Studio Director James Price

John Grabowski, Associate Director
John Grabowski (Director) is a teacher at The Acting Studio, Inc. He has been resident director of Chelsea Repertory Company since 1985. He is a graduate of Illinois State University, where he majored in theatre.

He has directed the Chelsea Repertory Company productions of Landscape of the Body (Guare); Mad Forest (Churchill); Hot L Baltimore (Wilson); Streamers (Rabe); Twelfe Night (Shakespeare); Translations (Friel); Top Girls (Churchill); Vinegar Tom (Churchill); The Incredibly Famous Willy Rivers (Metcalfe); Early Dark (Price); The Plough and the Stars (O’Casey); The Journey of the Fifth Horse (Ribman); Paradise Lost (Odets); Dark of the Moon (Berney & Richardson); The Madwoman of Chaillot (Giraudoux); The Rimers of Eldritch (Wilson); and The Lesson (Ionesco). He also wrote and directed Knoxville, 1915, adapted from James Agee's novel A Death in the Family, and The Loves of A, based on Arthur Schnitzler's The Anatole Plays for Chelsea Rep.

He recently directed Crumbs From the Table of Joy (Nottage) for Brava Company. He has also directed numerous workshop and lab productions for Chelsea Rep Lab and other small New York companies. Those productions include The Floating Session (Greenberg); Minor Eccentricities (Williams one-acts); Futz (Owens); Asian Shade (Ketron);The Actor’s Nightmare (Durang); Pitching to the Star (Margulies); Marisol (Rivera); Heat (Hauptmann); Three More Sleepless Nights (Churchill); Black Hole (Fensterman); and The Nature and Purpose of the Universe (Durang).

He also directs staged readings of new plays at The Acting Studio, Inc. and other NY theatre companies and is currently head of Chelsea Rep Lab.

Grant Neale (Acting)
holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in Acting and Theatre from Siena Heights College and has studied advanced technique under James Price at The Acting Studio, Inc. He has performed extensively throughout the country, including three years as member of NY's famed Jean Cocteau Repertory Theatre and is currently a member of The Ridiculous Theatre and Chelsea Repertory Company. In addition, Grant has performed in London and Edinburgh.

Tom Marion (Voice and Speech)
received his BFA from Ithaca College and his MFA from Rutgers University where he studied under William Esper. Mr. Marion has also studied voice at the Recording and Research Studio in Denver in conjunction with his certificate in Vocal Training from the National Theatre Conservatory. He has worked as a teaching assistant in voice production with Lucille Rubin at the Circle in the Square Theatre School. He also interned as a vocal coach at the Royal Shakespeare Company in England where he studied with Cicely Berry and Andrew Wade.

Anna Maria Cianciulli (Acting)
Anna is the official Italian translator of Sanford Meisner's classic work On Acting, and was honored by the United States with a green card based on her outstanding achievements in the field of arts. She has received a nomination for the Best Actress Award from the International Festival of Cinema and Technology held in Toronto, for her role of Sara in R. Costa's film Change the World and has played numerous leading and majors roles in independent film productions, featured in film festivals throughout US and Europe, including What Goes Around Comes Around, directed by Susan Batson.

As a director/choreographer her work as been seen at the Vanderbilt Hall of Grand Central Station (Fashion Independence), and on prestigious locations in Rome, Florence, and Milan. Since 1999 she has been directing artistically BdA the arts [enter], a theatre-film laboratory in New York that has co-produced with institutions like BAM, the Kitchen, Grand Central Station, and artists like Domenica Cameron-Scorsese, Kevin Bacon and Michael Bacon, and John Eskow. Anna Maria has played several leading and major roles on New York's Broadway, Off and Off Off Broadway stages (Joyce Soho; St. Peter Church; The Kitchen; Access Theatre; The Equitable Building Auditorium; Theatre for the New City, among others) including Inferno Gala, an event created for Roberto Benigni, and Dinner Party, starring Brian Dennehy. She is currently a member of the faculty of the New York Film Academy in New York. www.annamariacianciulli.com

Fady Mobader (Acting)
arrived in the US from Egypt in 1992 and achieved a BA in computer science in 1999. Fady has been involved in the acting profession for over five years devoting three years of study to the Meisner Technique with Mr. Price at the studio. During this time he performed several roles with the Chelsea Repertory Company. He completed his studies in the acting program at the Acting Studio Inc. in 2003 and has been a studio member since 2005. He is the studio’s newest associate and currently an assistant to the studio’s founding director, James Price in his classes at both the studio and the New York Film Academy.

