Guest Faculty

Dr. Budi Miller is the Co-Artistic Director of The Theatre of Others. He is the Director of Advanced Training at the Fitzmaurice Institute. He is a Lead Teacher of Fitzmaurice Voicework, a certified integrative studies practitioner, and a UNESCO-designated master teacher of mask work. His practice intersects with Balinese Performing Arts Training (BPAT), Mask Work, Fitzmaurice Voicework, Michael Chekhov, Clown, Viewpoints, Grotowski, and Self-inquiry brought to the world by Ramana Maharshi.

He holds a Ph.D. from the University of Melbourne and a B.F.A. in theatre from NYU Tisch School of the Arts.

He has been an actor-director-writer-teacher in the United States, Australia, Singapore, the United Kingdom, Denmark, Hong Kong, Shanghai, Taipei, Malaysia, Vietnam, India, and Indonesia since 1992. He is a Balinese mask dancer and the first teacher to bring Fitzmaurice Voicework to Denmark, Singapore, Hong Kong, Taipei, Malaysia, and Indonesia.

He coached Michelle Williams for her Academy Award-nominated performance in Ang Lee’s movie Brokeback Mountain, Jonathan Majors Lovecraft Country: HBO, Creed III, Ant-Man III: Marvel Universe and collaborates with Julian Elijah Martinez (Wu-Tang: An American Saga: Hulu). He has had the privilege of coaching and inspiring actors in many mediums: Broadway, HBO, Netflix, Showtime, major international film markets and theatres around the world, and the Indonesian Film Festival (Judge, 2020).

He was the Head of Acting from 2017-2023 at the Victorian College of the Arts at the University of Melbourne. He has been on the faculties of The Chautauqua Theater Company from 2004-2021, and LASALLE College of the Arts, Singapore 2009-2017. He has taught at Yale School of Drama, The Juilliard School, NYU Tisch School of the Arts, The Actors Center, Wayne State (MFA), The New School (MFA), SUNY Purchase College, University of Southern California, The Bill Esper Studio, Rutgers Mason Gross School of the Arts, The National Theatre Institute, Howard University, Western Michigan University, The National University of Singapore, The Queensland Theatre Company (Brisbane), Curtin University (Perth), and the Michael Chekhov Conference 2002.

budi@theatreofothers.com

Instagram:@millerbudi

Justine is a performance and filmmaker, director, teacher and coach. Since 2013, she has been on faculty at the David Geffen School of Drama (YSD) where she teaches acting through play, and serves as an advisor-facilitator for new play development, guiding creative collaboration amongst directors, actors and playwrights as they bring new works to life. She studied extensively at École Philippe Gaulier in Paris and with many teachers around the world. For over 20 years, she has collaborated with her mentor, Christopher Bayes, teaching at his NYC-based Pandemonium Studio, acting in his contemporary adaptations of Moliere farces and co-devising new work. Justine’s work as an actor-creator has been developed and presented at Ars Nova, The Public Theater, Yale Rep, Berkeley Rep, The Metropolitan Museum of Art (where she was an artist-in-residence) and New Georges. She has collaborated with female “folk comedy” film directors – Shaina Feinberg (Blunderpuss) and Shannon Plumb (Towheads), and her cinematic work as actor/writer/director/producer has screened at Maryland Film Festival, Woodstock Film Festival, New Directors | New Films, Rotterdam Film Festival, and more.

A sought-after creative coach and dedicated acting coach, she works with actors through The Actors Center in NYC and at her private studio in Brooklyn.

James Kemp trained at Drama Centre London, subsequently pursued an acting career which encompassed a number of long running West End shows. In 1998 James was invited back to Drama Centre London to work alongside and assist Dr. Yat Malmgren in the teaching of Movement Psychology (inspired by the pioneering work of Rudolf Laban), and upon the retirement of Dr. Malmgren in 2001 he inherited his work and further developed this field of study and practise through workshops for Stage Centre, Israel; the International Workshop Festival; Caravanserai Acting Studio; Beit Zvi School Of Performing Arts; Beit Lessin Theatre, Tel Aviv. He teaches Acting & Directing at LAMDA and works as a ‘Laban Consultant’ at the Young Vic.

