Richard Pinter
Director of Acting Department
B.A., Marquette University, 1964. Graduate, Neighborhood Playhouse Scool of the Theatre, 1966. Studied under Sanford Meisner. Actor in repertory, Off-Broadway, and stock company productions. Currently Artistic Advisor to the Performers at Work Theatre Company.

Ron Stetson
Senior Instructor
B.A., Rhode Island College. Trained as an actor under Sanford Meisner and as a teacher under Mr. Meisner and William Alderson. Mr. Stetson has appeared Off-Broadway and in regional stock productions. He directs often in New York. Mr Stetson is a member of The Ensemble Studio Theatre and The Players.

Gary Kingston
Senior Instructor
Graduate, The Neighborhood Playhouse School of the Theatre, 1981. Studied with Sanford Meisner, Richard Pinter and Ron Stetson. Actor and director in Off-Broadway productions.

James Brill
Senior Instructor
Graduate of The Neighborhood Playhouse School of the Theatre, 1983. Studied with Sanford Meisner, William Alderson and Richard Pinter. Mr. Brill has appeared as an actor in theatre, film and television. He has taught acting at The University of the Arts in Philadelphia, PA and at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts in New York City.

Maria Macina
Acting for the Camera
Ms. Macina has over fifteen years of experience in every phase of production, pre-production, script editing, continuity, rough cut, final-cut and final delivery. She's created a variety of entertaining and visually engaging network quality programs including dramatic, talk and web series. Her years in production have garnered her four Daytime Emmy nominations, plus a win in 2007 for outstanding Drama Series Guiding Light. Ms. Macina has extensive experience as a Field Producer and Director and is an active member of the Director's Guild of America.

Sean Hagerty
Acting Shakespeare
Trained at The Neighborhood Playhouse under Sanford Meisner, Ron Stetson and Richard Pinter and studied classical theatre at the renowned Bristol Old Vic in England. He has worked as an actor regionally and internationally for many years. Credits include: NY Classical Theatre, The Group Theatre, Ensemble Studio Theatre, The Shakespeare Theatre of New Jersey, The Bath Shakespeare Festival, The John Caird Company, Theatre Royal Bristol, and BBC Radio, among others. He has over 10 years of experience as a teacher and director, having worked with numerous schools, arts programs and theatres across the US and England. Sean also teaches Shakespeare at The Acting Studio, Inc., and runs the education department with New York Classical Theatre.


Conversation with Richard Pinter

"You got an idea, bring it in, do it. It sounds crazy? That's O.K."

I say, "Try it! Try it! Try it!" You know? You got an idea, bring it in, do it. It sounds crazy? That's O.K. It could be crazy. That's all right. I don't care about that. This is your place. This is for you. This is for you. Do it here. Don't do it when you get out. Do it here. Try it. If you don't do it--you don't know. We'll find out. I invite you to make mistakes. The only people who don't make mistakes are the people who aren't doing anything...start doing it, experimenting with it and see what it tells you, what it teaches you.

Regarding his belief in the Meisner Technique

It's based on truth. I know this technique to be absolutely 100% correct. It's much more important than me or you or our egos. It's based on the truth. The work is...I don't know how Sandy did it! It's just amazing ...'cause it's so, so simple and honest. It's not easy, but it's simple.

When I came to The Neighborhood Playhouse as a student, I remember being extremely comfortable, right away. I mean, I was scared... but I was completely comfortable with everything Meisner said. I'd say, "Yeah, that feels right. I don't know what the hell I'm doing, but it feels right. It feels true. It feels like everything I've been taught. Only, this time, I"ve got a way of doing it."

This is what we say acting is and at the end of a year or two years, I hope that this student has the tools, the understanding and the instrument to be able to carry out Meisner's definition of acting,which I completely believe in. That is, the ability to live truthfully under imaginary circumstances. So, everything I do tries to make that student have this ability to live truthfully under imaginary circumstances...and in time his/her instrument gets stronger and stronger. I don't think that we teach them anything they don't know. All we do is fortify the instinct.

On Repetition

Repetition! My favorite! Repetition teaches the first thing...how to focus. The first thing we have to do is say, "O.K., if you're going to live truthfully under a given imaginary circumstance, if you're gonna do that, you have to have the ability to focus willfully.

That means when the stage manager says "Places", I don't care what the hell has happened to you. I don't care. I'm not interested...you gotta focus! I don't care if your landlord just threw you out or your boyfriend just told you to drop dead. It doesn't matter. The show is here. Places! So, at this moment, I have to say, "This is an act of my will. I'm gonna focus on you." So, we have to start to train to do that...so, we begin with repetition. The first, simple, dumb thing you gotta do is--I gotta look at you and focus on you in the most simple, obvious way.

Regarding instinct versus intellect

Once I've made a little contact, a little bit of focus, once I do that, that's the seed and it grows. And if I can do that once-- if I get them once just to make some little contact like that, I say "I gotcha!

I gotcha! You can do it. You did it once. And all you have to do is do it once, and once again, and once again and that's moment by moment.

So, the point of the repetition is to train them to really focus...but the best part is, if you really focus, you start to really respond. If I really pay attention to you, REALLY, I'm gonna really react to you. If I half pay attention to you, then the other half goes into the mind computer..."Be nice. Be this. Be that."All this bullshit stuff. But, if I focus on you, I don't care about that because I'm going to tell you what I think. And that's what they do. So, pretty soon, they start to respond to each other.

So, now we get two things; we get focus and we get the TRUTH-- we get the truthful response, not the computer, not the "this-is-the-right-thing-to-say", but this is the TRUE thing to say because this is how I feel. So, they focus and they're starting to just get there now a little bit and make demands on each other. You know, I want you here, be here with me! Stay alive! Talk to me! And I'll really answer you! That's what we do. So, the repetition is about focus.

Why should I come to The Neighborhood Playhouse?

We're here to do the work. You learn to identify with what you should identify, the "process" of acting, not the "result". When you learn to identify with the process of this work--not the result, but the process of acting... when you do that, you have succeeded, because you have now merged and you have identified yourself as an actor.

I guarantee the students here. You come here and you give us this, your good faith, and I promise you , you will change for the better by the end of the first year. They go "Oh my God!" What happened to me? What happened? What did I do? I went through it". It works. And there's nobody who's done it that doesn't agree with that. Ever.