News & Events

SEVEN SOLO FLIGHTS: Solo Performances in Progress

First Floor Studio Performance Project

directed by George Bartenieff

Four weekends, September 7 – 29, 2013:

Sat, Sept 07 – 8PM: Troy Scott, 8:30PM: Beth Dzuricky
Sun, Sept 08 – 8PM: Lauren Stanford, 8:30PM: Geralyn Cassidy
Sat, Sept 14 – 8PM: Troy Scott, 8:30PM: Beth Dzuricky
Sun, Sept 15 – 8PM: Lauren Stanford, 8:30PM: Geralyn Cassidy
Sat, Sept 21 – 8PM: Trinidad Alcorta, 8:30PM: Trey Irvine
Sun, Sept 22 – 8PM: Trinidad Alcorta, 8:30PM: Trey Irvine
Sat, Sept 28 & Sun, Sept 29 – 8PM: Melody Ward

First Floor Studio, HB Studio
120 Bank Street, NYC

All are welcome! No admission charge.

nysca_60px

This program is made possible through the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Andrew Cuomo and the New York State Legislature

2013 Fall Benefit – Save the Date

HB’s Fall Benefit is taking place on Monday, November 11, 2013 at Manhattan Penthouse. Our honorees this year are Oscar, Emmy, and Tony award winning designer and director Tony Walton and two-time Tony award winning actress Katie Finneran.

Hosted by David Hyde Pierce and with special guests Cynthia Nixon and Emma Walton, we will present our honorees with the 2013 Herbert Berghof-Uta Hagen Achievement Awards for their extraordinary contributions to the theatre and its community.

Sponsorships are still available. Tickets and journal ads going on sale soon! For more information, please contact Mark Klaman, Development Manager, at 212-675-2370 x39 or mklaman@hbstudio.org.

The Alan M. Bluestone Scholarship

HB Studio announces the inauguration of the Alan M. Bluestone Scholarship to provide annual support for a student to participate in a full year of the Hagen Teen Intensive program.

The scholarship is established in memory of Alan M. Bluestone, a cherished member of the HB Studio community, on the occasion of his birthday (August 23), with a gift from his cousins. A professional stage manager, Alan understood all aspects of the theatre and shared with infectious enthusiasm his love and appreciation for its literature. The scholarship is intended to encourage a young person’s interest in theatre and lend critical support to emerging talent.

In Memorium: June Eve Story

HB notes with sadness the passing of June Eve Story, a long-time member of our movement faculty, teaching classes in ballet and jazz dance. Her spirited teaching brightened many lives.

June was a musical performer, dancer and choreographer. She studied ballet with Yurek Lazowsky, Madame Swaboda, Anton Vilsak, Alfredo Corvino, Anthony Tudor, William Griffith, and Finis Jhung; studied jazz with Matt Mattox. On Broadway she appeared in MAGGIE FLYNN, I HAD A BALL and FOXY. She was in the National Tour of CARNIVAL and appeared Off-Broadway in THE FAMILY and in stock and dinner theatre in NORMAN IS THAT YOU?, PAJAMA GAME, DESTRY, ON THE TOWN, LI’L ABNER, MEET ME IN ST. LOUIS, GUYS AND DOLLS, and PAINT YOUR WAGON. Off-Off Broadway credits include TOM JONES, MISS JULIE, ARBUCKLE’S RAPE, SUMMER OF 17TH DOLL, and MOONBRIDGE. She appeared in the films A CHORUS LINE, THE NIGHT THEY RAIDED MINSKY’S, and THE DAYDREAMER, and made television appearances on the ED SULLIVAN SHOW and the Shirley MacLaine special. Her choreography credits include ARBUCKLE’S RAPE and MADWOMAN OF CHAILLOT. She danced with the Philadelphia Ballet Guild, Philadelphia Opera Ballet and Ballet Trianon.

A memorial is planned for the fall. Details will be announced. Our condolences to June’s family.

