Moving Tip #1 w/ Acting Coach Tom:

Guarantee You Have a Guarantor

You've just graduated from college! CONGRATS! If you are moving to NYC, it's time to start thinking about getting an apartment. Most likely, you are moving without a job, so you will need a guarantor to secure your dream apartment.

Moving Tip #2 w/ Acting Coach Tom:

Hire a Mover

Save yourself (and your dad) the hassle of all the heavy lifting and hire an affordable mover. Even if you drive a UHaul to NYC, a mover can meet you to carry your stuff up the stairs to your new apartment!

Acting Tip of the Week w/ Acting Coach Tom:

Dare to bring your whole heart to your song lyrics!

You can't just sing the notes on the page. You have to find words or phrases within the lyrics that you can connect to. Sometimes the smallest phrase can open up your personal connection to the entire song.  

(Feat. Tony Award Winner Cynthia Erivo, The Color Purple)

Acting Tip of the Week w/ Acting Coach Tom:

Play of the Month: "Long Day's Journey Into Night"

Long Day's Journey Into Night by Eugene O'Neill has a long history and has been a staple in American Drama for decades. (Special appearance by Paul Rudd)

Acting Tip of the Week w/ Acting Coach Tom:

Acting Tip: Don't flub people's names (Feat. Adele Dazeem)

Practice makes perfect. Don't make the same mistake as John Travolta at the Academy Awards!

Acting Tip of the Week w/ Acting Coach Tom:

Acting Tip: Character Psychology (feat. Jessie Mueller of "Waitress" & Lily Rabe)

Take a close look at the text or lyrics of the song to understand your character's psychology.

Acting Tip of the Week w/ Acting Coach Tom:

Always try to audition at your vocal best!

If you are sick and you have the option to audition another day, take it! You always want to audition at your best.

Acting Tip of the Week w/ Acting Coach Tom:

How To Create a Cartoon Voice (feat. Kristin Chenoweth)

Try this simple vocal warm-up to create a fun cartoon voice!

Acting Tip of the Week w/ Acting Coach Tom:

A Love Sonnet to Christian Borle's Shakespeare in "Something Rotten"

A little love sonnet to Coach Tom's true love: Christian Borle's Shakespeare from Something Rotten. Featuring lines from Much Ado About Nothing, Romeo and Juliet, Troilus and Cressida, As You Like It, and Henry V.

Acting Tip of the Week w/ Acting Coach Tom:

Weed out your old audition material

Maybe you're a little too old for that audition monologue now? Or you're bored with it? Or it's just plain wrong for you?

If you answered, "Yes," it's time to get some new material.

Start with your free 15 minute session at www.pypnyc.com/free15!

Acting Tip of the Week w/ Acting Coach Tom:

Playing Characters with Challenging Life Circumstances

When playing characters like Hazel from The Fault in Our Stars, learn everything about what's happening physically and emotionally. Research the illness at the library and watch interviews and movies to deepen your understanding and bring great specificity.

Acting Tip of the Week w/ Acting Coach Tom:

College Edition- The HARTT School

Feat. Hartford Stage, Goodspeed Musicals, TheaterWorks Hartford, & Monomoy Theatre

Pictured Alumni: Christine Dwyer (Elphaba in "Wicked"), Marin Ireland ("Reasons to Be Pretty," "After Miss Julie" w/ Sienna Miller & Johnny Lee Miller)

Acting Tip of the Week w/ Acting Coach Tom:

Play of the Month- "The Crucible"

"The Crucible" first premiered on Broadway in 1953 and won the Tony Award for Best Play. A film adaptation came out in 1996. It is currently being revived on Broadway in a production starring Saoirse Ronan and Ben Whishaw.

