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WHAT IS STONESTREET STUDIOS?
Stonestreet
pioneered the craft and teaching of screen and film acting
when other acting schools and pundits said there was no
such thing as a craft of "film acting." Others
claim to have started earlier, but it was Stonestreet that
elevated film acting to an artform, to think of it as a
unique artform, and tried to understand it as a craft, rather
than some simple adjustment from stage acting.
Stonestreet
is an acting conservatory that does not instruct in just
ONE acting technique. We respect all backgrounds, all training,
and we have instructors and working professionals that do
NOT decry any technique. We are an OPEN acting school, the
primary focus of which is the art and craft of screen and
film acting.
Stonestreet
also pioneered the concept of "actor empowerment"
in film. Stonestreet does not believe actors should wait
around for filmmakers, casting directors, agents and producers
to "discover" them, or cast them. At Stonestreet,
we empower actors by helping them make their own films,
and we give them the tools and the contacts to do just that.
And we need not simply point to the work our acting students
get, but the films they have made and are making in our
program:
Vaporville, an internet dramatic series
The 47 Floor, an internet dramatic series
Poser, a television pilot
The
Code, a feature film
Sonnets in the City, a feature film
Revengers, a feature
film
The Pack, a feature
film
Miscast, a television pilot
AND to add to that list, Stonestreet students have made
hundreds of short films, many of which have been and continue
to be in major film festivals. We are proud of them, and
we show them to you on the internet. Check them out at www.stonestreetmovies.com.
In 1991, Alyssa founded Stonestreet Studios, a film and television studio in downtown Chelsea, New York City that develops and produces projects for film and TV. Stonestreet Studios is the home of The Stonestreet Screen Acting Workshop where she trains NYU Tisch School of the Arts Drama students in acting, directing, and producing as part of their BFA degree program.
In 1982, after having studied acting with renowned Robert Lewis, as well as the techniques of Sanford Meisner, Lee Strasberg, and Stella Adler, Alyssa worked professionally as an actor, in both the theater and in many films with such directors as Woody Allen, Franco Zeffirelli, Jeremy Kagan et al, soaps, pilots and commercials, she started teaching actors about the differences between film and theater acting as well as how to adapt and use their theater training for multiple types of screen acting.
In 1987, she was invited to teach Acting for Film & Television in the Drama Department at New York University's Tisch School of the Arts along with Acting as A Business where she had received a BFA and later an MA in Theater and Psychology. Alyssa taught in the Drama Department while becoming the Director of Acting Training and overseeing the conservatories (Stella Adler, Lee Strasberg, Experimental Theater Wing, Atlantic Theater Company and Playwrights Horizons) that serve the Drama Department's BFA students. While at NYU she began to create a more in depth program, that allowed students to train in the environment that they would later work in, take their training from audition to production level, and to not only prepare to become a professional actor but to open doors and build bridges from school to the professional world before students graduated. She also initiated the Industry Auditions in the Drama Department so that Drama students would have an opportunity to reach the industry professionals. In 1991, she opened her own studio, Stonestreet Studios, which officially became one of the upper level conservatories for NYU Tisch School of the Arts Drama Department. Over the next seventeen years she continued to innovate and expand the program and the studio to serve students needs as actors continuing to train for the screen and the profession.
Stonestreet
Changes Workshop Name
Stonestreet
Studios has officially changed the name of its Workshop
to the Stonestreet Screen Acting Workshop.
We used to refer to ourselves as the Stonestreet Film and
Television Acting Worksop. But increasingly, the differences
between film and television , and the proliferation of venues
for “screen” acting, from one-hundred foot arena
screens to the tiny screens of an iPod and the Youtube window
on a computer monitor, have made it, we think, necessary
to change how we think about acting for the screen. “Film-
like" medium shot acting appears on television, and
broad comedic acting shot in wide angles appear in film.
The distinctions between film and television are becoming
specious. So it is “screen” acting we are teaching,
the realities presented by the great variety of screens
that fill the entertainment space, and how actors can adjust
to those realities. So it is not only screen versus stage
acting, but it is “large screen” versus “small
screen” acting. Does this make a difference? Should
it make a difference? Stonestreet struggles with these issues,
and has created a learning environment where these new realities
are explored, fleshed out, debated, and together, student
and teacher as well as actor and director, will garner a
continuing wisdom about the demands on, and the beauty of,
the craft of screen acting. Joining our Workshop is to join
us on this journey of exploration. Stonestreet does not
re-hash with religious mantra (though we have regard and
respect for the work that has come before) the old thinking
about acting and technique but attempt to continually question
and grapple with the changing demands placed on the craft
of acting.
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