The Academy is where over 140 years of actor training meets the demands of the 21st century industry. This one-semester course, taught by an interdisciplinary team of faculty and staff, introduces actors to the values, community, and practices that make the Academy what it is. Curriculum covers self-discovery, health and wellness, consent-based practice, theatrical intimacy, and the collaboration and communication skills that every professional actor needs. Required of all first-time Academy actors. Pass/Fail grading.

Every actor starts here: learning to inhabit imaginary circumstances with full, truthful presence. Through Sanford Meisner's foundational exercises — repetition, structured improvisation, and moment-to-moment listening — this course builds the actor's capacity to ground themselves in the reality of doing and to respond spontaneously and honestly in any scene. Actors supplement the Meisner approach by applying wants, relationship, and personalization to scene work from contemporary drama as a laboratory for technique.

The body is the actor's primary instrument. Most of us arrive with habits, tensions, and limitations that restrict what we can do with it. This course begins the systematic work of freeing the body: building postural support, breathing, coordination, flexibility, and strength while developing kinesthetic awareness and physical presence. Through physical freedom actors build greater ease, sensitivity, and energy in every movement.

The voice is the actor's most intimate instrument and often the most elusive. This course introduces actors to the interconnected systems of the voice: breath, phonation, resonance, and articulation. Through experiential work grounded in anatomy and physiology, actors develop kinesthetic awareness of the vocal tract and build the foundation of a free, expressive, and coordinated speaking voice.

Actors work through the body, which means understanding how the body actually works is a professional skill. This course provides a working knowledge of human anatomy and physiology, especially as related to the actor's instrument and performance: movement, posture, voice production, breath, and overall health and wellness. Through lectures, discussion, virtual labs, and hands-on activities, actors develop an anatomically informed relationship to their own instrument.

Scripts are blueprints for the actor. This course develops the ability to read and analyze dramatic texts from the perspective of the actor: with personal investment, dramaturgical rigor, and practical intention. Actors engage in close reading of selected plays and apply analytical strategies from David Ball, Uta Hagen, and others to build skills that will serve the actor in every rehearsal room of their career.

The actor's job is to inhabit other people's lives, which requires the skills to cross cultural difference with empathy, curiosity, openness, and respect. This course examines how cultural identities shape communication practices, perceptions, and interactions across anthropological, sociological, psychological, and communication frameworks. Through case studies, discussion, and experiential activities, actors develop the intercultural competence to engage effectively, authentically, and ethically with diverse individuals and communities, both in performance and in professional life.

Reinforcing truthfulness as the foundation, actors expand their technique through exercises from Stella Adler, Uta Hagen, and Lee Strasberg. Exploring sensory work, place work, emotional and physical preparation, and conditioning forces, actors bring greater specificity to their choices. Inspired by their exploration and preparation, actors develop their point of view within imaginary circumstances, deepen personal stakes, and expand their range of expressive behavior to build upon their moment-to-moment engagement in scenes from contemporary comedy and drama.

The camera changes the experience of acting. This course introduces actors to the specific demands of working in front of a camera on a professional film or television set: the language of the industry, the roles on set, and the technical artistry required without losing the truthful engagement of great screen acting. Exercises emphasize applying truthful acting to the intimacy and precision of the lens.

Physical freedom is the foundation, and physical expressivity is the goal. Building on Movement I, this course pushes actors to take greater physical risks, expand their movement vocabulary, and develop the strength, stamina, and specificity of a trained physical actor. Physical storytelling is introduced, challenging actors to communicate character, relationship, and narrative through the body alone.

The Alexander Technique teaches actors to notice and change the habitual patterns of tension and movement that limit their range. In small group settings, first-year actors practice fundamental Alexander principles to refine a body awareness that supports postural ease, vocal freedom, and physical presence on stage, on screen, and in life.

Every sentence, word, or mumble of sound we make begins with a thought. This course takes the vocal and physical work of Voice and Speech I and brings it into contact with text, sensory language, and imaginary circumstances. Actors develop spontaneous breathing, vocal expression, and intelligibility through text work.