Mary Workman (Voice/Speech; Accent Correction; Scene Study)
began her career as a television actress and voice-over artist in Los Angeles working with such memorable personalities as James Whitmore and Pearl Bailey.  She earned her BA from Pomona College and her MFA from the University of California, Irvine (full-fellowship award) where she studied with Robert Cohen, Jerzy Grotowski, Dudley Knight and Carla Meyer.   She has performed extensively in regional theatre and in national tours and has been recognized with several Bay Area Theatre Critics Awards.  In New York she has performed leading roles at BAM and Off-Broadway.  She has taught for over 20 years in classrooms ranging from the University of California to the American Academy of Dramatic Arts and New York Film Academy in New York.  Her students are performing on Broadway and in major motion pictures.  She is a member of the Voice and Speech Trainer’s Association, SAG, AFTRA and AEA.

Nicole Ricciardi (Monologue Workshop; Scene Study)
is a theatre actress, director, and
Assistant Professor of Theatre in Monmouth University's brand new BA Program. She was formally the Head of Acting for the New York Film Academy and Assistant Professor of Drama for Syracuse University. Additionally, Nicole has taught at Drew University, Eastern Connecticut State University, Shakespeare and Company, and the Syracuse University London Program in conjunction with Shakespeare’s Globe. She is a graduate of Carnegie Mellon University’s MFA Acting Program and a member of the Circle Rep Theatre Company.

Nicolas Kane Landry (Meisner Technique)
has been involved in the acting profession for over twenty years devoting ten years of study to The Meisner Technique with many teachers including James Price, Jeff Goldblum, and Martin Barter. His working credits include television shows such as DAYS OF OUR LIVES, GUIDING LIGHT, AS THE WORLD TURNS, GENERAL HOSPITAL and the Showtime series, RUDE AWAKENING starring Lynn Redgrave. He has also appeared in several national commercials, Independent feature films, including HOBOKEN LOU which was nominated for the 2002 b-movie award. His many stage credits are regional and off off Broadway including the Dramalogue's Critics Choice award for the twentieth anniversary of BENT.

Victor Verhaeghe (Monologue Workshop; Scene Study)
currently teaches scene study and monolgue classes at New York Film Academy.  He is a studio member and graduate of The Acting Studio, Inc. (1986-88) and has appeared in numerous Chelsea Repertory Company and LAB productions . In addition to his studio activities Victor has been a writer/performer on the New York stage for many years. He wrote Naked and Not Ashamed for the first New York Fringe Festival in 1997, and The Women of James Bond for the second Fringe Festival in 1998. He co-wrote and starred in the feature film, H.O.L.E. – The Disillusionment of Mike & Eva that has been making the rounds at several film festivals. He has been a founding member of several sketch comedy groups such as: Central Fungus, (the group that performed weekly at Catch a Rising Star), Verhaeghe & Ginsburg,(featured on Comedy Central) in The Wiggle Room,Rumble in The Red Room, and most recently, The Belgian Summers. As an actor, Victor has been in too many shows to mention here, but most recently he played the role of Raulito in John Guare’s Landscape of the Body at the Chelsea Rep Company, and starred Off-Broadway in the lead role of Freddy in the play Magic Hands Freddy with Ralph Macchio. Victor has appeared on many television shows, including Law & Order (5 times) Third Watch, Sex in the City, Law & Order - SVU, and Spin City. The Doctor Cares is now out in several film festivals across America.

Sean Hagerty (Shakespeare)
has worked as an actor, teacher and director for many years across the US and UK. He trained at the Neighborhood Playhouse in New York and the renowned Bristol Old Vic in England, where he studied classical theatre. Sean currently runs the professional company, Shakespeare-at-the-Playhouse, and is on-staff at The Neighborhood Playhouse School of the Theatre where he teaches classes in Shakespeare and Style. 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 including: The Bristol School of Performing Arts, St. Edmund’s School, Canterbury and The Wells School of Speech and Drama. His credits include: Mary Stuart and Misalliance with NY Classical Theatre, Twelfth Night with NJ Shakespeare Theatre, Pericles, A Chaste Maid in Cheapside and Oh, What a Lovely War! at the New Vic, Theatre Royal Bristol; Sir Thomas More with the Bath Shakespeare Festival and The Recruiting Officer and Arms and the Man at the Bristol Old Vic. Peyton Place, Trio and The Cowboy and the Tenderfoot with BBC Radio 4.

Turner Smith (Stage Violence)
is a stunt performer and fight choreographer working in both film and theater, focusing primarily on the creation and performance of fight sequences for the screen. He is a graduate of NYU/Tisch Drama where he focused on Acting and Fight Direction, and has extensive training in a variety of stunt techniques, weapon styles and martial arts with many different instructors. His stunt and fight training includes over a thousand hours of classroom experience with many of the most respected fight directors in the country, including Fightmasters J. David Brimmer and Michael Chin, and he first began his choreography career as an assistant to Mr. Brimmer. Since then he has provided fight choreography for dozens of theatrical productions in New York City, and continues to work with Mr. Brimmer and others on and off Broadway. He teaches frequently at workshops and master classes throughout the New York area. He worked for several years as a teacher's assistant for the stage combat classes at NYU/Tisch Drama, and remains a frequent assistant teacher at Combat, Inc. and Fights 4, the two most respected stage combat training programs in New York.