This class is designed for actors with prior training (Acting Level 2 and above) who are interested in deepening their on-camera work while creating strong, usable material for a professional reel. This class will guide you through the process of selecting, developing, rehearsing, and filming short scenes that highlight your unique strengths and casting potential. We will work with material from film or television—or develop original scenes—with an emphasis on making you the central focus. We will explore how to tailor material that showcases your range and versatility, whether in dramatic, comedic, or mixed tones. Special attention will be given to creating clips that are concise, compelling, and effective for submissions on platforms such as Actors Access, personal websites, and auditions. The goal is for you to complete the term with two to three polished, recorded scenes that reflect different facets of your work and can be used as high-quality clips for your reel. In collaboration with videographer Horacio Rojas, the class will emphasize strong visual storytelling, incorporating thoughtful camera work and lighting to ensure a professional and cinematic result.

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• Prerequisite: Open to Acting Level 2 and up. New to HB? Submit online for level placement. 

An introduction to the process of preparing and rehearsing a scripted text. Using Uta Hagen’s six steps as a guide, you will work to find authentic inner connection to the character’s details and circumstances and to choose truthful, effective and lively actions. A commitment to rehearse with partners outside of class is required.

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• Prerequisite: Open to all.

The Playwright and the Actor: Anton Chekhov and his Nephew Michael Chekhov. This class explores transformation through the creation of Chekhovian characters using Michael Chekhov’s psycho-physical approach from To the Actor. Students will work with monologues from Anton Chekhov’s plays and short stories, expanding their repertoire with classical material. Training includes movement-based warm-ups and techniques such as Loyd Williamson’s Physical Process of Acting, Eight RASA Emotions, and the Six Viewpoints, helping actors develop physical freedom, expressive range, and deeper connection to inner life and ensemble work. We will also explore Chekhov’s tools for character and atmosphere—personal atmospheres, centers, imaginary body, and archetypes—leading to psychological gesture and transformation. Period style will be incorporated through movement, manners, costume, and character conditions to ground the work in its historical context.

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• Registration Prerequisite: Open to all.

For professional performers who desire to return to, or maintain an ongoing relationship with a dynamic and fertile state of learning. The goal: to use the specifics of language, action, subtext, circumstance, and relationships in order to connect with the work at the deepest most personal level. You are encouraged to push boundaries with the aim of building ever more complex characters and situations, allowing and exploring what is powerfully, unexpectedly revealed. Expected rehearsal time outside of class: 6+ hours / week

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• Prerequisite: Application required. Apply Online

This scene study class is designed for a group of intermediate and advanced students who come together from diverse and/or international backgrounds. As the world changes, the stories we tell as artists change with it, and the training of new actors must reflect this new landscape. In this class, students only work on scenes pulled from new plays (already written or currently being developed) by some working writers today. Students are also encouraged to work on scenes of their choice from plays that they feel reflect who they are in today’s world. This class is meant to complement traditional training in classical and contemporary plays by inviting the actors to experience their full cultural self in plays they see themselves in. How can we as diverse actors develop our craft and face the challenges of working on new plays all while cementing our belief in our place in the industry?

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• Prerequisite: Open to Acting Level 2 and up. New to HB? Submit online for level placement.

Singing Voice 2 is for you if you have some foundation in singing technique, having developed a connection of the voice to the breath, a practiced and heightened listening ability, a sense of phrasing and an ability to practice on your own. Class work will continue to develop singing technique and musicianship, with exercises to support the development of vocal control, flexibility and range. You will be asked to treat the song lyric as text not unlike that of a script, toward the goal of memorized presentation and interpretation of the song. (Accompanist provided.)

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• Registration Prerequisite: Open to Singing Level 2 and up. New to HB? Audition or submit online for level placement.

For actors who want to improve their acting skills through improvisation, this class amplifies the technique work in Level 1 and supports the work with scenes in Levels 2 and 3. The first session will be dedicated to the choices you need to make to structure a viable improvisation, with emphasis placed on circumstances, relationships, tension, and subtext. In the following sessions, you will improvise scenes and explore improvisation through games and exercises. There is no work outside of class. Through this inventive process, you develop immediacy, creativity and partnering skills, and hone your instincts for making productive dramatic choices. Actors of all levels are welcome.

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• Prerequisite: Open to All

Open to everyone, from first-time writers to experienced playwrights who want to go back to the basics. This class will introduce a variety of dramatic tools in order to build a strong sense of craft. Assignments, written as scenes, will explore elements such as character, relationship, time, place, structure, plot, story, and language.

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• Prerequisite: Open to all.