James Kemp students have included: Michael Fassbender, Tom Hardy, Emilia Clarke , Jaime Murray, Stephen Wight, Morven Christie, Damien Molony, Ruta Gedmintas, Rolan Bell, Gwendoline Christie , Santiago Cabrera, Gemma Chan and Howard Charles. His students have won acting honours from: BAFTA, Venice International Film Festival, British Independent Film Awards (BIFA), Laurence Olivier Awards and London Evening Standard Theatre Awards amongst many others.

His teacher Yat Malmgren taught a number of other well-known actors in “Character Analysis & Movement Psychology” including: Sean Connery, Penelope Wilton, Pierce Brosnan, Colin Firth, Anthony Hopkins, Andrew Tiernan, Simon Callow, John Simm, Geraldine James, Helen McCrory, Russel Brand, Paul Bettany, Anne-Marie Duff and many others.

You can learn more about James’ Yat Malmgren Movement Workshops at Berg Studios below.

Lauren Weedman is an award-winning comedic actress, playwright, and author who works extensively in theater, film and television. She has written and performed over 14 full-length, multi-character, solo plays including Homecoming, Amsterdam, If Ornaments Had Lips, Huu, Rash, Wreckage, Bust, No… You Shut Up, People’s Republic of Portland, and, Lauren Weedman Doesn’t Live Here Anymore, her second play commission from Portland Center Stage.

Among her many television roles, Lauren played Doris on HBO’s Looking, and appeared as Horny Patty on HBO’s Hung. She was a correspondent on The Daily Show and also appeared in Will and Grace, True Blood, United States of Tara, Reno 911!, Curb Your Enthusiasm, New Girl, 2 Broke Girls, and Arrested Development. Film credits include Looking: The Movie, Joshy, The Little Hours, Wilson, Imagine That, Date Night, and Judd Apatow’s The Five Year Engagement. Currently, she’s working on Abbott Elementary and Hacks as Mayor Jo.

She speaks on creativity around the country as well as teaching and has been the host of the popular Moth Storytelling Slam for the past 15 years.

She studied Acting at DePaul Theater School and Feminist Film Studies at Indiana University. She left Indiana and moved to Amsterdam to study Experimental Theater. Working with former members of Joseph Chaikins Open Theater and Ariana’s Mounshkind Teatre Du Soleil. After studying, writing, and performing Theater in Amsterdam for five years, Lauren returned to the States with her first play HOMECOMING which began as a 15-minute performance art piece at On the Boards and ultimately grew into a full-length show, touring with the Seattle RepertoryTheatre. HOMECOMING premiered off-Broadway at Westside Theatre and had a successful six-month run. The New York Times said of Lauren and HOMECOMING, “Like Bob Newhart in his early stand-up routines, she’s particularly good at making her points – and making us feel clever. Most important, she’s just plain funny, physically and verbally.” Homecoming was featured at HBO’s U.S. Comedy Arts Festival in Aspen, Colorado, and was published in “Women Playwrights: The Best Plays of 2002.”

KRISTOF KONRAD was born in Poland, trained as an actor at the National Dramatic Academy in Warsaw, Poland, the Fersen Studio in Rome, Italy, and Larry Moss in the U.S. While in Poland, he studied and worked with theater and film masters JERZY GROTOWSKI and ANDRZEJ WAJDA. In the USA he worked with directors FRANCIS LAWRENCE, KENNETH BRANAGH, RON HOWARD and ROLAND EMMERICH. His credits include HOMECOMING, HOUSE OF CARDS, RED SPARROW, INTELLIGENCE, ANGELS AND DEMONS, HOTEL CALIFORNIA, INDEPENDENCE DAY, SCORPION, NIKITA, SCANDAL, BURN NOTICE, OPERATION SAMUM, ALIAS, THE AGENCY, JAG, E- RING and many others. Kristof has taught for the BERLIN INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL, GENERATION CAMPUS – MOSCOW, VERBIER FESTIVAL& ACADEMY in Switzerland and UBS VERBIER ORCHESTRA.

He is teaching Intensive Acting in Film and Alexander Technique Workshops in New York, Los Angeles, Milan, Berlin, Toronto, and Vancouver. In the U.S., he has taught with Jean-Louis at the LARRY MOSS STUDIO, HOWARD FINE STUDIO, LA and Melbourne, Australia, and recently worked with the artists of the ROYAL SHAKESPEARE COMPANY and the CIRQUE DU SOLEIL. Past and current students include FOREST WITAKER, KENNETH BRANAGH, COBIE SMULDERS, JOBETH WILLIAMS, ERIC DANE, and SHARON LAWRENCE.