Acting Tip of the Week w/ Acting Coach Tom:

How to use PlaybillEDU

Are you struggling to come up with your Performing Arts College list? Are you planning a Spring or Summer Break college visit road trip and don't know what colleges to check out that have great acting, musical theatre, voice, and dance programs? If you are a High School student interested in going to a Performing Arts college, the best resource out there to start your college search is PlaybillEDU. You can explore thousands of undergraduate programs in theatre, dance, and music and save all of your favorite schools in one place.

Acting Tip of the Week w/ Acting Coach Tom:

College Edition- The University of the Arts

Actor training is at the core of their performance majors, grounded in Stanislavsky and Meisner. A small school vibe in a safe, Philadelphia urban campus. The University of the Arts is just steps away from theatres like the Walnut Street Theatre, Philadelphia Theatre Company, Wilma Theatre, and Arden Theatre Company

Acting Tip of the Week w/ Acting Coach Tom:

How to do an Irish Accent

Happy St. Patrick's Day! 💚🍀

Acting Tip of the Week w/ Acting Coach Tom:

Wix Website Tip for Performers

Creating a Wix.com website? Make sure to add your social media handles...or else this will happen!

Acting Tip of the Week w/ Acting Coach Tom:

Stay engaged in the background

If you can see the audience, the audience can see you! Always stay in the moment on stage.

Feat. Kevin Spacey and Robin Wright from "House of Cards and Donald Trump and Chris Christie. #HouseofCards #FreeChrisChristie

Acting Tip of the Week w/ Acting Coach Tom:

Warming up for an audition or rehearsal

If you are driving to rehearsal or an audition, the car is a great place to do your articulation warmups. Warning: Be careful if you have trouble multi-tasking!

Acting Tip of the Week w/ Acting Coach Tom:

Treat. Yo. Self.

Don't let audition season get you down!

Acting Tip of the Week w/ Acting Coach Tom:

Move to the Los Angeles

New York City can be a wonderful place to live, but if you aren't into snow, Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Dallas are some awesome options!

Theatres featured in Los Angeles: Geffen Playhouse, The Antaeus Company, Deaf West, Mark Taper Forum

Theatres featured in San Francisco: American Conservatory Theatre, San Francisco Playhouse, Exit Theatre, California Shakespeare Theater

Theatres Featured in Dallas: Dallas Theater Center, Theatre Three, WaterTower Theatre, Kitchen Dog Theater

Acting Tip of the Week w/ Acting Coach Tom:

College Edition- Tulane University

New Orleans has more than just Mardi Gras to offer! Check out Tulane University's BFA in Musical Theatre and BA in Theatre with a concentration in Performance.

Acting Tip of the Week w/ Acting Coach Tom:

Don't look sloppy by wearing a wrinkled shirt!

You've worked hard to prepare your audition material. Take the extra few minutes to iron your shirt to look your most professional.

Acting Tip of the Week w/ Acting Coach Tom:

Don't forget to have fun!

It's easy to get caught up in backstage drama or get overwhelmed by a demanding rehearsal schedule, but it's important to remember why you love performing and bring a sense of joy and play on stage!

Acting Tip of the Week w/ Acting Coach Tom:

Use your 2 show day break to book your next job!

The theater can be a perfect makeshift recording studio for a self-tape video submission. Great lighting. Great sound. Lots of castmates ready to help. Just find the least distracting part of the set and always ask the stage manager for permission.Featuring the sublime Bailey Seeker and the multi-talented Kate Semmens! Also, starring the set of Titan Theatre Company's "A Christmas Carol."#selftape #actorslife #backstagelife #werk

Acting Tip of the Week w/ Acting Coach Tom:

Christmas Carol (Part 2)- Physicality

With 30+ characters in Charles Dicken's A Christmas Carol, you'll likely play at least 2 in your production. Use class specific gestures, posture, and speed of movement to make a clear switch between upper and lower class characters.

Acting Tip of the Week w/ Acting Coach Tom:

Christmas Carol (Part 1): The British Dialect

To avoid slipping back into American, use key consonant and vowel changes as guideposts to stay on track with your British dialect. Featuring the ever so lovely & talented Bailey Seeker!

