If you hail from Boston and aspire to be the next big name from Beantown, like Matt Damon or Uzo Aduba, you’re in luck! With the city’s impressive array of acting classes, actors in Boston can find everything from comprehensive conservatory programs to industry-focused workshops. Here, we’ll highlight the top acting classes in and around the Hub, showcasing what each offers and how it can help shape your acting journey.
Boston University’s School of Theatre is a heavyweight in the performing arts world. Known for its rigorous conservatory-style training, BU combines classical methods with contemporary techniques, creating well-rounded actors equipped to tackle a range of roles. Students engage in intensive coursework that includes everything from voice and movement to scene study and Shakespearean performance.
One of BU’s greatest strengths is its strong network of alumni who have gone on to build impressive careers in theater, television, and film. Alumni include Julianne Moore (“May December,” “Still Alice”), Jason Alexander (“Curb Your Enthusiasm,” “Seinfeld”), and Aduba (“Painkiller,” “Orange Is the New Black”).
Emerson College is renowned for producing versatile performers who succeed across a range of performance mediums, including stage, screen, and voiceover work. With BFA options across the spectrum of acting, musical theater, theater performance, theater education, comedy arts, and production, Emerson’s Department of Performing Arts classes focus on everything from acting fundamentals to more specialized courses like dialects and action theater.
The school is home to multiple cutting-edge performance spaces—more than any other Boston institution—offering students plenty of opportunities to perform in front of live audiences. It also boasts a robust alumni network in New York and L.A., as well as other performance-centric cities like Chicago and D.C. Notable alumni include acting icons Jennifer Coolidge (“The White Lotus,” “Legally Blonde”) and Henry Winkler (“Barry,” “Arrested Development”), and comedy legends Bill Burr and Jay Leno.
The Theater, Dance, and Media (TDM) concentration at Harvard seeks to blend historical and theoretical study with artistic practice. Its courses combine critical reading and writing with creative work, bridging the gap between the classroom and studio, and bringing both to the stage. Through hands-on studio work, students gain practical experience in various aspects of art making, such as directing, acting, design, dramaturgy, and dance.
Harvard is one of the most prestigious universities in the world, boasting an array of ultra-famous alumni, including eight presidents. But for actors, it might be more beneficial to know that A-listers like Natalie Portman (“May December,” “Black Swan”), who earned a degree in psychology, and Tommy Lee Jones (“The Homesman,” “No Country for Old Men”), who studied English literature, are Harvard graduates. And Damon (“The Instigators,” “The Martian”) attended Harvard as well for English, but left before he completed his degree. Still, with as robust an alumni network as the one Harvard has, any graduate is sure to be well-connected upon graduation.
CP Casting & Acting Studio proclaims to be “New England’s longest-running and most-award-winning casting company.” But the studio doesn’t just provide personalized casting options for local actors; it also offers a variety of five-week classes covering acting basics, script analysis, and character development, with an emphasis on onscreen performance across multiple genres. Classes are taught by longtime actor-teachers Bates Wilder (“Brotherhood,” “Tater Tot and Patton”) and Dennis Staroselsky (“Detroit,” “About Fate”).
The studio also collaborates with CDs who cast for all the big names in media—including Paramount Pictures, 20th Century Studios, Hulu, Netflix, Walt Disney Pictures, Apple TV+, Amazon MGM Studios, Warner Bros., Sony Pictures, Universal Pictures, Showtime, and HBO—meaning actors studying at the studio are likely to get insider insights as well as the chance to rub shoulders with Hollywood’s movers and shakers.
The Michael Chekhov Actors Studio in Boston offers an array of classes that encourage students to “show up and train hard,” many of which require a 38-week commitment and an admissions interview. New students are admitted once a year due to the progressive nature of their programs, which helps ensure class cohesion.
The studio focuses primarily on two fundamental acting techniques—Chekhov and Meisner—with studio director Scott Fielding having personally trained with Michael Chekhov himself. Both techniques focus on authenticity in performance, but they approach building the actor’s toolkit in different ways. At the studio, students have an opportunity to delve deeply into one method or the other (or both, in the advanced training course) as well as engaging in one-off workshops like the Actor’s Instrument and Craft and the Actor’s Scene Study.
About a half-hour outside of Boston, in Watertown, Massachusetts, is the Actors’ Shakespeare Project, an award-winning professional theater company that has a resident artist troupe, as well as youth, education, and community programs. Among those programs is a series of adult workshops which vary from season to season, but have included courses like Stage Combat, Working With Intimacy Professionals, and Shakespeare for Non-Actors. They also, of course, have professional Shakespeare training for the aspiring or professional stage actor. The company also has an open audition policy, which means that they could be a great place to put your acting lessons into practice.