Jeff Janisheski trained for several years with Anne Bogart, co-creator of the Viewpoints, and associate-produced her work in New York City.

For the past twelve years, he has led three major theatre schools, in the US and Australia. For the past

twenty years he has taught and directed in the US and abroad (in Australia, England, Japan, Korea, Russia and Vietnam).

Jeff was Head of Acting at NIDA (the National Institute of Dramatic Art in Sydney, Australia) – the only American to run this prestigious program. In 2013, Hollywood Reporter ranked NIDA as number 8 among the top 25 theater schools in the world. While at NIDA, he introduced Viewpoints training into their curriculum.

He is currently a Professor of Theatre Arts at California State University, Long Beach; and for four years was Chair and Artistic Director of Cal Rep. From 2008-2011, Jeff was Artistic Director of the National Theater Institute (NTI) at the Tony Award-winning Eugene O’Neill Theater Center in Connecticut,

America’s preeminent organization dedicated to the development of new plays and music theatre. From 2004-2008, he was Associate Artistic Director at New York’s Classic Stage Company (CSC) where he associate-produced shows featuring Anne Bogart/SITI Company, Alan Cumming, David Ives, David Oyelowo, John Turturro and Dianne Wiest.

Jeff holds an MFA in Directing from Columbia University. He is a recipient of the Theater Communications Group New Generations/Future Leaders fellowship. His chapter in the book, Approaches to Actor Training: International Perspectives, explores his approach to actor training which bridges Stanislavski’s system with contemporary Viewpoints training.

www.jeffjanisheski.com

Rob Clare was originally an actor with the Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC), then a Staff Director at the UK National Theatre, and Associate Artistic Director of the major UK touring company, Compass, for whom he directed the first major revival of Amadeus. He was also one of the pioneers of using drama to work creatively with inmates in the UK prison system. Becoming increasingly interested in differing approaches to working with Shakespeare, he completed a doctorate in the subject at Oxford University and has since become an internationally recognized Shakespeare specialist. He has worked in numerous training institutions within the UK, and established the MA Classical Acting course at London’s Central School of Speech and Drama, which he also led for its first three years, as well as also teaching at the Globe. Since resuming his freelance career he has directed and/or taught Shakespeare in Ireland, Austria, Germany, Australia, China, and the USA. In India, he directed Hindi productions of A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Julius Caesar, and Romeo and Juliet. Before moving to the US, he worked regularly for almost a decade as a freelance specialist verse and text coach with the RSC’s core acting ensemble, leading annual workshops, and working in and alongside rehearsals for productions of Richard III, Richard II, Henry IV Parts 1 and 2, Henry V and Hamlet. In the US he has worked as visiting faculty at The Juilliard School, Brown, USC Los Angeles, CSU Long Beach and NYU Tisch (both graduate and undergraduate acting).

Joanna Glushak is an award-winning actress who has starred on Broadway in Sunday in the Park with George; Les Misérables; A Gentleman’s guide to Love and Murder; Warpaint; Hairspray; Unrinetown; and The Sweet Smell of Success. In an over three decade career, Joanna has worked with some of the most important directors in the American and British theater, including: Diane Paulus; Michael Greif; Susan Stroman; James Lapine; Darko Tresnjak; Jack O’Brian; Nichlas Hytner; Trevor Nunn; Scott Ellis; Gene Saks; Daniel Sullivan; Aurthur Laurents; Christopher Ashley; Joseph Papp; and Gerald Gutierrez.

Off Broadway Joanna has also been prolific and just finished a wonderful run of Gloria: A Life, playing Bella Abzug opposite Christine Lahti. Beyond Broadway, Joanna has played leading roles in many national tours, including Evita, Young Frankenstein, Finding Neverland, Xanadu, Fiddler on the Roof, and countless regional theater productions at theaters such as the American Repertory Theater; The Old Globe; Yale repertory Theater, Seattle Repertory Theater; Arena Stage; Goodspeed Opera House, and the Williamstown Theater Festival. On Television, Joanna can be seen in the recurring role of Mrs. O’Tool on the Emmy Award winning Amazon series The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel. Joanna is a graduate of NYU and the Yale School of Drama

Mr. Andrew Wade was Head of Voice at the Royal Shakespeare Company from 1990-2003. He joined the Royal Shakespeare Company in 1987 as Assistant Voice Director to Cicely Berry, where he oversaw all of the voice work for the Royal Shakespeare Theatre and the Swan Theatre. In conjunction with Cicely Berry, Mr. Wade recorded Working Shakespeare – a series on voice and text work with Helen Hunt, Samuel L. Jackson, Toby Stevens and Claire Danes. Mr. Wade trained at the Rose Bruford College, the Arts Educational School, and served as Head of Voice at East 15. Mr. Wade was Verse Consultant on the film Shakespeare in Love. He also coached Courtney Love for the role of Lady Macbeth, and worked on the new musical Lord of the Rings.

