BADA STUDIO

ADLERIMPROV: Spontaneity for Scripted Stage and Screen with Rob Adler (MIO ’94)

Where: TBC
When: Saturday, February 21st. 10:00 am – 2:00 pm
Class Limit: 24
Fee: $50

BADA Alum (MIO ‘94) and Co-Head of DePaul’s BFA Acting Program, Rob Adler, leads this Viola Spolin-rooted workshop to bring life to scripted material for stage and screen ADLERIMPROV is an approach developed by Rob Adler that helps actors bring life to scripted material for stage and screen.

The work is rooted in Viola Spolin’s theatre games and provides practical tools for moment-to-moment acting while staying grounded in the demands of text and the realities of the profession.

Selected participants will apply the tools directly to prepared scenes, while all participants will explore the work through non-text-based exercises. All techniques taught are transferable to scripted scenes and support self-tapes, auditions, and performance.

Actors should expect to work actively on their feet in a collaborative studio environment.

Register

Rob Adler (MIO ’94) is an actor, director, and teacher, and the founder of AdlerImprov Studio in Hollywood. He works as an on camera acting coach on film and television productions with major studios and networks including Netflix, BET, Lionsgate, Disney, FOX, NBC, and ABC, helping actors navigate the technical and relational demands of professional sets while maintaining truthful, responsive performance. He is currently the Co-Head of the BFA Acting Program at The Theatre School at DePaul University. His teaching career spans a wide range of respected training environments, including California Institute of the Arts, Geffen Playhouse, AMDA, Boston University, and Occidental College. Adler has also led international workshops in Tokyo, Shanghai, and Nassau, bringing his Adlerimprov approach to actors working across cultural, linguistic, and performance traditions. His work consistently emphasizes presence and transformation, with improvisation techniques serving as a rigorous tool for unlocking spontaneity and specificity within scripted material. His writing appears in Theatre Topics and Theatre Journal, and he is an Expert Advice columnist for Backstage. Follow him on Instagram @AdlerImprov.

Finding Your Own Voice in Shakespeare with Chris Anthony

Where: TBC
Date/Time: Sunday, February 22nd. 11:00 am-2:00 pm
Class Limit: 15
Fee: $50

Register

Chris Anthony is a director, teacher, actor, and producer working at the intersection of art and community empowerment. Holding an MFA in Acting from the California Institute of the Arts, she has worked in educational, professional, and community spaces. She has worked to find common ground between art and community, using human relations dialogue to enrich artistic practice and artmaking in service of community development. Chris was a member of the acting faculty at the Los Angeles County High School for the Arts and Grand Arts (the LAUSD School of Visual and Performing Arts). University directing credits include California State Universities at Los Angeles, Long Beach, and Northridge, as well as Loyola Marymount University. She has been a guest teacher at USC, CSU Dominguez Hills, Cal Poly Pomona, and Laverne University. Professional directing credits include the original Off the Rails for Native Voices at the Autry, Lunch Lady Courage at Cornerstone Theater, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Romeo & Juliet, and Othello at the St. Louis Black Rep, and Romeo & Juliet at the Shakespeare Center of Los Angeles. As Associate Artistic Director of the Shakespeare Center of Los Angeles, she oversaw the development of the company’s Youth & Education programs: Will Power to Youth, Will to Work, and Play On for youth; Will Power to Schools and the Youth Arts Professionals Institute for classroom teachers and community arts practitioners. Will Power to Youth won the prestigious Coming Up Taller Award, was studied by Harvard’s Project Zero for the study The Qualities of Quality: Understanding Excellence in Arts Education, and is featured in Ayanna Thompson’s Passing Strange: Shakespeare, Race, and Contemporary America. A former board member of TYA/USA, her other professional affiliations have included Center Theatre Group, About… Productions, TeAda Productions, Fringe Benefits Theatre, Plaza de la Raza, and Shakespeare at the Huntington.

Q&A with Mark Rosenblatt – Playwright of Broadway’s “Giant”

10:30am – Doors Open. Bagels and Coffee will be provided.
11:00am – Discussion between Mark Rosenblatt and Ben Naylor
12:00pm – Audience Q&A
12:30pm – Wrap-up discussion
Session Limit: 45
FEE: $20 for BADA alums ($25 General Admission)

On Sale Feb 21!

BADA Dean Ben Naylor sits down for a Q&A with award-winning playwright of the West End and Broadway play “Giant” starring John Lithgow.

Award-winning playwright Mark Rosenblatt of Broadway’s “Giant” starring John Lithgow sits down for a conversation with BADA’s Dean Ben Naylor to discuss Giant, the process of writing, tackling giants, and his career.

Waitlist Available for this Session. If there is enough interest, we will attempt to move to a larger venue.

