TEACHING STATEMENT:
“For me, theater and acting have been my life saviors – my form of play, my means of expression. I love challenges and this craft is never ending – you never have it all and so I believe in constantly striving for this Mount Everest. I believe in what Herbert Berghof and Uta Hagen taught me, which is that in the long run the craft does you, but only once you have gotten your thinking and ego out of the way and just allow yourself to play. I believe in being patient with the process, having joy in the experience and celebrating being a human being and awakening to each moment of our existence.
“My purpose in ACTING 1 is to get you to trust your impulses and to value your uniqueness in order to bring yourself to the work – to not “act” but to “do” and trust that your truth is always enough. I use Uta Hagen‘s exercises, scene work and monologues to teach a slow read in order to get out of your head. I try to create a safe environment for you to explore all facets of yourself, to experiment, to fail, to succeed. Most of the work involves teaching that the material you use has to be an exploration of what the circumstances mean to you, not to have a concept of it, and to have the courage to fail and begin again. Required book is A CHALLENGE FOR THE ACTOR by Uta Hagen.”
BIO:
Trained with Herbert Berghof, Uta Hagen, and William Hickey and workshops with Mike Nichols and Anthony Hopkins. NY: IN A GARDEN, FATHER’S DAY, SCENES AND REVELATIONS, WHEN THE YOUNG WINE BLOOMS (with Celeste Holm), K ON K, THE SIRENS, SOUTH, and DOÑA ROSITA. Directing: FOUR DOGS AND A BONE by John Patrick Shanley, LETTERS FROM HOME at the Dramatist Guild with Joanna Merlin, Tim Mason’s LESS THAN HUMAN CLUB and Ruth McKee’s THE NOISE ROOM as a workshop production of HB Playwrights Foundation, student production of BLESSINGS in a Special Projects collaboration with HB Studio, and co-directed ST. GEORGE & THE DRAGON AT CHRISTMAS TIDE at HBPF. TV: ALL MY CHILDREN. Recently performed in special projects of THE LEARNED LADIES (dir. Carol Rosenfeld), A MIDSUMMER NIGHT’S DREAM, AN ENEMY OF THE PEOPLE (dir. Carol Goodheart); and MR. PUNTILA AND HIS MAN MATTI (dir. Rasa Allan Kazlas). At HB Studio, Trudy is the Director of The Hagen Teen Intensive which is part of the Uta Hagen Institute. She also co-taught technique in The Hagen Summer Intensive program for three years.