TVI News

My colleague’s blog at TVI Actors Studio, Susan Sleepers “Pick a Little Talk a Lot” has an interesting post about pilots that have been green lit and most probably will be cast and shot in NY.

I will be blogging from San Francisco this week during my 10th annual trip to MacWorld at the Moscone Center in downtown SF. What does this have to do with Showbusiness? Everything, besides, Apple did an amazing corporate profile on TVI a few years back and how our organization uses their hardware to grow our acting schools.

I just ran into an entertaining blog by TVI Actors Studio member Vinnie Costa. Take a look, great links and great content. He is selling and promoting himself without even trying…very classy. Take a look here at his blog.

Aussie casting director, Ben Parkinson and Australian magnate Carmel Bullivant were gracious hosts Monday evening in Sydney. They hosted a small reception for me, my last night in Australia at the famed “Wildfire“, Sydney’s hottest and most exciting dining experience. in Darling Harbour.

The photo was the view from my seat!

Fiona’s and The Wolsey in London and now Wildfire, it has been a great year for restaurants on my travels.

Departing on Air New Zealand’s 719 from Auckland to Sydney gets me in at 14:30, enough time to drop my stuff at the Sydney Hilton before meeting acclaimed actress Denise Roberts.

First up is with Australian actress Denise Roberts,
Principal Director of “Screenwise“, a Sydney based Film & TV Acting School for Actors. Denise is an Australian actress who has been working full time as a professional actor and director in theatre, film and television since 1980! Take a look at her body of work.
Denise is author of the Actor’s Advisory Manual, Get Your Act Together.
Afterward, met with Dean Carey, Co-Founder and Artistic Director of Actors Centre Australia. He is the Author of the much acclaimed The Actors Audition Manual (published in 1985) and masterclass (published in 1995), both sold throughout Australia, New Zealand and also overseas. He was Head of Acting at WAAPA (1990-93) and was Associate Head of Acting at NIDA, where he taught for 12 years.

Needless to say, it has been an exhausting day of traveling and meetings.

Twenty years ago I started TVI Actors Studio in NY with the mission to assist American actors in accelerating their careers. Today was a breakthrough as the “Live from Brisbane…Casting Conversation” was a smashing success. Today’s technology enabled Australian actors in Brisbane to have a face to face conversation in real time with casting directors in Los Angeles.

Thank you, Lee Donehue, Christy Dooley and Nick Anderson for making this event happen.

Arrived in Australia yesterday for a full week of “Actorpreneur” workshops, Brisbane, Melbourne, Sydney and then onto Auckland, New Zealand for a weekend intensive with Aussie Casting Director, Tom McSweeney, formerly from Los Angeles.

Tom and I are conducting a weekend acting intensive for some of New Zealand’s most up and coming actors.

A first for TVI is tomorrows event which will I will be hosting from Queensland University with a live satallite broadcast with Los Angeles casting directors Christy Dooley and Nick Anderson. They will be at our Los Angeles studios answering questions from Brisbane based actors via satallite. Now that is cutting edge technology for actors and TVI

It has been a hectic week in London. The weather was uncommonly warm and humid for mid-October.

As TVI’s New York director, Susan Sleeper and I prepare for next July’s American/British London Summer Intensive, we crossed back and forth through the London tube three to four times a day for meetings. Last July’s London intensive was a huge success with professional and aspiring actors from all over Europe, North America, Africa and Australia/New Zealand.

While we were just too exhausted to go the theatre, we did get to Kate Beckinsale’s recommendation, Ffionas Restaurant on Kensington Church St in Kensington.

It was also wonderful to meet many of the Sound of Music cast members in rehearsal at Jerwoood Space in Southwark. The show opens at the London Palladium in early November.

I am off to the University of Nebraska/Lincoln for the Annual International Thespian Festival. TVI has been involved presenting scholarships to high school students at this June festival for the past ten years. The festival takes place on camppus at the Lieds Performing Arts Center right in the middle of this beautiful mid-Western city.

Besides being able to see the work of thousands of high school students in plays every day, I get to catch up with college representatives that are looking for potential students at their respective colleges.