Register

Mark Rosenblatt is a writer and director for theatre and screen. He was Associate Director at Leeds Playhouse from 2013–16 and Associate Artist there until 2020. He was Associate at the UK’s National Theatre Studio from 2011 to 2013. He founded Dumbfounded Theatre in 2001 and won the JMK Award for Young Directors in 1999. Giant is his first play. It premiered at London’s Royal Court Theatre in 2024 and transferred to the Harold Pinter Theatre in the West End the following year, winning three Olivier Awards including Best New Play, Best Actor for John Lithgow and Best Supporting Actor for Elliot Levey as well as the 2025 Critics’ Circle Award for Best New Play. For Giant. Mark also won the Critics Circle Award for Most Promising Playwright and the Stage Award for Best Creative West End Debut. Giant opens on Broadway for a 16-week run at the Music Box Theater from March this year. Mark’s extensive freelance directing work includes productions at Shakespeare’s Globe, London, the UK’s National Theatre, across the UK at major regional houses including Sheffield Theatres, Leeds Playhouse, Northampton Theatres, as well as several productions off-Broadway and in Tokyo. His screen work includes the award-winning, Oscar-qualified short film Ganef (as writer-director), co-writing Making Noise Quietly (Open Palm Films) and the screenplay of an upcoming thriller for Good Chaos, Film 4 and MUBI. Headshot Photo Credit: Luke Bryant

Studio Social NYC

Where: NYC (Details to follow)
Date/Time: Sunday, March 22nd. 2pm-4pm
FEE: Free

Come and have a drink on us while you reconnect with the BADA Community. Please RSVP below so we know how big of a space to reserve.

RSVP

Acting the Song with Adam Kantor (MIO ’06)

Where: NYC
Date/Time: Monday, March 23rd. Evening
CLASS LIMIT: 15
FEE: $50

TICKETS WILL BE RELEASED FEBRUARY 21ST

Broadway’s Adam Kantor works with participants on acting through song.

Broadway’s Adam Kantor (MIO ‘06) leads a masterclass focused on acting through song! Adam will work with participants on creating a scene and finding specific circumstances to help with grounding and storytelling using the music.

Register

Adam Kantor (MIO ’06) won an Emmy and a Grammy for his performance in the Tony-winning Broadway production of The Band’s Visit, as well as an Outer Critics Circle honor for his performance in Darling Grenadine at Roundabout Theatre Company. Previously, on Broadway, Adam starred in Fiddler on the Roof, Next to Normal, and Rent (final cast, filmed live for Sony Pictures). Off-Broadway, he starred in The Last Five Years at Second Stage Theater and Avenue Q at New World Stages. Regional credits include Duncan Sheik and Kyle Jarrow’s Noir at Alley Theater, as well as Barry Levinson and Sheryl Crow’s Diner at the Signature Theare. On TV he was in Billions on Showtime as “Pununzio”, and The Good Wife on CBS as “Ezra.” He recently starred in the feature film Either Side of Midnight, directed by Roger Spottiswoode. Adam is a graduate of Northwestern University and the British American Dramatic Academy. @AdamJKantor on social.

• Stonewall to Soho: Transatlantic Exchanges in Queer Theatre and Performance
  • The Art of the Culture War: Lessons from the Battlefields
    • Speaker: Phoebe Patey-Ferguson
  • Queer Practice, Queer Pedagogy: A Transatlantic Conversation on Voice and Actor Training
    • Speakers: Becca Barret and Richard Delaney, moderated by Jay Paul Skelton
  • Surviving the Crossing: A Queer Migrant Dialogue Between London and New York
    • Speakers: Alejandro Postigo and Edu Diaz
• Jewish Methods: How Jewish-American Practitioners Influenced Contemporary British Actor Training
  •   Title tbc
    • Speaker: Conrad Cohen
  • Doreen Cannon Changed My Life (and the nature of actor training in London drama schools)
    • Speaker: Margaret Coldiron
  • The Heart of the Method
    • Workshop with Lola Cohen
• Beyond the Hollywood Ten: ‘Un-American’ Americans and the British Theatre Industry
  •   Title tbc
    • Speaker: Paul Prescott
  • “More English than the Brits”: Hollywood’s Exiles in 1950s Britain
    • Spealer: Rebecca Prime
  • Paul Robeson – the artist must choose
    • Speaker: Hakim Adi
  • “A guest in your country”: Bertolt Brecht between Europe and America
    • Speaker: Tom Kuhn
• ‘Lifting it Up’: Shakespeare, Hip Hop and the Poetics of Black Speech
  • Speakers: Sideeq Heard (MIO ’14), Jonzi D, Tristan Fynn-Aiduenu, and Miriam A. Hyman/Robyn Hood (MIO’ 10)

• Phylicia Rashad and BADA Patron Joseph Mydell (MIO ’84) in conversation.
• Zoë Wanamaker and Patrick Spottiswoode (Founder, Globe Education, Shakespeare’s Globe)
• Simon Godwin, Drew Lichtenberg and Deborah C. Payne

• Deep Azure by Chadwick Boseman (MIO ’98) (at Shakespeare’s Globe)

Online participation will be available for sessions taking place on Sunday 15^th March and some sessions on Monday 16th March, including:

• Stonewall to Soho: Transatlantic Exchanges in Queer Theatre and Performance
• Jewish Acting Methods: How Jewish-American Practitioners Influenced Contemporary British Actor Training
• Zoë Wanamaker and Patrick Spottiswoode (Founder, Globe Education, Shakespeare’s Globe)