Since leaving the RSC in 2003, Mr. Wade works predominantly in the US leading Master Classes and Workshops, as well as coaching with theatre companies and actors. He has particular links with the Stella Adler Studio in NYC, Delaware University, the National Theater School in Montreal, The Juilliard School and with the Guthrie Theater in Minneapolis, where he has coached Antony and Cleopatra, Comedy of Errors, Othello, As You Like It, Hamlet and Merchant of Venice.

Other work includes Verse Consultant on the film Shakespeare in Love and voice coach on A Midsummer Night’s Dream and The Taming of the Shrew (TFANA); Matilda (Broadway); Lord of the Rings (Montreal and London); La Traviata (ENO), A Midsummer Night’s Dream and Clay Cart (Oregon Shakespeare Festival) Henry V (Guthrie Theatre) Macbeth and Romeo and Juliet (co-production with The Acting Company).

West End Credits include: La Traviata, Donkeys’ Years, and Boeing-Boeing. Publications include “Working Shakespeare”, a series on voice and text work with Helen Hunt, Samuel L Jackson, Toby Stevens, Claire Danes, Blythe Danner, Emily Watson and introduced by Jeremy Irons. He is currently working on “Shakespeare Experience”, editions of Shakespearean recordings, plus audio excerpts with contemporary actors.​

Andrew teaches Shakespeare Text & Voice Workshops at Berg Studios.

Jessica Wolf has been teaching the Alexander Technique for almost 40 years and created the Alexander Technique program at Yale School of Drama in 1998. She is also the founder and director of Jessica Wolf’s Art of Breathing, a postgraduate training program for Alexander teachers that combines principles of the Alexander Technique and Breathing Coordination. She is also a certified Laban Movement Analyst. In 2013, Jessica published Jessica Wolf’s Art of Breathing: Collected Articles and created the first three‐dimensional animated film of the respiratory system, which has since been translated into Spanish, Chinese, and German. Other faculty appointments include the Aspen Music Festival, The Juilliard School, SUNY Purchase, Circle in the Square Theater School, Hunter College, Sarah Lawrence College, and the Verbier Music Festival. Jessica coaches many performing artists who appear on‐ and off‐Broadway, and in films and television. Her work is recognized internationally and she travels extensively, giving workshops to performers, teachers, and healthcare providers.

Christopher Bayes began his theater career with the internationally acclaimed Théâtre de la Jeune Lune, where he worked for five years as an actor, director, composer, designer and artistic associate. In 1989 he joined the acting company of the Guthrie Theater, where he appeared in over twenty productions. His roles included Caliban in The Tempest, Edgar in King Lear, The Herald in Marat/Sade and Harlequin in Triumph of Love. In 1993, commissioned by the Guthrie Theater, he produced his one-man show This Ridiculous Dreaming, based on Heinrich Boll’s novel The Clown.

His New York directing credits include plays by Molière, Dario Fo, and Carlo Goldoni at the Juilliard School, NYU, and Fordham University. Bayes was part of the creative team for the Broadway and Touring productions of THE 39 STEPS for which he created additional movement and served as Movement Director. He has received numerous awards and grants including a Jerome Foundation Travel/Study Grant, a General Mills Foundation Artist Assistance Grant, and both a Minnesota State Arts Board Fellowship Grant and a Career Opportunity Grant. He is a 1999/2000 Fox Fellow.

He has served on the faculty of the Juilliard Drama School, the Actor’s Center (founding faculty & master teacher of physical comedy/clown), Yale School of Drama, the Public Theater’s Shakespeare Lab, the Academy of Classical Acting at the Shakespeare Theater in Washington D.C., New York University’s Graduate Acting Program and Tisch School of the Arts, and Brown University and the Brown/Trinity Rep Consortium. He is currently Professor and Head of Physical Acting at the Yale School of Drama and teaches Clown and Commedia dell’Arte Workshops at Berg Studios.

