Alexandra Billings

TDP New York Faculty

Alexandra Billings is an actress, singer, author, teacher and activist.

Billings is currently on stage as Madame Morrible in the Broadway production Wicked at the Gershwin Theatre. She played Davina on Amazon’s Emmy and Golden Globe Award-winning hit TV show Transparent and has 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 Heigel, 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. She’s had guest starring roles on How To Get Away With Murder, Grey’s Anatomy, Eli Stone, E.R., Karen Sisco, Nurses opposite Lynn Redgrave, and playing opposite Dot Jones in the Ryan Murphy pilot Pretty/Handsome, co-starring Blythe Danner and Robert Wagner. Her first feature film role as a non-trans character, Valley of Bones, debuted in the fall of 2017.

Billings has been acting since 1968 and has performed across the United States in hundreds of plays and musicals. 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. 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 to 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.

She is the recipient of five After Dark Awards and one Joseph Jefferson Award.

Billings’ activism stretches across the continent. She has won the TPA Award and the Rainbow Spirit Award, and she was inducted into the Gay and Lesbian Hall of Fame in Chicago in 2007. She has been living with AIDS since 1995. Her life story From Schoolboy to Showgirl, produced by Alex Silets for PBS television, was nominated for an Emmy for best documentary.

David Bridel

TDP Los Angeles Faculty

David Bridel is the dean of the USC School of Dramatic Arts. Prior to his appointment as dean, he served as the director of the school’s MFA in Acting program (2014-2016).
An accomplished director, choreographer, playwright, librettist and performer, his work in these disciplines has been seen at the Mark Taper Forum, the Odyssey Theater, the Ford Amphitheatre, the Norton Simon Museum, the Los Angeles Theatre Ensemble, the Rockwell Table and Stage, and the Broad Stage in Los Angeles; the Kennedy Center in Washington DC; the BMI Musical Workshop, Classic Stage Company, Studio 54, and the Bound for Broadway series in New York; at Shakespeare & Company and Barrington Stage in Mass.; the Roy Hart Theatre in Malerargues, France; in opera houses in Los Angeles, Posnan (Poland), Paris, Vienna, Munich, Mexico City, Guanajuato, Santiago and Madrid; on screen (PBS’ Great Performances series and ABC’s Dancing With the Stars); and at festivals and theatres in the U.S., U.K., Israel, China, Hong Kong, Australia, Austria and Brazil – including the Beijing Film Academy, the National Theatre of China and at the Stanislavsky Institute in Sao Paulo. As a teacher, he has brought his unique blend of movement, text and physical theatre to universities, conservatories, and studios all over the world.
Bridel’s original plays Lunatics and Actors, I Gelosi and Sublimity are published by Original Works Press (Sublimity, Bridel’s solo performance, won the Best Satire Award at the 2013 United Solo Festival in New York). He is also the winner of an ARC grant from the Center for Cultural Initiatives, a cultural engagement grant from the Department of Cultural Affairs, an Entertainment Weekly Special Events Award, a NYFA Fiction Award, an Anna Sosenko Musical Theater Award, and a Zumberge Award for his research project, Clowns Across Continents. He also co-authored Clowns: In Conversation with Modern Masters, published by Routledge. Current projects include his new adaptation of Stravinsky’s The Soldier’s Tale with Teddy Abrams and the Louisville Orchestra, and his adaptation of Trojan Women with Elan Ensemble.
He has contributed to Parodos, SDC Journal, and American Theatre magazine, and he sits on the board of the National Alliance of Acting Teachers. He is also the founding and artistic director of The Clown School in Los Angeles, the only studio in the city devoted exclusively to the study and practice of clowning.

Slava Dolgachev

TDP New York Faculty

Viacheslav Dolgachev is regarded as one of Russia’s leading theater directors. He has directed over 65 productions in every major theater in Moscow and St. Petersburg, as well as in major cities in Russia and abroad. He is a recipient of numerous prizes and awards, including the title of “Distinguished Artist of Russia” (Russia’s highest award for a theater director, presented by the President of the Russian Federation).

From 1990 to 2000, Mr. Dolgachev served as a leading director of Moscow Art Theatre, where he directed such notable productions as After Rehearsal (Ingmar Bergman, for which he received the 1998 national “Golden Mask” Award), Melpomena’s Tales (Anton Chekhov), Bobok (Fyodor Dostoyevsky), Toybele and Her Demons (Isaac Zinger), Impossible Encounter (Paul Bartz), The Milk Train Doesn’t Stop Here Anymore (Tennessee Williams), and The Light Shines in Darkness (Leo Tolstoy).