LOVE STORIES

Love Stories

First Floor Studio Performance Project

“In my dreams I am not crippled; in my dreams I dance.” – Louise Brooks

A work-in-progress collaboratively written, developed and performed by:

ManHo Kim
Elisa Halma
Tyrone Rigney
Renee Yakemchuk
Edward Freeman

Saturday & Sunday
August 24 & 25, 2013
8:00pm

First Floor Studio, HB Studio
120 Bank Street, NYC

No admission charge! All are welcome.

nysca_60pxThis program is made possible through the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Andrew Cuomo and the New York State Legislature

 

HB Receives Grant from NY Community Trust

In April 2013, HB Studio was graciously awarded a one-year grant from The New York Community Trust which will be used to upgrade our technology systems. This includes our website and online registration system as well as other capacity building.

Our sincerest gratitude to The New York Community Trust for their generous support.

Fall Registration Begins August 1

Registration for our Fall 2013 curriculum will open on August 1st. This is also the launch day for our new online registration system. For those returning students who have been given placement information, you will also have received instructions on how to access the system for the first time. Please keep in mind that you will not see class offerings on the registration system until they are officially on sale. Please contact registration@hbstudio.org if you have any specific questions about the registration process. You may still come in person to the 3rd floor offices to speak with a member of our registration team.

Backstage Asks Edith Meeks “Are Great Actors Born or Made?”

Great actors make themselves out of the stuff they are born with and all that they experience as their lives unfold. They challenge themselves to make the most of those assets and transcend those limitations — to make sense of all they have been given.

It is not enough to have talent, but talent is important. Talent can mean many things. Each extraordinary artist possesses a unique combination of gifts and must work to bring them to fruition and to compensate for the ones he or she lacks. Authenticity, sensitivity, imagination, empathy; a good ear, clever tongue; a resonant voice; physical coordination, flexibility, strength; courage, vulnerability — all these are key. Perhaps you are born with them; perhaps you must cultivate them. Probably it will be some combination of the two.

As Herbert Berghof was fond of saying, “Never mind your talent; do you have the determination?” You must be truthful with yourself and not rest at what comes easily. Each effort to communicate something meaningful and human presents new obstacles and demands. Each performance depends on a unique fusion of the intentions, efforts, and talents of the artists involved. You work as hard as you can to build a lightning rod, then hope and allow that lightning may strike.

If you are expecting to be great, you will likely miss the mark. If you are diligent, honest, and passionate about your work, you will do well. The reward: Sometimes, sometimes — through the temerity of your efforts and some accident of grace — something extraordinary will be revealed.

– “Are Great Actors Born or Made” – June 9, 2008, Backstage

Faculty Austin Pendleton in Backstage

AustinPendleton-BackstagePressIn December of 1961, I was able to get—through the kind offices of my friend Nancy Donahue, who introduced me to her agent Deborah Coleman—an audition for Arthur Kopit’s play “Oh Dad, Poor Dad…” (the title is actually longer than that), to be directed by Jerome Robbins. Jerry liked my audition, but he’d never heard of me, so he kept calling me back, and at every callback I got worse. Finally, on my sixth audition, I arrived and was asked to read opposite a young woman named Barbara Harris. It will always be one of the magical moments of my life. She began to speak, and the role I was auditioning for roared to life in me again. We both were cast that day.

And then I began, in rehearsal, to learn her process. I’m not sure I’ve ever experienced a process like it. I’ll just say I learned what it was like to be in the presence of genuine immediacy on the stage. Immediacy, by the way, combined with patience and kindness, not to mention an inexhaustible inventiveness. It was acting as the highest class of jazz. Much of what I know about acting, or what to strive for in acting, I learned in that year with Barbara, who of course went on to do much breathtaking work. I also learned much of what I know about collegiality.

Bless her brilliant and loving heart.

—“Austin Pendleton on Discovering Immediacy Onstage” October 12, 2011, Backstage