Faculty Bios

Nathan Flower has been teaching physical technique academically and professionally for the last ten years. He has taught at the Professional Actor Training Program at Rutgers University, Actors Movement Studio (NYC), Marymount School (NYC), Columbia University, New York University and across the country with the Aquila Theater Company. He is currently on faculty at NYU’s Undergraduate Drama Program where he teaches and directs for the Meisner Studio. He has also coached actors privately for many years. He has worked as an actor Off-Broadway, regionally and nationally. Nathan holds an MFA in Acting from Rutgers University.

Scott Hudson began working with Maggie Flanigan in 2001. He has taught First Year and Summer Intensive classes at the Studio. He continues to develop and teach classes that focus on the physical life and actions of characters. Other classes taught by Scott are Cold Reading and Auditioning with Monologues. Outside of the Studio, Scott works as a private acting coach and is referred by some of New York's prominent agents and managers. He has served as in-house coach for ABC's All My Children. As an actor Scott originated the role of Gail in Stephen Adly Guirgis's critically acclaimed Off-Broadway hit Our Lady of 121st Street, directed by Philip Seymour Hoffman. (Other credits include La Jolla Play house, Long Wharf, and George Street Theater.)  Scott is a member of the LAByrinth Theater Company. He holds an MFA from Rutgers where he trained under the direction of William Esper and Maggie Flanigan.

Danielle Liccardo began her theatre training as an actress in New York City where she studied professionally under the direction of Kathryn Gately and received extensive classical training at both The American Globe Theatre in New York, and at London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art. Ms. Liccardo has worked commercially, in voice-over, off-Broadway, regionally, and in film. New York roles include: Yelena in Uncle Vanya, the title role in Lysistrata, Carol in North of Providence, Gale in Life During Wartime (2001 NY OOBR award), Marla in Specter, Rose in Scarecrow, A Pretty Lady/A Crazy Woman in When Words Fail, Jackie-O in The House of Yes. Regional theatre: Lady Macbeth in Macbeth, The Chorus in Henry V, Gonerill in King Lear, Titania in A Midsummer Night's Dream, Rosalind in As You Like It, Don John in Much Ado About Nothing, Katherine in Henry V.  As a movement and style specialist she trained at Actors Movement Studio in New York under Mr. Loyd Williamson, and has coached such plays as Othello, Henry V, Macbeth, Tartuffe, The Elephant Man, A Hatful of Rain. Ms. Liccardo is currently on faculty at Mason Gross School of the Arts (Rutgers University) as a movement specialist in the BFA acting program and at Maggie Flanigan Studio.  She teaches advanced acting at Drew University in New Jersey, and in the Shakespeare Ventures program at Fairfield University in Connecticut.

Mai Loughran strives to introduce the Meisner actor to the joys of classical text. She enthusiastically endorses the Meisner training and feels her own work has been deeply enriched by close cooperation with Maggie Flanigan whose clarity and commitment she greatly admires. Whilst living in Manahattan for 18 years, Mai ran a vocal  ‘clinic’, “Breathworks”, for professional performers. She also worked for SUNY and NYU. Living near Edinburgh, Scotland,  she continues to give workshops throughout Britain, and in NYC. Mai has been teaching and acting for 30 years. Graduating from RBTC Speech & Drama, she became an Associate of the British Drama Board (Ed.) in 1970, She is a master teacher of Voice and Speech & of Shakespeare. Her work has won awards in Britain and the US. She is the founder of the NY State Shakespeare Monologue Competition for the English Speaking Union. Mai was Head of Voice and Speech at Mason Gross School of the Arts at Rutgers University for 14 years.

Lenard Petit is a founding member of the Michael Chekhov Association (MICHA). He has been the Director of the Michael Chekhov Acting Studio since 1995, and for the past 15 years has been  a core faculty member of The Theater Arts  Program at Rutgers University.As one of a handful of teacher students trained by original members of Michael Chekhov's Theater School,  his knowledge of the technique, coupled with his gifts have brought him to be recognized as one of the foremost teachers of  this technique in the world. He has been invited to teach master classes at many American colleges including Yale and Princeton.  In Europe  he has taught classes at the International School for Film and Television in Munich, and Helsinki University,  He has also led  acting workshops as well as clown workshops in Denmark, Amsterdam, Berlin, Zurich, London, Madrid, Riga, and Irkutsk  Siberia. For 25 years Mr. Petit has worked in New York as an actor with such notable directors as Julie Taymor, Richard Forman, Meredith Monk , and  Ping Chong. He has also directed and choreographed successful productions on and off Broadway.

Charlie Sandlan Charlie has been a professional actor for fifteen years. TV and film credits include Kidnapped; Law & Order; Law & Order SVU; Law & Order CI; 24; All My Children; Guiding Light and the upcoming film Music & Lyrics with Hugh Grant. NYC Theatre includes roles in Twelth Night; Richard II, Two Rooms and Coriolanus at La Mama. Charlie has also taught the Meisner technique at the Promenade Playhouse in Santa Monica, Ca. He received his MFA in acting from Rutgers University, Mason Gross School of the Arts.