Acting Tip of the Week w/ Acting Coach Tom:

Save the costume for Opening Night!

Audition like a professional: save the costume for opening night of your production. While you might like dressing up as your dream acting character, an audition is not the time. A simple hint of character is enough!

Acting Tip of the Week w/ Acting Coach Tom:

Backgrounds for Self-Tape Auditions

Working on a self-tape audition or college audition pre-screen? Always take the few extra minutes to clean up the background when you record a self-tape. The little bit of effort goes a long way and makes you look much more professional!

Acting Tip of the Week w/ Acting Coach Tom:

How to do the "Our Town" Mime

Working on the play "Our Town" by Thornton Wilder? Having trouble mastering the mime that's in the play? Here's how to practice the mime in 3 easy steps!

Acting Tip of the Week w/ Acting Coach Tom:

How to Slate

Getting ready for an audition or a college audition pre-screen? Don’t wait to practice your slate! You spend countless hours practicing your audition material, but the first moments of your audition start with your slate (or introduction). Whether you are recording an on camera audition, a self-tape,  or you are live in the audition room, practice your slate in advance!

Acting Tip of the Week w/ Acting Coach Tom:

Run your lines...while you run

Preparing for an upcoming audition or production? Run your lines… while you run! If you can run while speaking all of your lines, it will be a breeze acting the part onstage or in an audition!

Acting Tip of the Week w/ Acting Coach Tom:

Always read the original

Rehearsing a musical or play based on a book or an update of an old play? Always read the original script. Pay close attention to deleted or changed lines. You will find the extra little character clues that might help to create a 3-dimensional character or add specificity to the lyrics of a song that replaces a section of dialogue or a monologue. You will not only rock your performance, but you also might just find your new favorite monologue!

Acting Tip of the Week w/ Acting Coach Tom:

Thanksgiving Edition

Don't wait until your Tony Award acceptance speech to thank all of the loved ones in your life who have encouraged, inspired, and supported you along the way!

Acting Tip of the Week w/ Acting Coach Tom:

Stage Directions

When reading a play, don’t skip the stage directions. Playwrights give hints about character, relationship, point of view, and the world of the play. Sometimes the most powerful moments in modern drama are not spoken, but are written in those stage directions.

Acting Tip of the Week w/ Acting Coach Tom:

Leave the facts for history class

How do you bring to life real historical characters like Alexandar Hamilton, Steve Jobs, or Carole King? You can't act facts, but you can search letters, biographies, etc. for anything that gives insight to your character's points of views and what makes him/her tick.

Acting Tip of the Week w/ Acting Coach Tom:

How to play a villain

Villains are fun, but extremely challenging characters to play. Almost every musical, play, film, tv show, etc. has a villain or an antagonistic character. They often have evil plans and spend most of the story trying to carry out their evil plans. It's important to not just play a caricature. Be creative cooking up your villain's backstory to create a 3-dimensional character. We love musicals like Wicked and tv shows like Once Upon a Time because they do a masterful job of writing that backstory for us.

Acting Tip of the Week w/ Acting Coach Tom:

Relationships

Be specific when you define your character's acting relationship to other characters in your scene or monologue. Don't be general! The best acting comes from really specific work.

Acting Tip of the Week w/ Acting Coach Tom:

Leave the dancing feet on the dance floor

Keep those dancing feet on the dance floor! Plant your feet when doing a monologue or scene. It doesn't mean you can never move, but move when it's a necessary step to achieving your character's objective. Thanks OMI or this summer jam we can't get out of our heads!

Acting Tip of the Week w/ Acting Coach Tom:

Back-to-School Edition

Callback for your drama club fall play? Sometimes our audition nerves get the best of us and we get buried in the script. Don't hide all of that brilliant acting behind your audition callback side. Make eye contact with your scene partner. 📚📓