Second Year at the acting conservatory

2nd YearShakespeareChekhovModern PlaywrightsAlexander TechniquePeriod MovementCharacter MovementVoice & SpeechDialectsMeisnerAudition PrepFilm & TVCommercial TechniquesIndustrial Film

Click on the tabs above to see:
-Descriptions of the Classes
-Bios of the Instructors
-Video Clips of Actual Classroom Work

About The ClassAbout The InstructorClip

You will study Folio Technique, which makes acting Shakespeare more accessible & easy to understand. Using the oldest available text, the First Folio, you'll find the "clues to meaning" Shakespeare embedded with intentional punctuation, capitalizations, etc.

Learning this technique -- looking to a playwright's exact wording and grammatic structure -- will lead to a fresh, more alive and direct approach to most writers.

Your learning will be expanded in your Movement class, where Period Movement will be explored concurrently.

Class meets one term, 3 times per week.

Susan Hart - Shakespeare - has worked as an actress in Chicago for the past fifteen years. In addition to more than a dozen Chicago Shakespeare Theater productions (most recently as Lady Capulet in Mark Lamos’ Romeo and Juliet), Susan has worked with all of the city’s leading theaters. She has coached many prominent Chicago actors in Folio Technique and serves as verse coach for Notre Dame Summer Shakespeare Festival

Get the Flash Player to see this player.

About The ClassAbout The Instructor

The challenges of playing Chekhov are many. Century old scripts, period costumes & settings, contrast the fact that these plays were at the historic forefront of realism in theatre, and depend on the most natural truthful acting work. The writing is full of passions & struggle, and also packed with humor. The characters are full, deep, and rich, but also, as Maxim Gorky said of Chekhov himself, "Beautifully simple...he loved everything simple, genuine..." A challenging playground for actors -- taught by one of the most respected contemporary translators of his work -- what you'll learn here will help you grow your craft in the direction of that depth, simplicity & honesty.

Class meets one term, 3 times per week.

Yasen Peyankov - Chekhov - received a Joseph Jefferson award for Steppenwolf’s "Morning Star." Other memorable appearances at Steppenwolf include "Frankie and Johnny in the Clair de Lune," "Hysteria and The Duel," produced in association with European Repertory, the Chicago company Yasen co-founded. His translation of Chekhov’s "Ivanov," produced by European Repertory, was nominated for a Joseph Jefferson Award for Best Adaptation and is published by Ivan R. Dee.

Yasen was born in Varna, Bulgaria and trained at the The National Academy of Theatre and Film Arts of Sofia, Bulgaria.

About The ClassAbout The Teacher

And now for something different. Naturalistic realism has formed the basis of your acting work and script investigation in your first year. In second year you will deal with period pieces and stylized work. Contemporary authors known for their edgy approach to story and character, demands of realism coupled with heightened or expressionistic approaches require new approaches and skills of the actor. Take the leap into the kind of theatre that made Chicago famous, in this course taught by one of the masters of all forms of production.

Class meets one term, 3 times per week.

Larry Yando is one of the most prolific and in demand actors in Chicago, known for the wide variety of characters he has portrayed - each with such depth and life that it's hard to believe it's the same actor in each role. Longtime Chicago Shakespeare stalwart he was lauded for his multifaceted Timon in Timon of Athens, among others, at this theatre -- and if his flamboyant Albin in the Marriott's "La Cage aux Folles" and Nixon for Writers Theatre aren't poles enough apart to astonish not only audiences but fellow actors -- consider his long run touring the country as evil Scar in "The Lion King," in which his standout performance drew on his experience as a Shakespearian actor.

"When you're doing Shakespeare, you have to learn to unlock the text - it's almost like learning a foreign language. In The Lion King, that foreign language is the puppetry. Larry knows how to translate," says producer Aubrey Lynch quoted in the Windy City Times.

About The ClassAbout The Instructor

The Alexander Technique is an instructor-lead process of body work, designed to help each actor shed habitual muscle tensions which result in a "default" body-set. With this technique you will learm to free yourself of movement habits and patterns that may seem "natural" to you, but limit your ability to bring unique, specific, physicality to your characters. Nope, no sweating, just a simple method to reconnect your brain & body. The goal? Freedom of movement, balance, support, and a stronger more able physical instrument.

Kristin Spangler is an internationally certified teacher of the Alexander Technique and has been involved with the technique for more than fifteen years. She received her MFA in Stage Movement from Boston University. In addition to teaching the Alexander Technique to actors in the Conservatory at Act One Studios, Kristin has taught the technique to actors, dancers, and musicians at DePaul University, Columbia College, Northern Illinois University, Elmhurst College, Viterbo University, University of Wisconsin-Parkside, and Hope College. Her specialized approach to the combination of acting and the Alexander Technique has been presented at numerous national conferences, university residencies, professional organizations, and private studios. A founding member of Citadel Theatre Company, Kristin freelances as a director and actor throughout the Chicagoland area.

About The ClassAbout The Instructor

The Shakespeare segment of second-year training provides us with the perfect opportunity to address the considerations that period & style of any production may place in an actor's path. Historic social & societal norms, period costumes, or stylistic choices all pose requirements on the ways in which an actor moves and speaks. An actor's ability to use body movement creatively, accurately, and freely for period pieces is developed in this class.