Shane Ann Younts teaches a two year voice, and speech program at her Manhattan Studio, where she also does private coaching for theater, film and television. In addition she teaches Voice and Text classes in the Graduate Acting Program at New York University's Tisch School of the Arts, where she specializes in the texts of Shakespeare.

april yvette thompson An accomplished New York based actress, april has appeared in the films Doris & Bernard with Ralph Fiennes & Susan Sarandon, The Exonerated with Danny Glover, Aidan Quinn & Delroy Lindo (dir. Bob Balaban) and the independent film I am Ali at Sundance. april's television work includes Third Watch, Law & Order: Criminal Intent, The Dave Chappelle Show, Guiding Light and As the World Turns. april has appeared Off Broadway in the New York premiere of The Exonerated; the world premiere of The Antigone Project by Tanya Barfield and Lynn Nottage at the Women's Project; the world premiere of Light Raise the Roof (dir. Michael John Garces) by Kia Corthron at NYTW; the world premiere of Zakiyyah Alexander's SICK??? (dir. Daniella Topol) at The Summer Play Festival, The Rivals (dir. Nicky Martin), Macbeth and The Merry Wives of Windsor with The Acting Company. A company member of The Classical Theatre of Harlem (CTH), april has received AUDELCO nominations for her work in Medea and Macbeth and has also appeared in productions of King Lear with Paul Butler and The Blacks: A Clown Show by Jean Genet. april has served on the faculty of the Harlem School of the Arts teaching performance for the classical text and voice & speech. She has served as voice/speech/movement coach for CTH's productions of Medea, King Lear, The Blacks as well as dialect coach for Hal Scott's The African Company Presents Richard III. She has served on Rutgers faculty teaching movement, classical text work and voice. april has served as Artist in Residence at Manhattan Theatre Club, Listen, Inc., The Acting Company and The Children's Defense Fund where she founded the fundi freedom schools - Arts in Education summer & after-school enrichment programs in economically disenfranchised Washington, D.C. communities. april holds a Bachelor of Arts in English from Vassar College and a Master of Fine Arts in Theatre from Rutgers University.

Rebecca DuMaine Rebecca DuMaine is a New York based actress and Designated Linklater Voice Teacher. She has acted onstage in New York, regionally, on television and radio and sings professionally with the Dave Miller Trio. Rebecca has taught Voice and Speech at Rutgers, The New Actors Workshop, Circle in the Square, SUNY Purchase, NYU and is currently on faculty at The Actors Studio MFA Program at Pace University, the MFA program at the Graduate Theatre Division of Columbia University and at the Linklater Center for Voice and Language. Ms. DuMaine coaches actors and corporate clients privately in dialects, accent reduction and text. She holds a BA from Duke University and an MFA in Acting from Rutgers, Mason Gross School of the Arts, where she studied with Maggie Flanigan.

Pandora Scooter Pandora Scooter currently teaches script analysis, western canon and actor/director lab for the Maggie Flanigan Studio. In 1998 she received her MFA in Directing from Rutgers’ Mason Gross School of the Arts, Professional Theatre Training Program where she also received the John I. Bettenbender award for Outstanding Graduate Performance. She has taught courses in script analysis, theatre history, and western canon for colleges throughout New Jersey as well as at Rutgers, Rider and Drew Universities. She has worked for the Goodman Theatre, Arena Stage, Delaware Theatre Company, Playwrights Theatre of New Jersey, and George Street Playhouse. In 1998 she founded the Hallie Flanagan Women’s Play Series at Wings Theatre Company. As a writer/performer, she has appeared at venues including H.E.R.E. Arts Center, NJPAC, manhattantheatresource, and New York Theatre Workshop, where she is also a Usual Suspect. She is also a member of Circle East and has received a Puffin Foundation grant for her one woman show SAMURAIZATION. As an activist for women’s issues, Pandora has produced benefit performances involving Laurie Anderson, Leslie Avayzian, Emily Mann, Velina Hasu Houston and Lily Tomlin.

Susan Schuld Currently Susan is an associate professor at Rutgers University Mason Gross School of the Arts, where she teaches voice, dialects, and coaches productions. She trained and is a designated teacher with Kristin Linklater. Other teaching credits include: Linklater Center for Voice and Language, Hudson Valley Shakespeare Festival, CAP 21 NYU Tisch School of the Arts, Circle in the Square, the Professional Performing Arts High School in Manhattan and served as the Director in Residence at Shakespeare’s Globe, London for Mason Gross School of the Arts in 2003-4. Having received her MFA in Acting from Rutgers University, she has acted in NY and regionally and is a founding member of Theatre Lila. Private coaching available in Speech and IPA, Dialects, Audition Preparation, and Text Analysis.