April 11, 2021
Major Tom to Ground Control
Our Weekly Recap, Resources & Recommendations for Actors, Directors & Creatives
"The script is black and white. It's up to us to color it in!"
Thanks to those of you who joined us yesterday for the Saturday Workshop featuring Master Voice & Speech Coach, MARY LOU ROSATO!
What's the Saturday Workshop?
Watch a then join the
The Work
LONG DAY'S JOURNEY INTO NIGHT by Eugene O'Neill
Pippa Winslow and Dash Grundy
COLD READ EXERCISE
Amanda Cortinas, George Antonopoulos, Vedra Grant and Emanuel Gomes
TO THE NEW GIRL: SOUND ADVICE FOR MY HUSBAND'S WIFE OR MISTRESS by Samantha Macher
Kathryn Schneider
MACBETH by William Shakespeare
Robert Higgins
Hey Members!
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Here are the latest additions to your video library:
-
Coaching Sessions from last Saturday (April 3): Cold Read Exercise: "Onions"; "Same Time Next Year" by Bernard Slade
- Lessons from Tom: from last Saturday (April 3): "Suggestions for working on an absurdist piece"; "Think longer thoughts"; "Reading for a functionary role vs. a principle role"; "Props in an audition"; "Acting is not about crying - it's a fight!"; "Finding material no one has seen"
- Voice and Speech: from last Saturday (April 3): Vocal Workout with Rachael Warren
Need a brief intro to your dashboard?
TAKE A TOUR
Reminder, use the 'search' icon in the upper right to search your dashboard by titles, topics or dates, to quickly find your desired video!
Music This Week
INTRO: "Heartbreaker" and "Living Loving Maid (She's Just A Woman) by Led Zeppelin
OUTRO: "We Are Family" by Sister Sledge
Recommended This Week
READ
PICTURES AT A REVOLUTION: FIVE MOVIES AND THE BIRTH OF HOLLYWOOD by Mark Harris
In the mid-1960s, westerns, war movies, and blockbuster musicals like Mary Poppins swept the box office. The Hollywood studio system was astonishingly lucrative for the few who dominated the business. That is, until the tastes of American moviegoers radically- and unexpectedly-changed. By the Oscar ceremonies of 1968, a cultural revolution had hit Hollywood with the force of a tsunami, and films like Bonnie and Clyde, The Graduate, Guess Who's Coming to Dinner, In the Heat of the Night, and box-office bomb Doctor Doolittle signaled a change in Hollywood-and America. And as an entire industry changed and struggled, careers were suddenly made and ruined, studios grew and crumbled, and the landscape of filmmaking was altered beyond all recognition.
Available on: Audible, Kindle Store and Amazon Prime
WATCH
MY OCTOPUS TEACHER
My Octopus Teacher is a 2020 Netflix Original documentary film directed by Pippa Ehrlich and James Reed, which documents a year spent by filmmaker Craig Foster forging a relationship with a wild common octopus in a South African kelp forest.
Available on Netflix
WATCH
BONNIE AND CLYDE
Bonnie and Clyde is a 1967 American biographical crime film directed by Arthur Penn and starring Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway as the title characters Clyde Barrow and Bonnie Parker. The film also features Michael J. Pollard, Gene Hackman, and Estelle Parsons
Director: Arthur Penn
Available on NetFlix, HBOMax, Amazon Prime, YouTube
WATCH
HEMINGWAY
Ken Burns and Lynn Novick explore the life and work of the legendary writer and his enduring influence on literature and culture. Three-part, six-hour series
Available on Amazon Prime
WATCH
WIT
Professor Vivian Bearing (Emma Thompson), an expert on the work of 17th-century British poet John Donne, has spent her adult life contemplating religion and death as literary motifs. Diagnosed with advanced ovarian cancer, she consents to an aggressive and experimental form of chemotherapy administered by Dr. Kelekian (Christopher Lloyd) and his assistant, Dr. Posner (Jonathan M. Woodward), her former student. Facing death on a personal level, she reflects on her life and work.
Director: Mike Nichols
Starring: Emma Thompson, Christopher Lloyd, Audra McDonald and EIleen Atkins
Available on HBOMax, Amazon and HULU
WATCH
MRS. AMERICA
"Mrs. America" tells the story of the movement to ratify the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA), and the unexpected backlash led by a conservative woman named Phyllis Schlafly, aka "the sweetheart of the silent majority." Through the eyes of the women of the era -- both Schlafly and second-wave feminists Gloria Steinem, Betty Friedan, Shirley Chisholm, Bella Abzug and Jill Ruckelshaus -- the series explores how one of the toughest battlegrounds in the culture wars of the '70s helped give rise to the Moral Majority and forever shifted the political andscape.