In 2001, Mr. Dolgachev assumed the position of Artistic Director of Moscow New Drama Theatre (MNDT). Some of his notable productions at MNDT include Nastasya Filippovna (based on “Idiot” by Fyodor Dostoyevsky; winner of the 2009 Grand Prix Award at the International Dostoyevsky Theater Festival), The Robbers (Friedrich Schiller), Lovely Sunday for Creve Coeur (Tennessee Williams), One of the Last Carnival Nights (Carlo Goldoni), Ages of the Moon (Sam Shepard). CHEKHOV. PROJECT in 4 versions: If You Know, The Plot for a Short Story, People, Foreheads, Eagles and Partridges …, Finita La Comedia.

Besides a distinguished career as a director, Viacheslav Dolgachev is an internationally recognized educator. He has taught acting and directing at the School of the Moscow Art Theatre; International Theatre Institute in Pontremoli, Italy; Columbia University, New York University, Stella Adler Conservatory of Acting and The Actors Center in New York; Roosevelt University and the University of Illinois in Chicago; Portland University in Portland, Oregon; and The Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C.

Peter Jay Fernandez

TDP New York Faculty

Peter Jay Fernandez currently teaches acting in the MFA Program in Columbia’s School of the Arts. He previously taught for eight years in the MFA Program at The New School where he also served as Co-Head of Acting from 2017-2019. Other teaching positions include NYU Tisch MFA program, Sarah Lawrence and The Actors Center. He has taught master classes at Yale MFA, Brown Trinity MFA and Berkley College of Music, among others.
He has enjoyed a long career as an actor on Broadway; All The Way starring Bryan Cranston, Julius Caesar, starring Denzel Washington, Cyrano De Bergerac, starring Kevin Kline, Jelly’s Last Jam, starring Brian Stokes Mitchell and Phylicia Rashad, and more. Off Broadway credits include most recently; Socrates, Othello, Father Comes Home from the Wars (The Public Theater,) Seven Spots on the Sun (Rattlestick Playwrights Theater), Red Speedo (New York Theatre Workshop), and more. Film and television work include; Marvel’s Luke Cage, Brawl in Cell Block 99, Funny Valentines, Shades of Blue, Blacklist, The Redemption, Royal Pains, Gotham, Elementary, The Good Wife, Blue Bloods, House of Cards, Deception, Law and Order(s), The Irishman, and much more.

Vernice Klier

TDP Los Angeles Faculty

Vernice Klier is the first woman to graduate from Ringling Bros. College of Clowns. She created “Basic Skills through Art” programs for Montessori schools in Paris, France. A graduate of the International School of Mime Marcel Marceau and private student for many years with Etienne Decroux; Vernice taught movement for film animators and actors. Vernice’s teaching at Blanche Salant Actor’s Studio in Paris familiarized her with various methods of acting.

Her work as a writer and photographer has appeared in many European magazines. As a painter (with several exhibitions of her work), she helps clients discover their “voice” by extensive drawing and painting.

Vernice is often a guest teacher in Europe as well as the US coaching ensemble work for International Films as well as individual actors for feature films and theatre. As a teacher and facilitator, she directs her students in unique ways using left brain, right brain drawing, doing extensive work on sense and affective/emotional memory; building self-confidence and self-knowledge through writing and painting while using physical movement to authenticate authentic and natural speech.

Scene study, work on monologues and improvisation (both verbal and non verbal) are a part of the achievements accomplished by her students as well as writing and performing an original soliloquy and/or scene. Her students also learn to prepare for auditions, self-tapes and interviews. She recently added Stand-Up to her skills.

Vernice’s philosophy is that one must not only teach students but also accompany them during their growth as artists.  She credits this knowledge and experience to her late husband, the renowned film critic Gene Moskowitz.  Vernice resides both in Paris, France and Santa Monica, California.

