The Classical Studio Faculty

. David Brimmer, Violence Specialist (Fight Master, SAFD) has choreographed some stuff (Broadway: Grace, An Enemy of the People, Wit, Born Yesterday, A life in the Theatre, Speed the Plow, Come Back, Little Sheba, Spring Awakening, The Lieutenant of Inishmore, NY premieres: Blasted, The Whipping Man, Ages of the Moon, Medieval Play, The American Pilot, Blackbird, Bug, Killer Joe, as well as The Red Bull Theatre’s productions of The Revenger’s Tragedy and The Duchess of Malfi, and the Druid Theatre Company’s The Cripple of Inishmaan), worked at some wonderful venues (NY Public Theater, Metropolitan Opera, Atlantic Theater, Manhattan Theatre Club, Lincoln Center, TFANA, TBTB, Signature Theatre, North Shore Music Theatre, ART, Dallas Theater Center, Hartford Center Stage, Baltimore Center Stage, The Guthrie), taught a few places (NYU/TSOA, RADA-{Guest Instructor}, Strasberg Institute, Yale), ! and collaborated with some great folks- writers (David Mamet, Sam Shepard, Ethan Coen, Jez Butterworth, Kenneth Lonergan, Martin McDonough, Tracy Letts), directors (Joe Chaikin, JoAnne Akalaitis, Ethan McSweeney, Sarah Benson, Wilson Milam, Joe Mantello, Neil Pepe, Michael Mayer, Kathleen Turner, Lynne Meadow, Garry Hines, Ken Russell, Franco Zeffirelli), and performers (Cynthia Nixon, William H. Macy, Andre Braugher, Raul Esparza, Elizabeth Moss, F. Murray Abraham, Keith Carradine, Kathleen Chalfant, Stephen Rea, Ed Asner, Kate Mulgrew, Reed Birney, Michael Shannon, Jesse Eisenberg, Kristen Johnston, Lily Rabe, Zoe Kazan, S. Epatha Merkerson, Nina Arianda, Jim Belushi, Kerry Condon, Alison Pill, Kate Burton, Jeff Daniels, Paul Rudd, and Sir Patrick Stewart).

Donna Germain has taught voice and speech at NYU for eighteen years. She has taught at both the Classical Studio and the Meisner Studio. She also has coached over twenty five Shakespeare productions at the Classical Studio and many Shakspeare productions for the Judith Shakespeare Company. She is the creator of Word Orgy: a poetry project based on a theme which includes songs and prose. Some of many shows she created are Paradise Mis-Laid and Love and It's Discontents. She continues to create a poetry show with the Meisner II students called Capturing Animals. Donna attended the University of California at Berkeley and Hunter College. She studied acting with Michael Howard and Paul E Richards. She studied voice and speech with Shane Anne Younts at the Robert Neff Williams Studio and then studied an additional year with Mr. Williams. She has taken numerous workshops with Andrew Wade and John Barton. She appeared in several productions with Richard Forman, including Vertical Mobility. In 1973 she traveled to Poland and to part in a four month program at Jerezy Grotowski's theater in Wrozlaw. Besides teaching at NYU, she has taught voice and speech privately for many years.

Shanga teaches Acting, primarily Movement for Actors.

Acting: Television: MR. ROBOT, LAW AND ORDER: SVU, IRONSIDE, IN HER SHOES, LEVERAGE. Film: VIDEOLA, IN LIEU OF FLOWERS, ONE LAST TIME, THE OBAMA EFFECT, ANNIVERSARY. NYC: Ensemble Studio Theatre, The Lark, Labyrinth, The Brick, Connelly Theatre. Regional: A Contemporary Theatre, Intiman, Tacoma Actor’s Guild, On The Boards, Actor’s Theatre of Louisville, La Jolla Playhouse, San Diego Repertory, and South Coast Repertory, Rites and Reason; and Festivalul International du Teatru de la Sibiu, Romania. SAG-AFTRA, AEA.

Directing: NYU: THE STORY, RIDE AND PREJUDICE, PICNIC, RIMERS OF ELDRITCH, CLOUD NINE. Also: RADIUM GIRLS at the University of South Carolina, THE MIRACLE WORKER at Ball State University, FOOL FOR LOVE and ART at the Public Theatre of Kentucky. Premiere of Ian Ruskin’s FROM WHARF RATS TO LORDS OF THE DOCKS, and the stage version of THE LIFE OF THOMAS PAINE. University of Washington: Graduate Actor’s Showcases from 2007-11; premieres of FAIR PLAY and EAT THE CHICKEN. THE WHO’S TOMMY, KID SIMPLE, CHILDE BYRON, RADIUM GIRLS, OUR COUNTRY’S GOOD, THE WATER ENGINE, THE WAITING ROOM, EARTH AND SKY, MURDER IN GREEN MEADOWS, and WAITING FOR THE PARADE.