Communicating through language is universal, but the sounds of any language offer a glimpse into identity itself. Exploring the oral tradition of language, this course introduces actors to articulatory phonetics and phonology and provides the foundation for later accent and dialect work. Actors learn to hear, analyze, describe, and mimic the sounds of language with precision, developing the skills that professional dialect and character work require.

Every actor who works in film contributes to film history. Understanding that history is essential professional literacy. This course introduces the principles and theories of film studies through screenings, readings, and discussions that span the history, aesthetics, genres, and cultural significance of cinema. By the end of the course, actors have the critical and creative frameworks to analyze film as both an art form and a medium of cultural power, and to understand their own place within it.

Actors who understand what's happening behind the camera are better collaborators and entrepreneurial artists. This hands-on course covers the essential tools and workflow of narrative filmmaking: camera operation, lighting, sound recording, and editing using industry-standard software. Through practical projects, actors develop the technical fluency to create their own content, collaborate effectively on set, and understand how their performance will be captured and shaped in post-production.

Actors don't just appear in media. Actors are shaped by it, and they shape it in return. This course prepares actors to analyze the systems, histories, and power dynamics behind American journalism, advertising, film, television, and social media. Actors develop the critical literacy to understand the industry they are entering, the cultural forces that will define the stories they tell, and the images they embody.

Working actors are also freelance professionals who manage their own finances, negotiate contracts, and build sustainable careers. This course develops the quantitative reasoning and financial literacy that independent artists need: graphs and data, proportions and ratios, and descriptive statistics applied to real-world financial and professional contexts. Actors build the confidence and numerical fluency that underlie smart career and business decisions.

Acting III extends the truthful foundation of the first year into the full vocabulary of acting craft, including character action. Roles are assigned requiring deep research, imaginative investment, and full integration of technique to build a character. Scene work deepens the actor's ability to craft bold and committed choices.

Building on the fundamentals of screen acting, this course focuses on genre: the distinct demands of drama, comedy, procedural, and other television and film forms. Actors develop their text analysis and character-building skills within the specific conventions of each genre, continuing to refine the grounded truthfulness and technical precision that camera work requires.

Reinforcing the principles introduced in Alexander Technique I, this course develops the actor's ability to maintain optimal use (the coordinated, efficient engagement of the body) under the demands of performance. Actors apply Alexander principles directly to acting, movement, and voice work, integrating the technique into the rehearsal room and onto the stage and screen.

Transformation is one of the actor's core powers. This course develops the capacity for radical physical characterization. Actors research, observe, and recreate animal physicality and apply their insights to the challenge of transforming the body for human characters. The result is a deepened imagination, an expanded physical range, and a reliable method for building character from the outside in.

Stage and screen violence is one of the most skill-specific demands in professional acting — and one of the most marketable. This course trains actors in the techniques of safe, truthful physical combat, including unarmed and armed forms. Actors learn to execute punches, kicks, and choreographed sequences with weapons while integrating acting technique with physical precision to move from mechanics to storytelling. The training also builds strength, flexibility, and coordination alongside the craft.

Every character grew up some place and can tell you what home sounds like. Voice and Speech III develops the actor's approach to accent and dialect work. Examining how oral posture, pronunciation, and prosodic features shape speech, actors discover what these features reveal about a character's race, ethnicity, class, gender, geography, and culture. Actors develop the research skills, intercultural competence, and instrument skills to recreate and embody specific, grounded speech choices for any role they play.

The plays being written today reflect and shape the culture actors inhabit. This course examines American drama from the past two decades through a rigorous dramaturgical lens, exploring the world of each play, the world in which it was conceived, and the connections between the two. Actors conduct original dramaturgical research and present on the production history of a contemporary American drama, developing the research skills that distinguish professional actors.

Actors who understand how story worlds are constructed are better equipped to inhabit them. This course is a study of the creative writing process across poetry, short fiction, playwriting, and screenwriting. Through theoretical study, practical exercises, and workshop critique, actors develop writing craft across multiple forms, learning the distinct elements, structures, and techniques of each while developing their individual voice. Actors complete the course with a portfolio of original work across all four genres.

Working in extended, multi-character scenes from a broad range of leading playwrights, actors synthesize all elements of technique: moment-to-moment connection, wants and actions, relationship, emotional and physical preparation, conditioning forces, character, place, and script analysis. Accents and physical choices are applied as appropriate to characters and their world. This rigorous, high-stakes scene work is designed to push each actor's range.

