Conservatory Faculty

At CTC, the faculty are not just teachers: they are working professionals and your future colleagues in the theater -- on stage and behind-the-scenes. The 2009 faculty and master class artists included:

Andrew Borba (Text Analysis) CTC: Fifth season – Acting: Bernard Nightingale, Arcadia; Doctor, Every Good Boy Deserves Favor; Skouratov, The Just; Dr. Baylis, All My Sons. Text Coach: The Winter’s Tale, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Much Ado About Nothing, Measure for Measure. Director: Twelfth Night. Other Acting credits: The Constant Wife, Private Lives, It’s a Wonderful Life, Pasadena Playhouse; Dead Man’s Cell Phone, Lovers & Executioners, South Coast Repertory; Richard III, Shakespeare Festival of St. Louis; Pericles, The Countess, The Globe Theatre; Closer, Berkeley Repertory Theatre; Oregon Shakespeare Festival (4 seasons), Dallas Theater Center, Portland Stage Company, Long Wharf Theatre, Delaware Theatre Company, and others. Film/TV: Guest appearances this year on “Dark Blue,” “Prison Break,” “Eli Stone,” “N.C.I.S.,” “Bones,” the internet series “Speedie Date” and the upcoming film Lure. Film: Charlie Wilson’s War, Nine Lives, Live from Baghdad, Path to War, A Bright Shining Lie, recurring roles on “The Shield,” “Jericho,” “Lincoln Heights,” “Enterprise,” numerous guest appearances on “Grey’s Anatomy,” “House,” “Without a Trace,” “Monk,” “CSI: Miami,” “24,” “Nip/Tuck,” “That 70’s Show,” “Cold Case,” “The West Wing” and others. Andrew received his MFA from NYU.

Deena Burke (Voice & Text Coach) CTC: Fifth season. Coach for the Shakespeare Theatre in Washington, D.C., McCarter Theatre in Princeton, CENTERSTAGE in Baltimore, Intiman Theatre, Seattle Repertory Theatre and many others. Last season, in addition to coaching and teaching for CTC, Deena performed in Death of a Salesman. Her voice has been heard on numerous radio ads and in video games. This past fall, Deena joined the Repertory Ensemble Players (REP) as an actress and coach in their brand new professional repertory company at the University of Delaware where she is a professor in the Professional Theatre Training Program (PTTP). Deena is a graduate of The Juilliard School.

David Costabile (Clowning) CTC: First season. Broadway: Translations, Caroline, or Change, Titanic, The Tempest. Off-Broadway: Mr. Marmalade, Roundabout Theatre Company; Two Gentlemen of Verona, Caroline, or Change, Henry V (1996 & 2003), Troilus and Cressida, New York Shakespeare Festival; Carnival and Can-Can, Encores!; The Winter’s Tale, Classic Stage Company. He co-wrote and starred in The New Bozena at the Cherry Lane Theatre. Regional work: Translations, McCarter Theatre; Caroline, or Change, Ahmanson Theatre; All My Sons, Don’t Make Me Laugh, Westport Country Playhouse. Film: Solitary Man, Notorious, Prime, How the Grinch Stole Christmas, Cradle Will Rock, Isn’t She Great, The Seige. TV: “The Wire,” “Flight of the Conchords,” “Damages,” “The Unusuals,” “Without a Trace,” “Law and Order: Criminal Intent,” and “Will & Grace.” He has an MFA from the Graduate Acting Program at NYU where he currently teaches.

Marcia DeBonis (Casting) CTC: Fourth season. Her casting credits include the films Morning Glory with Harrison Ford, Rachel McAdams & Diane Keaton (2010 release), Bride Wars, What Lies Beneath, Changing Lanes and Tadpole. She was the New York Casting Director for Twentieth Century Fox Studio, Pilot Season, from 1999-2007. Her theater casting credits include 22 years for The Barrow Group Theatre Company and four years as the casting director for Atlantic Theater Company. As an actor, Marcia has appeared in numerous film, television and Off-Broadway productions.

Jack Doulin (Casting) CTC: Fifth season. New York Theatre Workshop: Nine seasons as Casting Director and Artistic Associate, Homebody / Kabul, Far Away, A Number, The Beard of Avon, Hedda Gabler, All That I Will Ever Be, The Seven, Valhalla, Flesh and Blood, Cavedweller, The Misanthrope, Beast, Things of Dry Hours, etc. Off Broadway: Blasted, Uncle Vanya, Living Room in Africa, Orange Flower Water, The Persians, Dark Yellow, Chicken, The Shape of Metal, The Lament, 1001, The Beebo Brinker Chronicles, etc. Metropolitan Opera: Le Fille du Regiment (speaking roles). Regional: Goodman Theatre, Hartford Stage, American Repertory Theater, Seattle Repertory Theatre and Pig Iron Theatre Company. Jack is a member of the Casting Society of America.

