Private lessons with top Shakespearean Acting instructors near San Diego, CA

Expert acting instruction from a professional, working actor with over 25 years of experience in improvisation, classical and musical theatre, television, film, and voiceover!

Carole's fifty-year career has spanned all phases of the entertainment industry. She was cast in the role of Velma in the original cast of "West Side Story" on Broadway. She was then chosen to recreate her role in the Academy Award winning film. She also starred in "Gypsy" with the legendary Ethel Merman creating the role of "Dainty June”. Teaching is the natural culmination of her vast collective experience. She works with many Broadway artists in her “singing performance" and "acting" classes at New York's famed "Carnegie Hall" and the "Complex Theatre" in the heart of Film TV Theatre Row in Hollywood. Ms. D'Andrea has helped thousands of professional performers around the world prepare for and land jobs in the industry. She was recently selected as one of the top thirty acting coaches in Los Angeles. She is so delighted this past year to be able to now reach even more students around the globe with her new online coaching. "Whatever you dream you can do; begin it. Boldness has genius power and magic in it." --Goethe

I studied Shakespearean acting extensively with Ben Reigel during my undergraduate studies and have performed Shakespeare works professionally. I will instruct you on how to interpret the original Shakespearean markings and perform Shakespearean works in a relevant way for a modern audience.

Shakespeare is nothing to fear and everything to love. With all kinds of fun exercises we learn all the ways in which you can make Shakespeares work your own!

You will learn how to decipher Shakespearean text line by line, along with scanning the text (a must in Shakespeare!).

How to reach a modern audience. Scansion, the vital importance of this tedious exercise and how it can literally reveal the deeper meaning of the brilliant themes Shakespeare used and manipulated. If you're out there auditioning, you need at least two classical monologues of varying lengths. Shakespeare competence is expected and is still considered the pinnacle of stage work. If you prefer a less practical approach, we can certainly attack the subject academically in the main, though academics are naturally included necessarily in the practical work as well. The bottom line is your lessons will depend on your experience, goals and abilities. I tailor all classes to the student's needs at their current level.

Prepping an audition for an upcoming show or for admission into an acting program? Want to hone and develop your audition monologues (especially Shakespeare)? Just need a coach to help you take your acting to another level? Then let's get started, online or in person. I can help. I've been working as a professional actor in the theatre and on-camera for over 25 years. I've performed with the Shakespeare Theatre in DC, ACT Theatre in Seattle, Book-It Repertory, Seattle Shakespeare Company, and Shakespeare Santa Cruz to name a few. I've also been the featured voice in voiceovers for companies like University of Washington Medical, Golden 1 State Credit Union, Microsoft, and Surface Pro 3. On Camera Credits include short films, industrials, and commercials for Taco Time, Tulalip Casino, and Washington Dental Association. I hold a BFA from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro and an MFA from the Shakespeare Theatre's Academy for Classical Acting in Washington DC. My training includes a wealth of acting techniques (Stanislavski, Meisner, etc.), movement, and stage combat, with a focus in particular on voice and text for Shakespeare. I've conducted interactive workshops on Shakespearean Acting (including stage combat!) across the southeast while on tour with the North Carolina Shakespeare Festival's Globeworks Program. I've also lead workshops at the West End Studio Theatre in Santa Cruz while performing with Shakespeare Santa Cruz.

A classical education makes everything so much easier. There are basic classical rhetorical devices that are easy to use once you understand them and make acting so much more fun and simple. It is 'playing' after all and with these techniques that are just ages old and so ingrained in humanity and nature you will be delighted and challenged.