workshop] laid the foundation for nearly every single performance I've given on stage or on screen.
- Maria "Ria" Victoria
I loved being young and connected to peers older than my parents in such an open way, which is not common in extracurricular activities at the high school age. It definitely contributed to my wisdom and maturity.
- Sierre Carrere
The beauty of this is its spontaneity, its unpredictability and its authenticity.
- Jimmy Liao
I think you do develop better skills as a listener, which is applicable to pretty much any professional or personal situation.
- Ellen McCollister
There's something about getting yourself up on stage and just listening to another person that's really refreshing - and then letting them in, letting them really affect you emotionally - that's exhilarating.
- Saramoira Shields