Distinguished Teaching Award, University of Washington, 2006.

EDUCATION

B.A. Brown University
M.F.A Acting, U.C. San Diego

Darci is currently writing a screenplay inspired by the life of Kenyan Charles Mulli for Charles King’s Macro Media. Her screenplay “Where Is Kyra?” premiered at the 2017 Sundance Film Festival and opened April 6, 2018 to strong reviews. The film, directed by Andrew Dosunmu, stars Michelle Pfeiffer and Keifer Sutherland and is produced by Killer Films in partnership with Great Point Media. 

Darci previously participated in the Sundance Feature Film Labs with her screenplay MOTHER OF GEORGE and returned for the Director and Producing Labs. The film, also directed by Andrew Dosunmu, debuted in the 2013 Sundance Film Festival and was distributed by Oscilloscope. It was named by the National Board of Review as one of the top ten indie films of the year, was awarded Film of the Year from the African Diaspora Awards and was honored by the Women Film Critics Circle and the African American Film Critics Association. The New York Times and Washington Post named it as one of the best films of the year. It was screened at the Museum of Modern Art as part of their Contender series, honoring films with historical significance as well as at the United Nations for Women’s History Month. 

As a playwright, Darci’s JAYSON WITH A Y was workshopped at New York Stage and Film and produced by the New Group in New York City.  Her play LIL’S 90^th was developed at the Sundance Theater Festival and premiered at Long Wharf Theatre with Lois Smith, David Margulies and Kristine Neilson in the leads.

Her entrée into playwriting was her one woman show, MY VIRGINIA, which she also performed. It was presented in theatres and solo festivals around the country, as well as broadcast on National Public Radio and was showcased on the BBC series Medicine at the Crossroads. She also performed the show at legal and medical conferences around the world, in programs co-sponsored by the National Cancer Institute and the National Institutes of Health.

Renée Redding Jones is a Certified Movement Analyst with an MFA from Sarah Lawrence College and a BS from Morgan State University.  As a dancer, Renee was a featured performer in the companies of Ronald K. Brown and David Rousseve, receiving a New York Dance and Performance Award (“Bessie”) for her performance in Brown's Dirt Road.  In Brown’s company, Renee also served as Associate Artistic Director.  She has also performed in the companies of Bebe Miller and Cynthia Oliver, in addition to dancing with independent choreographers, Sue Bernhard, Alan Danielson, Andrew Jannetti, and Sondra Loring. 

In addition to performing internationally, Renee has toured the country teaching, as well as setting and creating work at various universities and dance festivals. She has served as an Assistant Arts Professor at NYU/Tisch in the dance department and taught on the faculty at Sarah Lawrence College in both dance and drama. As a choreographer her work has been presented at Middlebury College, Colorado College, Dance Theater Workshop, Bergen Community College and the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. 

More than twenty years ago Redding-Jones began teaching movement for The Classical Studio.  During her long tenure with The Classical Studio, Renee has choreographed numerous plays, including The Winter’s Tale, directed by Louis Scheeder and performed at The Jack A. Skirball Center for the Performing Arts, as well as the studio’s annual Word Orgy.  Shortly after beginning her work with The Classical Studio, Renee expanded her work with actors to include teaching at Atlantic Acting School, which she happily continues.

Daniel Spector has directed and coached actors on over 50 productions of 26 of Shakespeare's plays. He is a member of the Lincoln Center Theater Directors Lab and is an alumnus of the Broadway Theatre Project. He has served as a consultant to PBS on matters Shakespearean, moderated Artist Talks at the Brooklyn Academy of Music, taught all over the place, and spoken at numerous conferences around the world. A frequent collaborator in the classroom, he has taught with Alec Baldwin, Tim Carroll, and Louis Scheeder. Daniel holds a joint appointment with the Department of Dramatic Writing.

Area: Classical Actor Training.  Founder and director of The Classical Studio, Louis Scheeder has taught at Tisch since 1989. He has directed on, off, and off-off Broadway, and at regional theatres in the U.S. and Canada. He served as Producer of Washington’s Folger Theatre Group, was associated with the Manitoba Theatre Centre, and worked with the Royal Shakespeare Company in London and Stratford-upon-Avon. He has produced three off-Broadway shows, most notably Amlin Gray’s Obie-winner How I Got That Story.  He co-authored (with Shane Ann Younts of the Grad Acting Program) All The Words on Stage: A Complete Pronunciation Dictionary for the Plays of William Shakespeareand contributed two chapters to Training of the American Actor. On behalf of the School, he has conducted acting workshops in Los Angeles, London, Havana, Johannesburg, and Cape Town.  He is a member of The Factory UK in London and a co-director of their ongoing “secret” Hamlet.