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| Theater Arts Faculty Directory
Acting - MFA
Michael BlakeMovement Michael Blake holds an M.F.A. in dance from Purchase College. He received his early ballet and modern dance training from Rutgers University and Purchase College. He began his dance career in the Murray Louis Dance Company where he danced from 1982-1984. In 1985 he was the manager of Studio Dancin'; a dance studio based in Osaka Japan. In 1986 he joined the Jose Limon Dance Company dancing principal roles until 1991. Michael danced with Donald Byrd/The Group from 1991-1998. He has also danced with David Rousseve Reality, Joyce Trisler Danscompany, Senta Driver, and Shapiro and Smith. He has appeared on stage in the Broadway national tour of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, Lenny and the Heartbreakers, Cab Calloway’s Cotton Club Review, the Supper Club (NYC), and the films The Adventures of Cri Cri and Unsettled Dreams. He has taught numerous workshops in the United States, Asia, and Europe. He is on the Theater Arts faculty at Rutgers University and HB Studio in New York City teaching Movement for Actors. Michael is currently dancing with PARADIGM Dance.
William CardenActing, Directing William Carden was Artistic Director of the HB Playwrights Foundation for eleven years where he directed Mrs. Klein and Collected Stories starring Uta Hagen, Horton Foote's The Habitation of Dragons, Another Vermeer by Bruce Robinson, Justin Fleming's Burnt Piano, Joe Sutton's Voir Dire and New World Rhapsody by Adam Kraar. He directed The Dew Point by Neena Beber for the Summer Play Festival, James Ryan’s The Young Girl and the Monsoon at Playwrights Horizons and Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf at the Stratford Festival in Canada.
Joseph HartEnsemble and Playwright Joseph Hart is a master teacher of ensemble theater and creative dramatics as well as playwright, actor and director. His eight years of study under the late mythologist Joseph Campbell contributed to the creation of The Shoestring Players, a unique theatrical approach to world folklore. As a playwright he has merited three national awards and numerous regional theater productions. The Shoestring Players were named among the "Top Ten" at the 1992 Edinburgh Festival. In 1989 his Off Broadway ensemble production The People Who Could Fly was called "two hours of theatrical magic" by the New York T94's Edinburgh Fringe Festival Shoestring became the only theater company for young audiences ever to receive the Fringe First Award for excellence. In 1996 Shoestring was guest artist at the National Black Arts Festival in Atlanta. His professional touring company of Shoestring performs an annual 30 week season across the USA.
Deborah HedwallHead of M.F.A. Acting Program Deborah Hedwall began her theater training at the University of Washington in Seattle. In New York, she was graduated from the Neighborhood Playhouse, where she worked under the direction of Sanford Meisner and William Esper. She trained with Uta Hägen for four years as an actor and a teacher at HB Studios and later taught there. She has taught private classes for professional actors for many years in New York City and Los Angeles. Hedwall has taught at Sarah Lawrence College, Fordham University, and the Ensemble Studio Theatre. As an actress, she received an Obie Award for outstanding performance and a Drama Desk nomination as best actress in Sight Unseen at the Manhattan Theatre Club. She has created roles in many new plays, including Savage in Limbo by John Patrick Shanley, Extremities, and Why We Have a Body. On television, she played the mother for two seasons on the critically acclaimed series I’ll Fly Away, and her most recent films include Shadrach and Better Living with Olympia Dukakis. She has been involved in many new play workshops, including the Suntheater Playwrights Conference, the O’Neill Theater Conference, Actors Theatre of Louisville, and the Long Wharf Theatre. Recent television credits include guest starring appearances on Law and Order and West Wing.
Chantal Jean-PierreSpeech Chantal Jean-Pierre is an accomplished actress and collegiate instructor of Speech at the Mason Gross School of the Arts at Rutgers University. Most recently she performed several roles to acclaim in Henry V at the Shakespeare Theatre of NJ, as well as the role of Goneril in King Lear at the Folgers Shakespeare Library in Washington DC. She performed the lead roles in the Orlando Shakespeare Festival’s Antony And Cleopatra and Lynn Nottage’s Fabulation at the People’s Light Theater Company. She has graced the stages of several reputable regional theaters including Luna Stage (Voice of Good Hope and The Other Side of Newark); NY Theater Workshop (Jazz Wife); Ensemble Studio Theater (Vukani); NJ Shakespeare Festival (The Blue Bird); and Crossroads Theater (Mandela). A lover of classical theater, she has played Gertrude in (Hamlet) at the American GlobeTheater and Paulina in (Winter’s Tale). She has taught at SUNY/Purchase and Montclair State University and she has an MFA in Acting from Rutgers University and a BFA from Florida International University. She has taught at SUNY/Purchase and Montclair State University and she has an M.F.A. in Acting from Rutgers University and a BFA from Florida International University.