Dawn Mora, Period Movement, has been a professional actress in television, motion pictures and on stage. She began her career at The Second City in New York and worked at San Diego's Shakespeare Festival. Ms. Mora has written & produced a video for actor movement training, Movement for the Actor. She is nationally known for her movement work and has been a specialist for Chicago's Lyric Opera, DuPage County Opera, and Northlight and Lookingglass Theatres among others. Ms Mora is a recipient of the McCormick Teaching Excellence Award and a CIRA grant to research and preserve the award-winning American choreographer Ernie Flatt's work. Ms. Mora serves as Director of Movement in the Communications Department at Northwestern University, where she also teaches acting.

About The ClassAbout the Teacher

Growing on the layers laid down in First Year Movement, Character Movement adds the approaches of Michael Chekhov and others to your "actor's toolbox." You will learn specific ways to develop a character's physicality, use the text for clues, and discover more about a character through movement. Your characters not only come to life through physical specifics, but your use of your physical instrument becomes more creative and more natural.

Stuart Carden is a free-lance director, instructor and Viewpoints specialist. In Chicago he has worked with Victory Gardens, Steppenwolf, Silk Road Theatre Project, Chicago Dramatist and Strawdog Theatre Company. Outside of Chicago his credits include Actors Theatre of Louisville, The City Theatre, SITI Company, Open Stage Theatre, Shurin Theatre (NYC) and Pittsburgh Irish and Classical Theatre.

Stuart brings depth to the study of Movement, with his expertise in a variety of approaches - he studied Viewpoints with Anne Bogart and the SITI Company, Grotowski with the Mossoviet Theatre in Moscow. Stewart received his MFA in directing at Carnegie Mellon University, and has taught or served as guest director at Carnegie Mellon University, Loyola University, the College of DuPage, Northeastern Illinois University, Beloit College and University of Wisconsin. Recently named Artistic Associate with Pittsburgh Irish and Classical Theatre, Stuart has made the questionable decision to summer in Pittsburgh and winter in Chicago.

About The ClassAbout The Instructor

Voice and Speech with Laura Fisher meets twice per week.

Two terms of the second year will work voice production, articulation, support and flexibility
more extensively, based on the first year work. Expand your warm-up routine. Refine use of the IPA, to be used more deeply in Dialect study.

Laura T. Fisher is a Chicago native and a proud member of Actor’s Equity. After receiving a degree in theater from Loyola University and a certificate from the London Shakespeare Studio, Laura has been acting on stages (mostly in Chicago) and teaching for almost twenty years. Some of Laura’s stage credits include: The Shawl, Home, Finishing The Picture and The Trojan Women at The Goodman Theatre, Jim Sherman’s Half and Half at Victory Gardens Theater, Accomplice with Nobel Fool Theatricals, Kabuki Lady Macbeth with Chicago Shakespeare Theatre and Arcadia at Indiana Repertory Theater. Laura was a long-time ensemble member of Famous Door Theatre with whom she performed in Cider House Rules Parts I and II, Prides Crossing, A Mislaid Heaven, The Living, and Hellcab in both Chicago and Singapore. Laura received a Jeff Award for Best Supporting Actress and an After Dark award for her performance as Norma Collins in Famous Door’s premiere hit comedy Early and Often and is the recipient of three additional Jeff Award nominations for performances as Joan in Famous Door’s Remembrance, Beryl in Famous Door’s Hushabye Mountain and Marion in Remy Bumppo’s The Secret Rapture. Other favorite performances include creating the role of Babette in Roadwork’s [sic], Joanne in Pegasus Players’ production of Company under the direction of Gary Griffin and Roadworks’ production of David Sedaris’ Season’s Greetings to our Friends and Family. Laura has collaborated to create and perform works with Plasticene (doorslam and Refuge) and Cardiff Giant (LBJFKKK, Love Me and After Taste). Laura has been teaching voice for over ten years in various locations throughout the country, at Columbia College of Chicago and at Act One Studios. At Act One, Laura offers a powerful, challenging Voice and Speech classes, and has also brought her considerable skills to Advanced Scene Study and Monologues.

About The ClassAbout The Instructor

During your second year, Meisner Technique meets for one semester, going deeper into the work. One of the benefits of Meisner is that the technique offers a system of “what to do” the moment you’re handed any script. Since much work in your second year explores the audition process - preparing you to "get out there and work" - this "what to do" skill will prove its worth quickly, in very practical ways.

Ted Hoerl continues as Instructor of Meisner Technique (see First Year)

About The ClassAbout The Instructor

One of the most practical classes in your two years is Audition Prep -- preparing you for specific auditions during this year, and giving you the tools to develop auditions throughout your career. We'll guide you through getting great headshots taken and help you produce a resume that works.

In the first term you will be working on monologues, and readying auditions for the Illinois Theatre Association's general auditions in January. Next you will prepare for your spring Showcase for Chicago agents and casting directors. And in the final term your work focuses on "the biz" - the tools you'll need as soon as you graduate - how to make further contact with agents, have a pool of monologues ready to go, contact information, and the support you need to launch your career.

Act One Classes