Vernice coached Juliette Binoche on all three films where Juliette won the most coveted world prizes and she recently coached Vincent Cassel on HBO’s WESTWORLD.  (www.verniceklier.com)

Joanna Merlin

TDP Los Angeles Faculty

Joanna Merlin is an actor, teacher and former casting director, and the last living student of Michael Chekhov. She is a faculty member at New York University’s Graduate Acting program at the Tisch School of the Arts and has served as President of MICHA, the Michael Chekhov Association, since its founding in 1999.
As a Casting Director, she is the recipient of two Casting Society of America Artios Awards for casting Bertolucci’s The Last Emperor and Sondheim’s Into the Woods. As Harold Prince’s casting director, she cast the original Broadway productions of Sondheim’s Company, Follies, A Little Night Music, Pacific Overtures, Sweeney Todd, and Merrily We Roll Along, as well as Evita, Candide, and On the Twentieth Century, among others.
As an actor, her several Broadway credits include Becket opposite Laurence Olivier, A Far Country with Kim Stanley, and Fiddler on the Roof in which she created the role of Tzeitel, Tevye’s eldest daughter. Films include Sarah’s Key, The Wackness, Invasion, City of Angels, Class Action, Mystic Pizza, Fame, The Killing Fields, The Ten Commandments and recently, Active Adults on Amazon. She has appeared on “The Good Wife”, “Homeland” and had a recurring role on “Law & Order: Special Victims Unit” as Judge Petrovsky for 11 seasons.
Joanna is a co-founder of the Alliance for Inclusion in the Arts (formerly the Non-Traditional Casting Project) and was a member of the Tony Awards Nominating Committee. Her book, Auditioning: An Actor-Friendly Guide, was published by Vintage in May, 2001, is still in print. The Spanish translation was released in 2016 in Madrid.

Kenneth Noel Mitchell

TDP Los Angeles Faculty

Kenneth Noel Mitchell is a professor of theatre practice in musical theatre and head of musical theatre at the USC School of Dramatic Arts. Prior to that, he was the founding head of acting for the New Studio on Broadway and the associate chair at New York University. He served as the coordinator of acting at the University of Minnesota/Guthrie Theater BFA Professional Theatre Training Program.

As a director, Mitchell’s work has been represented in New York at the Home for the Contemporary Theater and Art, the Joseph Papp Public Theatre, Soho Rep, The American Globe Theatre, Musical Theatre Works and The Sanford Meisner Theatre. Regionally, he has directed productions for The American Stage, Stage Works, Bristol Valley Theatre, White River Junction Theatre Festival, The Asolo Conservatory Theatre, The Eckerd Theatre Company, The Fredonia Opera House, the Guthrie Experience and the Provincetown Theater.

As an actor, he has appeared at The New York Shakespeare Festival, The Atlantic Theatre, The Performing Garage, The American Globe Theatre, The Dramatist Guild, Bristol Valley Theatre, American Stage the Greenbrier Valley Theater and Stageworks. Mitchell has served as the artistic director for American Stage and Theater Outrageous, and he has been affiliated with the New Shakespeare Festival, Circle Rep and the Manhattan Theatre Club. He is a member of Actors Equity, the Actor Center and on the board of the National Alliance of Acting Teachers.

Hugh O’Gorman

TDP Los Angeles Faculty

Hugh O’Gorman is an actor, director and writer active in professional theatre for 25 years; since 2002 he has been the Head of Acting at California State University Long Beach where he oversees the BA and MFA actor training programs. Hugh has appeared on Broadway, Off-Broadway, Off-Off-Broadway and at over a dozen of the nation’s most respected Regional Theatres and Shakespeare Festivals. He is a founding member of New York City’s Mint Theatre Company (2002 Drama Desk Award). For four years Hugh portrayed Jeff Singer on AMC’s critically acclaimed, Emmy and CableAce award-winning show Remember WENN (SAG Award nomination). Other television: HBO’s multiple Golden Globe and Emmy Award winning John Adams, for CBS Still Standing, That’s Life, and for NBC The 10th Kingdom, Law & Orderand ER. Film: Killers, Upstate, The Bend. Hugh is the author of the book “The Keys to Acting”; he is also a faculty member of MICHA: the Michael Chekhov Association and has his own acting studio in Los Angeles, The Praxis Studio. Hugh earned a BA from Cornell University and MFA in Acting from the University of Washington. www.hughogorman.com

Fay Simpson

TDP New York Faculty

Fay Simpson is the Founder of the Lucid Body, a holistic physical process for actors based on the exploration of the chakra energy centers alongside the psycho-physical work of Carl Jung. She is an Associate Arts Professor at NYU’s Graduate Acting Program and has been the Artistic Director and co-founder of Impact Theatre since its creation in 1990 (Marital Bliss of Francis and Maxine, Kurt’s Wife: A Story of Lotte Lenya, Grey Gone, and SCOTTY). The Lucid Body House opened in March of 2013, in midtown Manhattan and holds monthly Performance Salons for her artistic community. Fay has taught at The Yale School of Drama, The Studio/NY, The New School, Michael Howard Studios, and Marymount Manhattan College. She coaches privately for stage, TV, and film and has brought the work to theatre companies in New York and abroad. She co-founded a Theatre for Social Change summer program in Tanzania for the Yale Drama students, and in New York has developed The Veterans Project, bringing theatre to VA centers around NY to stimulate dialogue and change. She has a two-year teacher training program now in place and is an Intimacy Coordinator.

