1:30-2:45 p.m. -- 9th Fl. Room #C998
Three master acting teachers offer feedback and direction on how to improve your monologues, auditions, and scene work. Audience participants are encouraged to come with a monologue or scene partner and will be selected at random to perform. Whether you're chosen or not, you'll leave with a greater understanding of what's needed to strengthen a character and heighten a scene.
Speakers include:
-- Howard Fine, Acting Coach
-- Aaron Speiser, Acting Coach
-- Kimberly Jentzen, Acting Coach
SPEAKER BIOS
Howard Fine
Howard Fine is recognized as one of the premiere acting teachers and most sought-after coaches in the entertainment industry. His career as a renowned acting educator and specialist is rooted in New York, primarily at the American Music and Dramatic Academy, where he also headed the acting department.
In 1985 he relocated to Hollywood, where his talent roster has included Brad Pitt, Lindsay Lohan, Jennifer Connelly, Chris Pine, Amanda Bynes, Justin Timberlake, Rick Fox, Michelle Williams, Simon Baker, Gerard Butler, Michael Chiklis, Salma Hayek, Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson, Bradley Cooper, Carla Gugino, Morris Chestnut, Christopher Meloni, Adrian Pasdar, Josh Grobin, Stone Cold Steve Austin, Alexa Vega, Elizabeth Berkeley, Val Kilmer, Sela Ward, Billy Campbell, Jon Bon Jovi, Kim Delaney, Brooke Shields, Darryl Hannah, Kelli Williams, Alison Eliot, Rosanna Arquette, Lee Tergesen, Jason Priestley, Garry Shandling, Geri Halliwell, David Eliot, Heather Locklear, Michelle Kwan, James Belushi, Scott Wolf, Lori Loughlin, Mark Harmon, Pam Dawber, Maura Tierney, Heather Tom, Jared Leto, Danny Nucci, Tisha Campbell Martin, David Faustino, Estella Warren, Tori Spelling, Jane Seymour, Deborah Gibson, E.G. Daily, Tracee Ross, and many others.
Aaron Speiser, Acting Coach
Aaron Speiser has been training and coaching actors for more than 25 years. Having worked with acclaimed actors, directors, and producers, he helps actors by bringing his vast experience and depth of knowledge of the craft to his students in a simple, straightforward, practical, and inspirational way. He coaches Will Smith and Virginia Madsen and has coached Jennifer Lopez since the beginning of her career. LL Cool J, Mandy Moore, The Rock (Dwayne Johnson), Brooke Shields, Jeff Foxworthy, Shannyn Sossamon, Ashley Johnson, and Shawn, Marlon, and Kim Wayans are some of the accomplished actors who round out the list.
Speiser has worked with directors Oliver Stone, Michael Mann, F. Gary Gray, Adam Shankman, Wayne Wang, and Peter Berg. Speiser started his professional career in New York City and then earned an MFA in acting from Brandeis University. After graduation he studied with Uta Hagen, Bill Hickey, and his mentor Kenneth McMillan at HB Studio in New York. Speiser worked as a professional actor and director in numerous stage and TV productions for 15 years before moving on to teaching. "When you're ready to do what you came here for."
Kimberly Jentzen, Acting Coach
Kimberly Jentzen is a multi-award-winning acting coach, teacher, director, and writer. She won Back Stage West's Readers Choice Award for her coaching and teaching in all three years of the awards. She has been coaching actors for 20 years in Los Angeles and has coached courses throughout the United States. She won a Finalist Award from The New York Festivals and an honorable mention from the Film Council of Greater Columbus for her film Of Earth & Sky.
Her stage-directing credits include Brunch With God at the Powerhouse Theatre, The Post Oscar Showcase for Women in Film at the Pacific Design Center, Cassatt and Degas: Unfinished Canvas at the Hudson Theatre, and Personal Space Invaders, which was a finalist in the 2006 One Act play festival at the Secret Rose Theatre. She has developed, directed, and coached several one-person shows, working with Yolanda King on her homage to her father Martin Luther King Jr., Achieving the Dream. She trained as an actor-singer-dancer and holds a B.A. from UCLA in theater arts and an M.A. from the University of Santa Monica in spiritual psychology. As an actor she worked in films, television, stage, and commercials.