Jeanmarie has been training actors for more than 30 years. Her simple, practical approach cuts through the layers of confusion and helps actors to quickly hit their confident stride.
Confusion is the thing most often standing between an actor and a good performance. The work begins by removing it.
A small set of words a room can use on the first afternoon, rather than a system that has to be learned before anyone acts.
Actors are taught to rely on the people around them, so that the performance is carried by the ensemble rather than defended alone.
Scenes go on their feet early. Notes are given in terms an actor can play, never in terms only a director understands.
Auditions are treated as performances, and other actors in the room are treated as colleagues rather than obstacles.
In 1989, Jeanmarie entered my life and changed it forever. She asked me to audition for the play, Quilters. Over the next 11 years and over a dozen plays, Jeanmarie taught me about myself through the characters I became.Barbara Lee
I met Jeanmarie when I was about 13 years old when she was an Artist in Residence at my school in Virginia City, Nevada. She was incredibly patient with us rowdy teenagers and never failed to show compassion towards each of us.Amber Noelle Burg
As a lifelong people pleaser, having confidence to trust yourself on stage is a challenge. When I worked with Jeanmarie she helped me learn to trust myself, bond with and rely upon the cast, and give in to the performance.Stephanie Beck Herrera
Jeanmarie taught me that I didn’t have to feel competitive. She taught me to act, and to love the material I used in auditions, and to look at each audition as a chance to perform.Brooke Gabriel
At 22, Jeanmarie presented a three week master class on Elizabethan movement and Shakespeare technique at San Francisco State University. She has since conducted hundreds of classes, seminars, workshops and intensives in advanced acting, improvisation, contact improvisation, directing and writing.
Institutions include UC Berkeley, University of Washington, Washington State University, University of Nevada in Reno and Las Vegas, University of Arizona, Claremont Colleges, Evergreen State College, University of Mt. Shasta, and Naropa Institute.
In elementary through high school classrooms, Jeanmarie spent decades creating original works and adaptations of classics using a poor theatre construct, emphasising performance over elaborate production elements.
She gave him opportunities to interact with his classmates in ways he never had before.Jeff Osten
Each of these gives a single performer a complete arc to carry, which is the fastest way to find out what an actor can already do and what they still need.
Solo adaptation
Lear: A Solo Adaptation
1 performer. 60 minutes.
In the final moments of Lear’s life, memory, delusion, fury, and grief collapse into one another as he relives the choices that destroyed his…
In the collection Read the play
Solo drama
Ghosts of the Gilded Stage
1 performer. 50 minutes.
An aging theatrical veteran, Alban Matthews, facing mortality within roughly six months, examines the contents of an old theatrical trunk. Each object opens another…
In the collection Read the play
Solo monologue
Lifeboat Six
1 performer. 20 minutes.
At a fundraiser after the Titanic disaster, Margaret Tobin Brown tells the story of Lifeboat Six without the legend that later swallowed her. Fear,…
Read the playMonologues are drawn from the thirteen plays and sent as clean pages with a short note on context, so an actor is not guessing at the circumstances.
If you are interested in studying with Jeanmarie privately or in small groups, please get in touch. Sessions run in person and online.
A short letter when a play is finished, when a production opens, or when new classroom material becomes available. Nothing else.