The capstone production experience of the second year. Actors apply advanced acting, movement, and voice and speech technique through the rehearsal and performance of roles in a fully staged production of a contemporary play. The demands of the production process from first rehearsal with a director to final performance before a public audience are at the center of this experience.

The future of storytelling is creator-driven. This capstone course puts actors in the driver's seat. Working in collaborative teams, actors develop, write, direct, perform, and edit an original web-series pilot from concept to final cut. The result is professional and original content that demonstrates the full range of creative and technical skills developed across the BFA in Acting program — a genuine calling card for the multi-hyphenate industry.

Actors perform. Professional actors build careers. This course equips actors with the tools, platforms, and financial literacy to launch and sustain a working life in the industry. Headshots, resumes, agents, casting directors, and unions are examined with clear-eyed practicality and strategic impact. Actors design competitive profiles for major casting platforms, craft targeted marketing strategies, and build a career launch plan that reflects both their artistic identity and the realities of a multi-platform industry.

The actor's work is fundamentally the study of human behavior, making psychology an essential tool. This course introduces actors to the scientific exploration of mind and behavior, covering such topics as research methodologies, memory, sensation and perception, development, learning, consciousness, social psychology, and psychological disorders. The major discoveries of psychology, grounded in the scientific method, are examined for what they reveal about the human beings actors are called to portray.

Acting raises ethical questions every day about representation, consent, power, and responsibility. This course engages actors with ethical theory through its application to contemporary issues that intersect with performance, media, and public life. Through readings, discussion, and case studies, actors develop the ethical reasoning and critical thinking skills to navigate complex dilemmas with integrity, both on set and in the world.

On stage, on camera, and in the professional world, every actor is a communicator. This course develops the skills of rhetorical analysis and persuasive communication by studying how effective communicators address audiences in writing, speech, and visual and digital media. Actors analyze rhetorical artifacts across a range of contexts and apply rhetorical theory to their own writing and speaking, developing the advocacy skills they will use throughout their careers.

Academy actors don't just train in New York. They are shaped by the City That Never Sleeps. This upper-level humanities seminar takes the city itself as its primary text, examining how New York has been imagined and mythologized across literature, visual art, and film. Topics ranging from the Harlem Renaissance to immigrant identity to capitalism and morality are explored from the perspective of artists who are making work in, and about, one of the world's great creative capitals.

The foundation of acting doesn't change, but heightened language and extraordinary circumstances demand its fullest expression. This advanced studio course applies acquired technique to plays in which language, situation, or both operate at an elevated register. Contemporary and historical texts are explored as laboratories for making truthful, specific, and fully inhabited choices in heightened dramatic worlds.

This intensive course immerses actors in the demands of performing Shakespeare: verse speaking, rhetorical structure, physical and verbal action, and the imaginative research required to make 400-year-old language feel immediate. Actors develop a rigorous, personal approach to heightened poetic text that will serve them across every era and genre.

Two of the most durable forms in television are the sitcom and the procedural drama. This course is a deep dive into both genres, which have some of their most iconic series set in New York City. Actors study character archetypes, episode structures, and performance rhythms that define situational comedy and procedural drama, developing the versatility and specificity that working television actors need to book and sustain careers.

New York City is a working film set. This course uses all of it. Actors write and shoot short and micro-short films on real interior and exterior locations across the five boroughs, bringing screen acting technique to the unpredictable conditions of professional production. Through these shorts, actors also build professional-quality demo reel material for entry into the industry.

Actors build three-dimensional, complex characters through the technique of psycho-physical embodiment. Trained in various approaches, such as The Lucid Body and the Michael Chekhov Technique, actors develop an expanded vocabulary of physical character choices applicable to roles on stage and screen as well as sustainable physical wellness practices.

Language does more than convey information; it incites change. This advanced course focuses on text and language analysis as a tool for dramatic action, developing the actor's ability to use the specific rhythm, syntax, and sound of language to pursue wants, shift relationships, and shape the world of a scene. The course consolidates and deepens the vocal and speech principles developed throughout the program, culminating in sophisticated, integrated instrument work.

