NOTE: VIRTUAL CLASSES CAN BE REQUESTED. IN-PERSON INDIVIDUAL SESSIONS ARE AVAILABLE WITH PROOF OF VACCINATION. PLEASE BE MINDFUL OF THE NEW VARIANT, ESPECIALLY IN NYC. STAY SAFE!
LET ME HELP YOU BECOME THE ACTOR YOU WANT TO BE, THE THEATER ARTIST YOU KNOW YOU ARE
In 1994, right out of High School, I attended The Juilliard School with the intention of becoming a classical actor. Just two years before I began to direct, eventually forming my own theater company by the late 1990’s in NYC, the radical Dionysus 2000 Theater Lab – incorporating a melange of influences from James Baldwin and Bertolt Brecht to Antonin Artaud and Public Enemy. My own innate approach to acting was a form of fusion that melded various influences and styles, employing them for specific reasons, to make conscientious decisions in how a character or simply a mood – was being relayed. Having studied at the Sanford Meisner theater, LaGuardia Performing Arts High School, the Moscow Art Theater, and Juilliard my arsenal of approaches to acting was well oiled.
My own artistic proclivities and interests have stretched and varied since then, especially once I became “radicalized” by the spirit of the Black Arts Movement and the extraordinary experimentation of Beck & Malina’s The Living Theater group. but I have always tried to give back what I have learned and harnessed over the years. Known as an “actor’s director”, I first began to teach at the National Black Theater in Harlem and later the Creative Acting Company in Chelsea. Since 2003, I have taught abroad and domestically – from Berlin to Durham, North Carolina. I currently give acting lessons and private coaching in my studio in Jackson Heights, NY.
Rehearsal for my production of Elizabeth Wong’s “China Doll,” with Eunice Wong. Juilliard 1997.
Since 2008, I have offered private acting lessons in NYC to all levels of experience. Ages 17 and up.
With an emphasis on Conservatory auditions and preparatory training, Voice and Speech, basic scene study, monologues. I even assist in the help of the creation of solo works and helping Actors of color & traditionally marginalized performers find innovative or atypical material that can best showcase their political, cultural, or personal interests.
NOTE TO YOU, THE ACTOR
With an emphasis on the Actor as a “Liberator,” and social conscious and responsible being in this society, I want to help you regard yourself as an artist with your own convictions; not to merely be an adequate interpreter of an author’s work. Craft is vital, but art is even more important if acting is to have any impact on the twentieth-century (we are still languishing in the shadow of the 1900’s).
I am here to remind you that you have a choice as to what kind of cinema or theater (world) you want to create, participate, and live within.
I bring all of my twenty-five years of professional and independent art making and experience to a tailor-made acting lesson suited for your needs or someone whom you may know that desires a personal approach to acting.
I am interested in helping you achieve your best and becoming the actor you want to be, not the actor I think you are.
- Monologues
- Scene Study
- Developing a character
- Basics of Acting
- Voice/Speech
- Solo Creations
- Conservatory Auditions
$150/per 90 minute session. Less if you want more than one lesson a week.
I can provide references at your request and I will answer any questions you have before committing. Please feel free to email any inquiries.
kangalee76@gmail.com or you can contact me through this site.
Dennis Leroy Kangalee 