Gwen Ellison (Alexander Technique) CTC: Thirteenth season. Gwen trained as an Alexander Technique teacher and was certified in 1987 while still working as a professional actress. Having graduated from the High School of Performing Arts in 1975 with a major in acting, she has been exploring the body as an instrument through performing, studying and teaching. She has maintained a full-time private practice in NYC for the past twenty years, specializing in work with actors and singers. She has worked on various Broadway and off-Broadway shows. She has also taught at The Eugene O’Neill Theater Center’s National Theater Institute, The Acting Conservatory at SUNY Purchase, New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts Graduate Acting Program and is currently on the faculty of the Yale School of Drama and the new Vocal Arts Program at the Music Conservatory at Bard College (dir. Dawn Upshaw).

Carol Halstead (Yoga Instructor) CTC: Fifth season. Carol has been teaching Yoga and Meditation to actors since 1996. She was certified in India in the Sivananda Lineage of Hatha Yoga. She received Zen meditation training at Dai Bosatsu Zendo and Vipassana training at the Insight Meditation Society in Barre, Mass., and the Panditarama Monastery in Yangon, Burma under her teacher, Sayadaw U Pandita. Carol is a certified Ohashi Shiatsu therapist and currently studies Seido Karate under Kaicho Nakamura as a First Degree Black Belt. She most recently appeared as Raymonde Chandebise in A Flea In Her Ear, directed by Gary Griffin at Kansas City Repertory Theatre. She has performed on and Off-Broadway and extensively in regional theaters across the country.

Gary Logan (Voice and Text) CTC: Second season - The Just. Other credits: Design for Living The Just, The Way of the World, Julius Caesar, An Enemy of the People, The Shakespeare Theatre Company; Crestfall, Frozen, The Studio Theatre Secondstage; Shenandoah, State of the Union, A Christmas Carol, Ford’s Theatre; Doubt, And a Nightingale Sang, Everyman Theatre; Much Ado About Nothing, The Folger Theatre; over 60 productions at Denver Center Theatre Company and the Stratford Shakespeare Festival of Canada. Gary holds an MFA from ACT and won the 2006 Tyrone Guthrie Award. He is the Director of The Shakespeare Theatre Company’s Academy for Classical Acting, Washington, DC and author of The Eloquent Shakespeare: A Pronouncing Dictionary for the Complete Dramatic Works—With Notes to Untie the Modern Tongue (University of Chicago Press). Pat McCorkle (Casting Director) CTC: Third season. Broadway: The Lieutenant of Inishmore, The Glass Menagerie, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, Amadeus, A Doll’s House, An Ideal Husband, She Loves Me, Blood Brothers and A Few Good Men. Off-Broadway: The Toxic Avenger, Our Town, Adding Machine, Almost, Maine, Address Unknown, Ears on a Beatle, Killer Joe, Mrs. Klein. Film: Ghost Town, War Eagle, Bereft, Secret Window, Basic, The Thomas Crown Affair, The 13th Warrior, Madeline, Die Hard: With a Vengeance and School Ties. Television: “The Electric Company,” “3Lbs.,” “Barbershop,” “Chappelle’s Show,” “Hack” and “The Education of Max Bickford.”

Aole Miller (Mask) CTC: Fourth season. Aole has worked as an actor, director, writer and teacher in the United States, Denmark, Singapore, Australia and Bali, Indonesia since 1992. He has been director of The Bali Conservatory from 2002-2008, and is currently the creative director of The International Antonin Artaud Fringe Theatre Festival. He is the first African American Ceremonial Mask Dancer of Bali. He teaches Fitzmaurice Voicework, Mask, Michael Chekhov, and Viewpoints. He is the head of Voice and Speech at Lasalle College (Singapore) and has taught at NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts, Yale University, SUNY Purchase, The William Esper Studio, Rutgers, The National Theater Institute, The National University of Singapore, Queensland Theatre Company (Brisbane, Australia) and Curtin University (Perth, Australia). He was the official coach for Michelle Williams in Ang Lee’s movie Brokeback Mountain. He directed Voices of Juarez at the 2004 New York International New York Fringe Festival. Aole holds a BFA with honors in theater from New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts.

Wendy Waterman, (Voice & Speech) CTC: Seventh Season. This past season, Ms. Waterman returned to the McCarter Theatre in Princeton where she shared the production calendar again with Deena Burke coaching Twelfth Night directed by Rebecca Taichman. She also coached, at the McCarter, Edward Albee’s Me Myself and I. She worked the previous season with Ethan McSweeny as the coach for 100 Saints You Should Know at Playwrights Horizons in New York. Her regional and Off-Broadway work includes: Guthrie Theatre, Hartford Stage, CENTERSTAGE, George Street Playhouse and Primary Stages. She has been the dialect consultant to the Broadway, Las Vegas and National Touring companies of Mamma Mia!. Ms. Waterman served for a number of years as chair of voice and music for the musical theatre studio program at NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts and served as a voice coach to the traders of the New York Mercantile Exchange. Her own training includes studies with Eleanor Steber and Arthur Lessac. She is a member of the faculties of the Juilliard School and Barnard College. Her first job in New York as an actor was in Michael Kahn’s first company at Chautauqua.