Jan LeysMovement Jan Leys (movement) is a native of Antwerp, Belgium. He arrived in New York in 1980 and danced for five years with The Muller/Works. There he worked with choreographers such as Jennifer Muller, Louis Falco, Margot Sappington and Judith Jamison and also collaborated with artists such as: Yoko Ono, Keith Haring and Keith Jarrett. He then turned to the theatre and became a movement specialist under the tutelage of Loyd Williamson at the Actors Movement Studio. Mr. Leys directed The Raspberry Patch, which was presented as a special event at Yale University. Currently Mr. Leys teaches the Williamson Technique at the Mason Gross School of the Arts. He also coaches and choreographs for Rutgers Theatre Company productions, such as A Midsummer Night's Dream, The Rivals, and Arms and the Man. Mr. Leys choreographed The Game, an original musical based on Dangerous Liaisons, at Barrington Stage Company. He also teaches seminars and workshops about the physical aspects of communication. He is doing this under the title “Listening With The Body”. 
Patricia McCorkleM.F.A. on camera McCorkle Casting, Ltd. (Pat Mccorkle, C.S.A.) Broadway: The Lieutenant Of Inishmore, The Glass Menagerie, Cat On A Hot Tin Roof, The Ride Down Mt. Morgan, Amadeus, A Doll’s House, An Ideal Husband, She Loves Me, Blood Brothers, and A Few Good Men. Off-Broadway: Almost Maine, Address Unknown, Ears On A Beatle, Killer Joe, Visiting Mr. Green, and Mrs. Klein. Film: War Eagle, Bereft, Secret Window, Tony -N- Tina’s Wedding, Basic, The Thomas Crown Affair, The 13th Warrior, Madeline, Die Hard With A Vengeance and School Ties. Television: 3 Lbs., Barbershop, Chappelle’s Show, Hack, The Education Of Max Bickford, Our Fathers
Lenard PetitPhysical Theater Lenard Petit is a professional actor/director who resides in New York City. He has been working in the theater for twenty years, collaborating with other artists to create original works for the stage, cinema and television. This work has always been based primarily in movement or physical pictures. In New York he has been seen in works by Meredith Monk, Richard Foreman, Julie Taymor, Ping Chong, Otrabanda Company, and Creation Company. Prior to his arrival in New York, Mr. Petit was the artistic director of his own theater company for four years in New Orleans. He has taught theater workshops and master classes on the acting techniques of Michael Chekhov in schools, colleges and theaters in the USA and throughout Europe. His training has been varied and ongoing, but his most important influences have been the great French master Etienne Decroux with whom he studied in Paris 18 years ago, and Michael Chekhov whose technique continues to be a great source of inspiration. Mr. Petit is the artistic director of The Michael Chekhov Acting Studio in New York City. He received his B.A. in 1974 from Franconia College and, more recently, studied with William Esper in New York.
Heather RacheVoice Heather Rasche, is an actress, a scholar, and an associate teacher of Fitzmaurice Voicework. As an actress she premiered works by many playwrights including Susan Kim, Joyce Caroll Oats, and Shel Silverstien and received the Santa Barbara Independent Award for best actress in for her work in Lee Blessings’ play, Eleemosynary. She holds a doctorate in Drama from University of California, and a Ph.D. from the University of California at Santa Barbara. Her research concentrates on the training and working lives of professional actors. Her masters thesis was a study of the pedagogy of Sanford Meisner and her dissertation, Actresses Age and Anxiety: The Midlife Actress in Filmed Performance is an examination of gendered ageism in Hollywood. She has presented her work at several national academic conferences and on two nationally syndicated radio shows. Prior to joining the Rutgers faculty, Heather taught at the University of Southern California School of Cinema and Television and at University of California, Santa Barbara.
Greg SeelAlexander Technique A graduate of Wilmington College, Ohio before training at the Drama Studio, London. He first studied Alexander Technique with Walter Carrington and Mary Holland: later trained in Meisner with Kathryn Gately, was certified in Alexander Technique under Judith Leibowitz in 1983, continued with Mr. Patrick MacDonald and was S.T.A.T. certified in 1987. He trained in voice for the actor for four years under Frederick Wilkerson. He was a founding member of the Riverside Shakespeare Co. and Associate Director of The Mint Theater Co. where he both acted and directed. He has worked with Ray Yeats of the Abbey Theater, Dublin on Brendan Kennelly's "Antigone" and "Medea", directed an all Irish cast of "Picnic and more recently “The Widow's Blind Date" Faculty appointments have included SUNY Purchase, The Actors Center, Columbia University, NYU's Classical Studio & Meisner Extension, The School for Film and Television, Matthew's School of the Alexander Technique, Institute for the Alexander Technique and is past Chair of the Am.S.A.T. Professional Conduct Committee. His teaching matures through The Actors Center Teacher Development Program, Jessica Wolf's Art of Breathing and Seido Karate under Kaicho Nakamura where he has attained the rank of Yondan. He also maintains a private teaching practice.