Voice Acting for Animation & Gaming, Creating Your Own Superhero, Clown & Physical Comedy, Stand-up & Improvisation, and more. This advanced studio elective enables actors to deepen or extend their performance skills in a specific area of film, television, or theatre. Topics vary with each offering, and the course may be repeated for different topics. Actors consult with faculty to identify electives that best serve their individual artistic and professional goals.

This is the moment training has been building toward: a digital acting showcase presented to agents, managers, casting directors, and other working professionals who are actively looking for new talent. Actors prepare, rehearse, and perform their showcase material with the same rigor and professionalism they will bring to every audition and set that follows.

Actors apply advanced acting, movement, and voice and speech skills through the rehearsal and full performance of a role in a historical or heightened language stage production. The full arc of the production process from first read-through to closing night is the course.

The culminating live performance experience of the BFA. Actors synthesize the full range of their training in a fully staged New York production, performing in a professional context for public audiences. The demands of this production serve as both summative assessment and genuine artistic achievement.

Talent may open the door, but preparation walks through it. This intensive, industry-modeled course gives actors weekly opportunities to practice auditions across every current professional format: self-tapes, virtual auditions, and in-person readings for film, television, and theatre. Actors also hone communication skills to network with agents, casting directors, directors, and other creatives in the industry. Industry professionals attend mock professional auditions live and provide direct feedback, giving actors in training a real-world experience of the industry before they enter it.

In today's industry, your demo reel is your first impression. Yours will be made by professionals. Working with a NYC production company, actors travel to a working soundstage in the city to shoot original demo reel scenes, completing their training with a polished reel ready for the capstone showcase and beyond.

This variable-topics seminar focuses on a specific area of film, television, or theatre. Examples include The Actor-Producer, Creating for Streaming and New Media, Standup & the Comedic Arts, and The Art of Horror, Sci-Fi & Suspense. Each seminar is taught by a faculty member with specialized expertise in the topic. Actors engage with primary texts, industry practitioners, and current critical conversations. May be repeated for different topics.

The Academy is where over 140 years of actor training meets the demands of the 21st century industry. This one-semester course, taught by an interdisciplinary team of faculty and staff, introduces actors to the values, community, and practices that make the Academy what it is. Curriculum covers self-discovery, health and wellness, consent-based practice, theatrical intimacy, and the collaboration and communication skills that every professional actor needs. Required of all first-time Academy actors. Pass/Fail grading.

Every actor starts here: learning to inhabit imaginary circumstances with full, truthful presence. Through Sanford Meisner's foundational exercises — repetition, structured improvisation, and moment-to-moment listening — this course builds the actor's capacity to ground themselves in the reality of doing and to respond spontaneously and honestly in any scene. Actors supplement the Meisner approach by applying wants, relationship, and personalization to scene work from contemporary drama as a laboratory for technique.

The body is the actor's primary instrument. Most of us arrive with habits, tensions, and limitations that restrict what we can do with it. This course begins the systematic work of freeing the body: building postural support, breathing, coordination, flexibility, and strength while developing kinesthetic awareness and physical presence. Through physical freedom actors build greater ease, sensitivity, and energy in every movement.

The voice is the actor's most intimate instrument and often the most elusive. This course introduces actors to the interconnected systems of the voice: breath, phonation, resonance, and articulation. Through experiential work grounded in anatomy and physiology, actors develop kinesthetic awareness of the vocal tract and build the foundation of a free, expressive, and coordinated speaking voice.

Actors work through the body, which means understanding how the body actually works is a professional skill. This course provides a working knowledge of human anatomy and physiology, especially as related to the actor's instrument and performance: movement, posture, voice production, breath, and overall health and wellness. Through lectures, discussion, virtual labs, and hands-on activities, actors develop an anatomically informed relationship to their own instrument.

Scripts are blueprints for the actor. This course develops the ability to read and analyze dramatic texts from the perspective of the actor: with personal investment, dramaturgical rigor, and practical intention. Actors engage in close reading of selected plays and apply analytical strategies from David Ball, Uta Hagen, and others to build skills that will serve the actor in every rehearsal room of their career.

