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Jenny Schmidt is an actor as well as being Freehold's registrar extraordinaire.  She can be seen in Annex Theatre's upcoming play Penguins.  Jenny is in photo on right, Sophie Lowenstein is on the left.    Photo by Ian Johnston. One of the things that I love about developing a role is the additional research that goes on outside of the rehearsal room - visiting locations, studying a time period, conducting interviews, etc.  These 'hands on' experiences can provide a great foundation and tactile memories when trying to re-create the world of the play on stage.  Over the years, this has...

Burlington, VT August 19, 2009 -- Diane Havens of New York, NY, received the award for Best Voice Team, along with her voice partner, Robert Jadah, at the third annual Voicey Awards ceremony held on March 26th. This is the second year in a row that Havens and Jadah were nominated for the award, and they were thrilled to receive such a prestigious honor.
In 2006, Havens attended an introductory class, "You're On the Air: How to Really Make It In Voice-Overs," taught by Such A Voice Producer and Tony Award nominee Dan Levine. Following the introductory course, Havens pursued voice-over...

Burlington, VT (PRWEB) August 11, 2009 -- The voice-over industry boasts sustainable growth despite the economic recession. According to statistics reported by Voices.com, the voice-over industry is set to grow by 7.5% from 10.9 to 11.7 billion dollars in 2009. Effectively, there are substantially more opportunities for aspiring voice-over artists to break into the industry. According to Voices.com, earnings of voice talent have...

The following is a copy of a sheet handed to me as an Extra on set for North by Northwest productions. I did NOT write this, but it has great information that I believe should be shared.
When working on a movie as an extra, your job is to make the scene look real and enhance the environment. You may get to play many different roles, so be the best (insert role here) you can be.
 
The people you’ll be working with may include:
Extras Assistant- He/She will get you checked in and take you to and from the set. He/She is your person of contact, but remember there are many of you and only one of them.
 
PA (Production Assistant) - This person will meet you on set and place you in position. He/She may direct you to do some action to do during the scene- listen carefully and ask questions if you don’t understand. There may be more than one person doing this job.
 
Wardrobe and Makeup- Wardrobe will be checking your wardrobe and may ask you to change if your clothing is not appropriate. Makeup may look at you if you are featured.
...

Trash Mash-Up will be featured at the Eight Annual Western Addition National Night Out. The goals of this event include increasing crime awareness, generating support for anti-crime programs,...

Trash Mash-Up will be featured at the District 5 Youth Art Showcase at the Koret Auditorium. Trash Mash-Up has partnered with the...

Ever wanted to be a voice of a toy?  Over the past 20 years, I’ve voiced, cast, directed, or recorded approximately a hundred toys.  It started when Teddy Ruxpin shook up the scene in the mid-80s as the original animated storytelling bear.  Now, just about every toy talks, whether it’s plush, learning, doll, electronic, or novelty.  So what makes a toy voice sound great?  The FUN factor!  The audience is kids, so the voice inside the toy or game must be entertaining.  It needs to be joyful, playful, positive, and energetic.  That means committing your whole body to the recording so the sound files POP.    How hard is it to get into voicing toys?  Like any acting job, it requires proper training and connections with people who hire talent.  When Leap Frog started taking off, they hired me to do the casting for several of their talking books and toys including Leap, their...

If you were stuck on a desert island with only one other person, would you rather be on an island with someone who was far too serious and seemed to have no interest in or understanding of ‘you’, or would you rather be with someone who has an engaged interest in your shared fate and has some personality to help keep the boredom away? Many of us would probably choose the latter. Unless you tend towards the misanthropic, you would probably prefer to share company of someone who is understanding and fun. Humor and empathy are two big facets of human life that bond us all, and the one requires the other to some degree. 
It is nearly impossible to escape the gaffs of life, and experiencing these myriad failures gives one context to understand the experience of others undergoing similar circumstances. It is this same empathetic knowledge that allows us to see the idiosyncrasies of our experience through new eyes, and one of the things that emerge is laughter. Rooted in the rhythmic hooting of earlier primates, laughter can be considered something of an ancient inheritance. There is precedence for laughter among other species like rats. Our laughter, depending on how it is performed, connotes many things; joy, exasperation, derision, surprise, embarrassment. It is our ability to consider context and discern intention behind human actions that enables us to effectively understand which laugh is the one we’re hearing and seeing.
Improvised theater comes from this mix of humor and acting out a mosaic of real and imagined lives and locales through dialogue, body language, singing, and mime. It is fairly easy to take a class in improvisational theater, or ‘improv’ for short. People from many walks of life take a beginner’s class; high-school counselors, retirees, actors, writers, cooks, nurses, high schoolers, lawyers, etc. It is here that people get introduced to the driving ideas behind the mechanics of improvised theater. Much of early training is focused on understanding and internalizing the...

Every Theatre & Company runs rehearsals differently.
The following are basic theatre etiquette.
 
Be Prepared

Review your part before Rehearsal
Write down any possible questions

 
What to Bring (Even if you are in the chorus, ensemble, tech. etc.)

Binder or Folder
Sharpened Pencils (that means more than One)
Extra Paper for Notes
Script or Music- Even...

As a stage manager, you need to be prepared for any and all circumstances. Below are a list of some sample items to place in a Stage Manager's Tool Kit. With experience, you will discover which items are essential for you and the actors you...