Daniela Varon is a New York-based director and acting teacher, and a long-time member of Shakespeare & Company in Lenox, MA. She was Associate Director and co founder, with Kristin Linklater, of The Company of Women, which presented all-female Shakespeare productions and workshops for women and girls, and co-producer, director and moderator of Conversations with Shakespeare, which played three seasons at Symphony Space. Daniela’s productions of Shakespeare, contemporary, and new work have been seen at some 25 theaters around the country, including The Winter’s Tale at the Los Angeles Women’s Shakespeare Company, and she has developed new work with another 25 companies. Daniela is a Lecturer in Acting at the Yale School of Drama, where she specializes in teaching Shakespeare.

She is on the faculty of the Linklater Center for Voice and Language, and is a Shakespeare specialist with Lincoln Center Theater’s Education department. She has taught and guest-directed at Barnard, Bennington, Dartmouth, Emerson, Purchase, and Smith Colleges, Columbia University, NYU/Stella Adler, and U. Conn, and taught Shakespeare workshops in Bulgaria at the Sfumato Theatre Laboratory and the Plovdiv National Drama Theatre.

Ron Carlos is a New York-based voice, speech and dialect coach and a member of the acting faculty at the Yale School of Drama. He has taught at Harvard University, City College of New York, Marymount Manhattan College, Atlantic Theatre School (NYU/Tisch School of the Arts), The Shakespeare Theatre of New Jersey, The National Student Leadership Conference, and Shakespeare Academy @ Stratford.

Coaching credits include: Broadway: The Glass Menagerie, It’s Only a Play; Off-Broadway: Privacy, Plenty, Sweat, Party People, Gently Down the Stream, Oedipus El Rey, Kings, The Low Road, Mlima’s Tale, Fire in Dreamland (The Public Theater); Mary Jane (NYTW); Charm (MCC); The Gentleman Caller (Abingdon); Regional: Native Son, Mary Jane, Assassins, Seven Guitars, WAR (Yale Rep); Grounded (Westport Country Playhouse); The Piano Lesson(Hartford Stage); Misalliance, Love’s Labour’s Lost (Shakespeare Theatre of New Jersey); The Lily’s Revenge, The Snow Queen (American Repertory Theater), Master Harold…and the Boys (Gloucester Stage Company); TV: Orange is the New Black (Netflix), Madam Secretary (CBS), Power (STARZ), Unforgettable (CBS) and Fringe (Fox); Film: Look Away, The Week Of.

Ron received his MFA in Voice and Speech Pedagogy from the American Repertory Theater Institute at Harvard University, and is an Associate Teacher of Fitzmaurice Voicework®. He teaches Fitzmaurice Workshops at Berg Studios.

Alexandra Billings is an actress, singer, author, teacher and activist and has been acting since 1968; having performed across the United States in hundreds of plays and musicals. Billings She’s played everyone from Mama Rose in Gypsy to Mrs. Lynde in A Doll House. Most every stage role is considered to be a first for a transgender actress.She served as the Viewpoints Associate at the Pulitzer Prize and Tony Award winning Steppenwolf Theater in Chicago.

Currently, Billings plays Davina on Amazon’s Emmy and Golden Globe Award-winning hit TV show Transparent. She has also appeared on How To Get Away With Murder, Grey’s Anatomy and the Amazon series Goliath, starring Billy Bob Thornton. In 2005, Billings played Donna, opposite Katherine Heigl, in the ABC film Romy and Michelle: A New Beginning. It was the second time a transgender actress played a transgender character in the history of television. Her first feature film role as a non-trans character, Valley of Bones, debuted in the fall of 2017.

Her one-woman autobiographical show, Before I Disappear, toured from Chicago to Boston to Los Angeles, and finally off-Broadway at The Producer’s Club, winning rave reviews and running for over 10 years.

She originated the role of Alejandra in Time to Burn by Charles Mee at the Steppenwolf Theater in Chicago and toured Off-Broadway in Jeff Richmond and Michael Thomas’ camp classic, Hamlet! The Musical! Her album Being Alive, produced by Ralph Lampkin, Jr., was up for Grammy consideration in 2002.

Ms. Billings began her teaching career in 1994 at The Steppenwolf School in Chicago, and currently teaches Viewpoints Workshops at Berg Studios.