Reinforcing truthfulness as the foundation, actors expand their technique through exercises from Stella Adler, Uta Hagen, and Lee Strasberg. Exploring sensory work, place work, emotional and physical preparation, and conditioning forces, actors bring greater specificity to their choices. Inspired by their exploration and preparation, actors develop their point of view within imaginary circumstances, deepen personal stakes, and expand their range of expressive behavior to build upon their moment-to-moment engagement in scenes from contemporary comedy and drama.

The camera changes the experience of acting. This course introduces actors to the specific demands of working in front of a camera on a professional film or television set: the language of the industry, the roles on set, and the technical artistry required without losing the truthful engagement of great screen acting. Exercises emphasize applying truthful acting to the intimacy and precision of the lens.

Physical freedom is the foundation, and physical expressivity is the goal. Building on Movement I, this course pushes actors to take greater physical risks, expand their movement vocabulary, and develop the strength, stamina, and specificity of a trained physical actor. Physical storytelling is introduced, challenging actors to communicate character, relationship, and narrative through the body alone.

The Alexander Technique teaches actors to notice and change the habitual patterns of tension and movement that limit their range. In small group settings, first-year actors practice fundamental Alexander principles to refine a body awareness that supports postural ease, vocal freedom, and physical presence on stage, on screen, and in life.

Every sentence, word, or mumble of sound we make begins with a thought. This course takes the vocal and physical work of Voice and Speech I and brings it into contact with text, sensory language, and imaginary circumstances. Actors develop spontaneous breathing, vocal expression, and intelligibility through text work.

Communicating through language is universal, but the sounds of any language offer a glimpse into identity itself. Exploring the oral tradition of language, this course introduces actors to articulatory phonetics and phonology and provides the foundation for later accent and dialect work. Actors learn to hear, analyze, describe, and mimic the sounds of language with precision, developing the skills that professional dialect and character work require.

Actors don't just appear in media. Actors are shaped by it, and they shape it in return. This course prepares actors to analyze the systems, histories, and power dynamics behind American journalism, advertising, film, television, and social media. Actors develop the critical literacy to understand the industry they are entering, the cultural forces that will define the stories they tell, and the images they embody.

Acting III extends the truthful foundation of the first year into the full vocabulary of acting craft, including character action. Roles are assigned requiring deep research, imaginative investment, and full integration of technique to build a character. Scene work deepens the actor's ability to craft bold and committed choices.

Building on the fundamentals of screen acting, this course focuses on genre: the distinct demands of drama, comedy, procedural, and other television and film forms. Actors develop their text analysis and character-building skills within the specific conventions of each genre, continuing to refine the grounded truthfulness and technical precision that camera work requires.

Reinforcing the principles introduced in Alexander Technique I, this course develops the actor's ability to maintain optimal use (the coordinated, efficient engagement of the body) under the demands of performance. Actors apply Alexander principles directly to acting, movement, and voice work, integrating the technique into the rehearsal room and onto the stage and screen.

Transformation is one of the actor's core powers. This course develops the capacity for radical physical characterization. Actors research, observe, and recreate animal physicality and apply their insights to the challenge of transforming the body for human characters. The result is a deepened imagination, an expanded physical range, and a reliable method for building character from the outside in.

Every character grew up some place and can tell you what home sounds like. Voice and Speech III develops the actor's approach to accent and dialect work. Examining how oral posture, pronunciation, and prosodic features shape speech, actors discover what these features reveal about a character's race, ethnicity, class, gender, geography, and culture. Actors develop the research skills, intercultural competence, and instrument skills to recreate and embody specific, grounded speech choices for any role they play.

Every actor who works in film contributes to film history. Understanding that history is essential professional literacy. This course introduces the principles and theories of film studies through screenings, readings, and discussions that span the history, aesthetics, genres, and cultural significance of cinema. By the end of the course, actors have the critical and creative frameworks to analyze film as both an art form and a medium of cultural power, and to understand their own place within it.

Working in extended, multi-character scenes from a broad range of leading playwrights, actors synthesize all elements of technique: moment-to-moment connection, wants and actions, relationship, emotional and physical preparation, conditioning forces, character, place, and script analysis. Accents and physical choices are applied as appropriate to characters and their world. This rigorous, high-stakes scene work is designed to push each actor's range.