Stars: Cate Blanchett, Rose Byrne, Uzo Aduba and Sarah Paulson
Available on HULU
Ongoing Recommendation:
THE CRITERION CHANNEL
We continually recommend this subscription service because it will give you access to an unparalleled library of films, from the the most obscure, unusual independent movies to the great classics of cinema history! Enjoy curated selections based on shared themes, actors or directors. An incredible resource for any cinephile or student of storytelling.
SEE YOU APRIL 17TH!
New York Professional Actor Training comes to your home next Saturday!
Our International, Intergalactic Acting Jam continues next Saturday, featuring Master Voice & Speech Instructor!
ABOUT MARY LOU ROSATO
Mary Lou Rosato is a founding member of The Acting Company and a graduate of Juilliard’s Group 1 under John Houseman and Michel St. Denis. Mary Lou Rosato served as Co-Head of the CalArts School of Theater for 18 years. Currently, she is on faculty at the Yale School of Drama and the Tom Todoroff Conservatory, NYC.
As an actress, director, and teacher, she has been working in the theater for over forty-five years, most recently performing in NYC in The Government Inspector with the Red Bull Theater Company, and in The Skin of Our Teeth at TFNA.
She has appeared on and off Broadway numerous times, and in major regional theaters throughout the country including Yale Repertory, the Guthrie, ART, the Shakespeare Theater in Washington, DC, Seattle Rep, Baltimore’s Center Stage, Cincinnati’s Playhouse in the Park Cleveland Playhouse, the McCarter, the Old Globe in San Diego, and the Williamstown Theater Festival , and on international stages including the Old Vic in London and at the Taganka Theater in Moscow. In NY she appeared in THE SUICIDE starring Derek Jacobi, and in THE MISANTHROPE with Uma Thurman and Roger Rees, and played Pauline in THE WINTER'S TALE, at the Classic Stage Company for Barry Edelstein. She was in HENRY THE FIFTH starring Mark Rylance at TFNA, and in the Lincoln Center Festival production of MY LIFE AS A FAIRY TALE, directed by Chen Shi Zheng and starring Fiona Shaw. She has played Lady Sneerwell in two productions of Sheridan’s SCHOOL FOR SCANDAL – on Broadway at the National Actors Theater starring Tony Randall, and off-Broadway with The Acting Company, for which she received a Drama Desk Award. In Los Angeles, she was in THE CLEAN HOUSE at South Coast Repertory, THE PEACH BLOSSOM FAN at RedCat, KING LEAR (a Cal Arts/CNP production), and MEDEA with Annette Bening at UCLA Live in Los Angeles, CA. Her musical credits range from Brecht’s MOTHER COURAGE and THE ROBBER BRIDEGROOM for The Acting Company, to CANDIDE at the Guthrie, Behan’s THE HOSTAGE directed by Jack O’Brien at The Old Globe in San Diego, and the CHANGES OF HEART directed by Stephen Wadsworth at the Mark Taper Forum in 1996, she received a best actress nomination from the LA Drama Critics Circle Award committee. In Chicago she won a Joseph Jefferson Award for her role in CURSE OF AN ACHING HEART directed by Gerald Gutierrez.
Her film credits include QUIZ SHOW, HUDSUCKER PROXY, THE WEDDING BANQUET, TWO BITS with Al Pacino, Spike Bensonhurst, Brenda Starr, Reporter, and John Turturro’s ILLUMINATA. On TV she played Nurse Kathy on TITUS, and appearances in LAW AND ORDER, SVU, CAROLINE IN THE CITY, THE LOT, MICHAEL HAYES (pilot), and WAREHOUSE 13.
She began directing in the 1990’s and is a member of SDC. Among her first directing credits was THE BEAUX STRATAGEM at the Pearl Theatre in New York, which was nominated as one of the 10 Best Off-Broadway productions of 1994 by the New York Daily News. In NYC, she directed AS YOU LIKE IT at The Juilliard School, and her own adaptation of HENRY V: Crispian’s Day at the Boars Head (2001), HENRY THE FIFTH, WAY OF THE WORLD, TIME OF YOUR LIFE, and THE MERCHANT OF VENICE. In 2013, she directed Shakespeare’s RICHARD II for Creative Pulse Company in Los Angeles.
And now YOU have the chance to learn from this incredible artist and coach without even leaving home!
Join us on Saturday to study with
Mary Lou Rosato and Tom Todoroff!
The Guidepost Card Set
These beautiful cards were created by NYC Studio Director, Mark Guerette. An excellent way to learn and swiftly and joyfully integrate all elements of the Todoroff Technique!
