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OUR CLASSES

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CLASSES

As one of the premier acting studios in NYC, the Maggie Flanigan Studio offers some of the best acting classes for aspiring actors who are serious about committing to professional training.

Acting Classes for the Serious Professional Actor

The acting classes offered at the Maggie Flanigan Studio rigorously train actors who are committed to their profession by providing the opportunity to learn new skills, improve upon their current abilities, and expand their horizon. If you’re looking for drama classes that will encourage you to work hard for your craft, the Maggie Flanigan Studio has curated the best drama classes for you. Each acting workshop and class are designed for the serious actor who is at the point in their life where the decision has come to turn their dream of being a professional actor into a reality.

You might be thinking that making the move to New York and getting a few headshots was a big step, but it’s the part that comes next that can make or break your career. While typing a resume may seem important, choosing the right acting class is integral. Without focus and work-ethic, you can take as many classes as you want and still not have the results you seek. Instead, the Maggie Flanigan Studio was designed to give students the ability to combine hard work with their natural talents in order to encourage positive growth and lay the groundwork for a successful career as an artist. If you’re passionate about becoming the best actor you can be, this studio is certainly the place for you.

Learn more about Acting 1 and Acting 2 classes.

Movement Classes for Actors

Movement Classes – Maggie Flanigan Studio

Movement is an important facet of acting performance and one for which the Maggie Flanigan studio is dedicated. Here, movement classes focus on the release of physical limitations and emotional barriers. Performing can be an emotional experience, making it crucial for actors to have bodies that are highly free and responsive. While studying in a movement class can be of great benefit at any point in an actor’s career, learning how to properly release and expand your physical instrument is especially essential to the aspiring actor who is interested in success. In conjunction with Anne Bogart’s world-famous Viewpoints, and the demanding Suzuki Method of movement, the studio’s movement foundation is the Wiliamson Technique. This is a method which encourages students to familiarize themselves with their body and their habits, especially as it relates to tension and stress. The goal is to help each individual to identify and let go of these stressors and extraneous behaviors. When this is accomplished, the actor’s mind and body become less cluttered and better able to create expansive behavior unfettered by tension.

This studio is dedicated to providing movement classes for actors where the students can feel safe in a nurturing environment. This gives students permission to break away from their daily pedestrian behaviors, so they can create a physical life that is more real and vivid. Performing is always a collaboration and human contact is certainly a key component. In Level 1, students are always challenged to release their physical tensions and unconscious behavior patterns with a structured open choreography with their classmates. Students are instructed in the Williamson Technique and will learn exercises that will immediately begin to help them in their career. The knowledge that the student obtains about their bodies and themselves in these classes has proven invaluable and life changing, both personally and artistically.

Learn more about the Movement Classes at the studio.

Voice and Speech Acting Classes

Voice and Speech Classes – Maggie Flanigan Studio

The voice classes for actors at the Maggie Flanigan Studio are rooted on the approach developed by Kristin Linklater. This method of freeing the human voice hinges on the knowledge that the person and their voice are inseparable. The first part of the process is to identify and seek to release all tension that might stand in the way of the person’s connection to their voice. Once the release of tension has occurred, the breath can move further within the body. With this, the voice becomes more resonant as well, allowing for a more dynamic personal connection to be made.

Voice and speech classes focus on identifying and releasing tension that is most commonly experienced to develop a voice more capable rich and vibrant communication. These include tension in the jaw, throat, tongue, and the soft palate. By doing this, the student is able to isolate those resonating chambers within their body which allow them to strengthen their speaking voice. During the voice and speech classes for actors, students will learn to develop a repertoire of physical and vocal warm-ups that they can use to prepare for rehearsals, and performances. This is money in the bank for actors who truly know that their voice is their most powerful and intimate mode of expression.

Read more about voice and speech classes at the studio here.

Theater History Classes

Theater History Classes – Maggie Flanigan Studio

Knowing how to read a play is of the utmost importance for an aspiring actor. While it may sound simple, picking up and being able to read and understand a play is not always easy. It requires curiosity, imagination, and patience. Not only this, but you must also have a healthy amount of skepticism so that you can question any assumptions or preconceptions that you may already have before you pick up and read a play. Being able to communicate your biases is yet another tricky, yet crucial responsibility.

Theater history classes require students to write about each play they read as well as to discuss and analyze certain sections of these works. Additionally, there’s no denying that New York City is full of theater and significant discussion will always be encouraged and required in regard to the many plays and productions going on around the world. The primary purpose is to learn how to identify how the values and techniques of theater’s 2,500-year history still exist, and how they have transformed into today’s current works. This allows actors to be just as confident when approaching a modern play as they are with one that was written over a thousand years ago.

Theater history is taught at the studio over a 10-week period and includes pieces written by a multitude of writers including Sophocles, Aristotle, Shakespeare, Racine, Calderon, Ibsen, Chekhov, Strindberg, O Neill, Williams, Miller, Gertrude Stein, Beckett, Filippo Marinetti, Artaud, Brecht, LeRoi Jones, Adrienne Kennedy, and Robert Wilson as well as many others. There is also heavy emphasis placed on Eastern and Middle Eastern theater and its impact on the western canon. Theater history classes for actors are held once per week and involve the reading and discussion of a play. Class covers everything from major movements in style, to training methods, to theater architecture. In addition, class will identify the cultural contexts and political influences that shaped the content, atmosphere, and scope of the piece in question.