The capstone production experience of the second year. Actors apply advanced acting, movement, and voice and speech technique through the rehearsal and performance of roles in a fully staged production of a contemporary play. The demands of the production process from first rehearsal with a director to final performance before a public audience are at the center of this experience.

The actor's job is to inhabit other people's lives, which requires the skills to cross cultural difference with empathy, curiosity, openness, and respect. This course examines how cultural identities shape communication practices, perceptions, and interactions across anthropological, sociological, psychological, and communication frameworks. Through case studies, discussion, and experiential activities, actors develop the intercultural competence to engage effectively, authentically, and ethically with diverse individuals and communities, both in performance and in professional life.

The plays being written today reflect and shape the culture actors inhabit. This course examines American drama from the past two decades through a rigorous dramaturgical lens, exploring the world of each play, the world in which it was conceived, and the connections between the two. Actors conduct original dramaturgical research and present on the production history of a contemporary American drama, developing the research skills that distinguish professional actors.

Working actors are also freelance professionals who manage their own finances, negotiate contracts, and build sustainable careers. This course develops the quantitative reasoning and financial literacy that independent artists need: graphs and data, proportions and ratios, and descriptive statistics applied to real-world financial and professional contexts. Actors build the confidence and numerical fluency that underlie smart career and business decisions.

The foundation of acting doesn't change, but heightened language and extraordinary circumstances demand its fullest expression. This advanced studio course applies acquired technique to plays in which language, situation, or both operate at an elevated register. Contemporary and historical texts are explored as laboratories for making truthful, specific, and fully inhabited choices in heightened dramatic worlds.

Actors build three-dimensional, complex characters through the technique of psycho-physical embodiment. Trained in various approaches, such as The Lucid Body and the Michael Chekhov Technique, actors develop an expanded vocabulary of physical character choices applicable to roles on stage and screen as well as sustainable physical wellness practices.

Language does more than convey information; it incites change. This advanced course focuses on text and language analysis as a tool for dramatic action, developing the actor's ability to use the specific rhythm, syntax, and sound of language to pursue wants, shift relationships, and shape the world of a scene. The course consolidates and deepens the vocal and speech principles developed throughout the program, culminating in sophisticated, integrated instrument work.

Two of the most durable forms in television are the sitcom and the procedural drama. This course is a deep dive into both genres, which have some of their most iconic series set in New York City. Actors study character archetypes, episode structures, and performance rhythms that define situational comedy and procedural drama, developing the versatility and specificity that working television actors need to book and sustain careers.

On stage, on camera, and in the professional world, every actor is a communicator. This course develops the skills of rhetorical analysis and persuasive communication by studying how effective communicators address audiences in writing, speech, and visual and digital media. Actors analyze rhetorical artifacts across a range of contexts and apply rhetorical theory to their own writing and speaking, developing the advocacy skills they will use throughout their careers.

Acting raises ethical questions every day about representation, consent, power, and responsibility. This course engages actors with ethical theory through its application to contemporary issues that intersect with performance, media, and public life. Through readings, discussion, and case studies, actors develop the ethical reasoning and critical thinking skills to navigate complex dilemmas with integrity, both on set and in the world.

This intensive course immerses actors in the demands of performing Shakespeare: verse speaking, rhetorical structure, physical and verbal action, and the imaginative research required to make 400-year-old language feel immediate. Actors develop a rigorous, personal approach to heightened poetic text that will serve them across every era and genre.

Actors who understand what's happening behind the camera are better collaborators and entrepreneurial artists. This hands-on course covers the essential tools and workflow of narrative filmmaking: camera operation, lighting, sound recording, and editing using industry-standard software. Through practical projects, actors develop the technical fluency to create their own content, collaborate effectively on set, and understand how their performance will be captured and shaped in post-production.

Stage and screen violence is one of the most skill-specific demands in professional acting — and one of the most marketable. This course trains actors in the techniques of safe, truthful physical combat, including unarmed and armed forms. Actors learn to execute punches, kicks, and choreographed sequences with weapons while integrating acting technique with physical precision to move from mechanics to storytelling. The training also builds strength, flexibility, and coordination alongside the craft.