Fay has received a Fellowship from the Likhachev Foundation for research in St. Petersburg, Russia, Fox Foundation Fellowship, which enabled her to serve as an Assistant at the New Globe Theatre in London under the artistic directorship of Mark Rylance and is the recipient of the ‘Amy and Eric Berger National Theatre Essay Award’ for development of her book, The Lucid Body; A Guide for the Physical Actor. This book was hailed by Drama Book Shop as “one of the ten most essential books for the actor.” She is a member of The Actors Center.

Ron Van Lieu

TDP New York Guest Speaker

Ron Van Lieu was the Master Teacher of Acting and eventually Chair of the NYU Graduate Acting Program where he taught from 1975 to 2004. In 2004 he was appointed the Lloyd Richards Professor of Acting and Chair of the Acting Program at the Yale School of Drama where he taught until 2017. He now serves a Professor of Professional Practice on the faculty of Columbia University.

Ron trained at New York University Tisch School of the Arts. His acting credits include major regional theaters, leading roles off-Broadway, New York Shakespeare Festival, The Public Theatre, Playwrights Horizons, and a member of the Milwaukee Repertory Theater’s acting company. His directing credits include productions at Playwrights Horizons, The Public Theater, Syracuse Stage, the Greer Garson Theater in Santa Fe, and over 50 productions at the NYU Graduate Acting Program. In 1993 he was awarded the New York University Distinguished Teaching Medal, the university’s highest award given in recognition of outstanding achievement in classroom teaching.

In addition to his university work, Ron is a founding faculty member of both The Shakespeare Lab at the New York Shakespeare Festival Public Theater where he headed the actor training for 10 years, as well as The Actors Center in New York where continues to teach both professional actors as well as teachers of acting. Students who have trained with Ron over the past 43 years have won every major award in the field of theater and acting including the Pulitzer Prize, the Academy Award, Tonys, Drama Desk Awards, Golden Globes, Emmys, Obies, etc. Ron serves on the Advisory Council of the National Alliance of Acting Teachers.

Gregory Wallace

TDP Los Angeles Faculty

Gregory Wallace is a Professor in the Practice of Acting at the Yale School of Drama. He is an actor, director, and teaching artist with over 40 years of experience in the professional theatre. His career includes numerous appearances on Broadway, Off-Broadway, and in regional theatres, where he has worked with some of the leading directors in the American theatre, including John Doyle, Adrian Hall, Israel Hicks, Mark Lamos, Irene Lewis, Austin Pendleton, Carey Perloff, Lisa Peterson, John Rando, Mark Rucker, and Ruben Santiago-Hudson. 

For 12 years, he was a member of the resident acting company at American Conservatory Theater, where his credits included “Kevin” in Clybourne Park, “Ogun” in Marcus: Or The Secret Of Sweet, “Tzara” in Travesties, “Caesar” in Gem of the Ocean, “Krogstad” in A Doll’s House, “Kulygin” in The Three Sisters, “Estragon” in Waiting for Godot, “Willie” in Master Harold… and the Boys, and “Belize” in Angels in America. 

As an actor, he’s been involved in the development of new plays such as Robert O’Hara’s Insurrection: Holding History, Peter Parnell’s The Cider House Rules, Philip Kan Gotanda’s After The War, and Lillian Groag’s War Music.

While at A.C.T., he was a core faculty member in the MFA Acting program, teaching courses in Contemporary Scene Study, Acting Chekhov, and Heightened Language in Action. He also directed a number of productions for the Conservatory, including plays by Eugene O’Neill, Sophocles, Stephen Adly Guirgis, Anton Chekhov, and Georges Feydeau. 

From 2011-2016, he served as Head of Graduate Acting at University of California, San Diego. He received his BFA in Acting through the Stella Adler Conservatory at New York University and his MFA in Acting at the Yale School of Drama.