Read more about the Theater History class for actors.

Script Analysis Class for Actors

Script Analysis Classes – Maggie Flanigan Studio

Working with both contemporary and classic plays during script analysis class, students are better able to understand and analyze any role presented them, whether it be for film, TV, or theatre. Breaking down a script can be challenging, but with the techniques provided in a script analysis class for actors, students can learn how to identify key components of a scene and approach a first rehearsal with confidence.

Another great aspect of this class is providing students with the ability to understand the art of storytelling. When approaching a part, understanding how a character contributes to the overall production will greatly help your collaboration with the director, designers, and fellow actors. It also helps tremendously when approaching auditions, and puts our actors in a position to speak more intelligently with casting directors, directors and producers during auditions as well as in rehearsals. Possessing a solid working knowledge of script analysis can have an enormously positive impact on any actor’s career.

Read more about the script analysis class for actors here.

Film History Classes for Actors

Film History Classes – Maggie Flanigan Studio

All artists are inspired by the work that has come before them. The goal of our film history class is to educate our students on the directors, writers, and actors that have shaped a 120-year art form. Our class begins with advent of silent film, into the melodramatic work of the early 20th century, up to the rise of the director as auteur and the rise of the blockbuster franchise. Each week students will watch an important film, and come to class prepared to engage in intelligent and insightful conversation about the movie and its cultural and historic context. Students will also be assigned important books to read, and will be required to write opinion papers on the material.

You do not want to find yourself in an audition, a rehearsal or on a set, when a director is talking about the influences and ideas behind their work, and you have no idea who or what they are talking about. It’s embarrassing, and reveals an actor to be uninterested and uneducated about the very art form they claim to be pursuing. We want our students to be in the best position to be first-rate collaborators.

Learn more about the Film History Classes.

Cold Reading Classes for Actors

Cold Reading Classes for Actors – Maggie Flanigan Studio

The ability to be able to pick up lines off of the page without compromising your acting ability is a learnable skill. There is no doubt that many times in an actor’s career, cold reading will be an important component to the job. Whether in auditions or in rehearsals, actors will have scripts in their hands. Sometimes, for only a few minutes before being required to act. Our cold reading classes for actors train the actor to be able to break down a piece of material quickly, make choices, and then work with spontaneity, on their impulses, and fully in the moment.

Over the ten-week course, students will work on film & tv scenes from comedy to serous drama, as well as monologue from plays. Another essential component of this NYC acting class is to be comfortable working with a reader. Whether an actor is self-taping, or is in the room with a casting director, they will have someone feeding them the other character’s lines. Knowing how to do the right homework on the other characters lines will make it possible to respond in the moment with a personal point of view. Most actors when they have a script in their hands can only act into their script, head down, with absolutely no connection to the other actors in the scene. It looks amateurish. Our NYC cold reading class will help you look like a professional.

Learn more about the Cold Reading Classes for Actors

Combat for Stage and Film Class

Combat for Stage and Film Classes – Maggie Flanigan Studio

At some point in an actor’s career, they will be required to perform some piece of physical contact with another actor. This could be anything from the grab of an arm, to a slap, to a full-blown fight. Actors will also find themselves working with knives, guns, and other weapons. This work can cause severe injury and even death if the proper safety protocols are not rigorously in place. Our 10-class combat training for actors teaches our students how to engage in physical conflict in a disciplined and safe way. Understanding and executing the basic industry standard of fight choreography will make our actors safer and better prepared for the professional world.

Over the course of our NYC combat class, students will learn how to throw punches, engage in hand-to-hand fighting, as well as handling knives and swords. Each class is videotaped so students can view the quality of their work, and see if it’s believable. The class will culminate in a one-minute choreographed fight sequence using both hand to hand, and weapons. Safety, responsibility, and awareness are the foundation of this important work.

Learn more about the Combat for Stage and Film Classes

Learn About Acting Classes at Maggie Flanigan Studio

Are you interested in turning your dream of being a professional actor into a reality? Are you feeling disheartened in your ability to do so? You might believe that your trip to NYC was the biggest hurdle or you might have attempted to tackle a handful of random classes at different studios in the hope of patching together some skills for your resume. Are you suddenly realizing that you don’t have the abilities needed to go out and succeed?

At the Maggie Flanigan Studio, we’ve created the ideal environment for you to combine your talent with hard work and dedication. If you’re passionate about having a long and fruitful career, our faculty is here to help you reach your goal.

If you’re interested in learning more about our mission, contact us today to discuss our class and registration policies. To schedule your interview, give us a call today at (917) 794-3878.

STUDENT TESTIMONIALS

“Maggie Flanigan is uncompromising, her instincts as a teacher are razor sharp. She doesn’t miss a beat”

Marco Bettencourt Urbina

Sam Rockwell

“Maggie Flanigan has been one of the most important people in my artistic life. I want to work with Maggie trained actors. As an actor myself, she is my first source. I do not say this lightly, if you are serious about acting, and willing to work very hard, then go to Maggie.”

Marco Bettencourt Urbina

Stephen Adly Guirgis

“Maggie helped me find my sense of truth, an actors greatest asset. Maggie is an expert at instilling that vital ingredient, which allows an actor’s potential to become limitless. My work will forever be rooted in the clarity and honesty she helped me develop.”

Marco Bettencourt Urbina

Mike Colter