The actor's work is fundamentally the study of human behavior, making psychology an essential tool. This course introduces actors to the scientific exploration of mind and behavior, covering such topics as research methodologies, memory, sensation and perception, development, learning, consciousness, social psychology, and psychological disorders. The major discoveries of psychology, grounded in the scientific method, are examined for what they reveal about the human beings actors are called to portray.

Actors who understand how story worlds are constructed are better equipped to inhabit them. This course is a study of the creative writing process across poetry, short fiction, playwriting, and screenwriting. Through theoretical study, practical exercises, and workshop critique, actors develop writing craft across multiple forms, learning the distinct elements, structures, and techniques of each while developing their individual voice. Actors complete the course with a portfolio of original work across all four genres.

Actors perform. Professional actors build careers. This course equips actors with the tools, platforms, and financial literacy to launch and sustain a working life in the industry. Headshots, resumes, agents, casting directors, and unions are examined with clear-eyed practicality and strategic impact. Actors design competitive profiles for major casting platforms, craft targeted marketing strategies, and build a career launch plan that reflects both their artistic identity and the realities of a multi-platform industry.

Voice Acting for Animation & Gaming, Creating Your Own Superhero, Clown & Physical Comedy, Stand-up & Improvisation, and more. This advanced studio elective enables actors to deepen or extend their performance skills in a specific area of film, television, or theatre. Topics vary with each offering, and the course may be repeated for different topics. Actors consult with faculty to identify electives that best serve their individual artistic and professional goals.

Talent may open the door, but preparation walks through it. This intensive, industry-modeled course gives actors weekly opportunities to practice auditions across every current professional format: self-tapes, virtual auditions, and in-person readings for film, television, and theatre. Actors also hone communication skills to network with agents, casting directors, directors, and other creatives in the industry. Industry professionals attend mock professional auditions live and provide direct feedback, giving actors in training a real-world experience of the industry before they enter it.

New York City is a working film set. This course uses all of it. Actors write and shoot short and micro-short films on real interior and exterior locations across the five boroughs, bringing screen acting technique to the unpredictable conditions of professional production. Through these shorts, actors also build professional-quality demo reel material for entry into the industry.

Actors apply advanced acting, movement, and voice and speech skills through the rehearsal and full performance of a role in a historical or heightened language stage production. The full arc of the production process from first read-through to closing night is the course.

Academy actors don't just train in New York. They are shaped by the City That Never Sleeps. This upper-level humanities seminar takes the city itself as its primary text, examining how New York has been imagined and mythologized across literature, visual art, and film. Topics ranging from the Harlem Renaissance to immigrant identity to capitalism and morality are explored from the perspective of artists who are making work in, and about, one of the world's great creative capitals.

This is the moment training has been building toward: a digital acting showcase presented to agents, managers, casting directors, and other working professionals who are actively looking for new talent. Actors prepare, rehearse, and perform their showcase material with the same rigor and professionalism they will bring to every audition and set that follows.

The culminating live performance experience of the BFA. Actors synthesize the full range of their training in a fully staged New York production, performing in a professional context for public audiences. The demands of this production serve as both summative assessment and genuine artistic achievement.

In today's industry, your demo reel is your first impression. Yours will be made by professionals. Working with a NYC production company, actors travel to a working soundstage in the city to shoot original demo reel scenes, completing their training with a polished reel ready for the capstone showcase and beyond.

The future of storytelling is creator-driven. This capstone course puts actors in the driver's seat. Working in collaborative teams, actors develop, write, direct, perform, and edit an original web-series pilot from concept to final cut. The result is professional and original content that demonstrates the full range of creative and technical skills developed across the BFA in Acting program — a genuine calling card for the multi-hyphenate industry.

This variable-topics seminar focuses on a specific area of film, television, or theatre. Examples include The Actor-Producer, Creating for Streaming and New Media, Standup & the Comedic Arts, and The Art of Horror, Sci-Fi & Suspense. Each seminar is taught by a faculty member with specialized expertise in the topic. Actors engage with primary texts, industry practitioners, and current critical conversations. May be repeated for different topics.