William Serow On Camera Billy Serow has had a long and varied career in show business. He started acting at the age of 6, and worked professionally from the age of 16, appearing on several National Tours of Broadway shows, as well as much stage work and television in New York. Training wise, Billy received a B.A. in Theatre at Ohio Wesleyan University, and had the great privilege and fortune to study with both Sanford Meisner and William Esper at The Neighborhood Playhouse, where he currently serves on the Board of Directors. Billy decided to put his acting career on the back burner indefinitely in his late 20’s, and went to work for an Off Broadway theater as a Director/Producer, helping mount such successful original cast productions as On Golden Pond and Da- then launched what would be a long career as a Casting Director. As an owner of Godlove, Serow & Sindlinger Casting, Billy cast hundreds of commercials, comedy specials, and some indie films. In 1997, he decided to switch gears yet again, and joined the William Morris Agency, to work in the commercial department. After spending four years there, he finally found Agent Nirvana, and landed at Abrams Artists Agency, where he has spent the last 6 years, spearheading the Voiceover department. Billy has also been teaching audition workshops at Rutgers for the past 6 years. Billy resides in Westchester to be near his greatest achievements, his two children.
Erik SingerSpeech and Dialects Erik Singer is an actor and teacher of acting, Shakespeare, voice, speech and dialects. He was recently certified an associate teacher of Fitzmaurice Voicework. He is a graduate of the Webber Douglas Academy of Dramatic Art, in London, and Yale University, and has studied extensively with many distinguished voice and acting teachers, Patsy Rodenburg, Catherine Fitzmaurice, Earle Gister, Ron van Lieu, Dudley Knight, Phil Thompson and Jed Diamond among them. As an actor, he has appeared in leading roles Off-Broadway, at many of the country’s top regional theatres, and in television and film. Erik has provided voices for numerous audiobooks, animated shows, and television and radio commercials. He lives in Brooklyn with his wife and son (who is eagerly awaiting the imminent arrival of his baby sister).
J. Allen SuddethStage Combat J. Allen Suddeth has worked professionally for the past thirty years out of the New York area. For Broadway, he has staged fights for Saturday Night Fever, Jekyll & Hyde, Angels in America, Loot, Saint Joan, A Small Family Business, and Hide and Seek. Off-Broadway he has worked on over fifty productions for Manhattan Theater Club, Playwrights' Horizons, The New Group, The Public Theater, BAM, Second Stage, Riverside Shakespeare, Jean Cocteau Repertory, the Pearl Theater, and the New York Theater Workshop. Regionally, and in LORT Theater he has worked for Center Stage in Baltimore, the Arena Stage and The Shakespeare Theater in Washington, DC, as well as The Denver Center, The Goodman Theater, The Hartford Stage, The Seattle Repertory Theater, The Actor's Theater of Louisville and the Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park, among many others. As a master teacher, Allen has trained actors for The Juilliard School, The Lee Strasberg Institute, and The Stella Adler Conservatory, as well as bring a frequent guest artist at major universities. For television, he has staged stunts, fights and action sequences for over 750 programs for ABC, CBS, NBC, and HBO. He is the author of Fight Directing for the Theater, published by Heinemann Press. Allen has taught at the National Stage Combat Workshop for many years, and is workshop coordinator for the National Fight Directors Training Program.
Maggie SurovellMFA Speech Maggie Surovell has taught voice and speech at Yale University, Wagner College, Sarah Lawrence College and at the University of Georgia. She has dialect and voice coached productions at Cherry Lane Theatre, New York Stage and Film, Ensemble Studio Theatre, with Les Freres Corbusier at Saint Anne's Warehouse, The Clurman Theatre, for the New York Fringe Festival and Midtown International Theatre Festival. Maggie has worked extensively with Pamela Prather (YSD) and Beth McGuire (YSD) to learn the KinesPhonetics approach to teaching speech and dialects. She is an Assistant Fitzmaurice voice teacher and holds an MFA in Acting from the University of Georgia. Maggie continues to work as a professional actress and dialect coach in NYC and has performed at Cherry Lane Theatre, The Alliance Theatre, Saint Anne's Warehouse with Les Freres Corbusier, P.S. 122 with Young Jean Lee's Theatre Company, SoHo Rep with Nature Theatre of Oklahoma and Brat Theatre Productions. Maggie is also an Artist Member of P.S. 122.
Beth WickeAuditioning Beth Wicke is certified by the Royal Academy of Dance. She trained at the Cincinnati Conservatory of Music, holds a B.A. in theater from the Catholic University of America, and is a certified yoga instructor. Her credits include Manager of Casting, East Coast for ABC Television; supervising the casting of Loving, All My Children, One Life to Live, and General Hospital; and contributing to prime-time pilot projects. She also was the director of daytime programming for ABC, where she was responsible for creative supervision of East Coast serials. Wicke initiated the AFTRA/ABC Committee to address minority and disability hiring practices. She now casts independent projects, most recently SOAPLINE for Gottlieb Enterprises. She has taught extensively at universities and theaters throughout the United States.
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