Allen Barton has been a student of the BHP since 1990, and has served as its CEO/Executive Director since 2003. He has been involved in BHP management since 1996, and has been on the teaching staff since 2002. He was the editor of both of Milton's books, Dreams Into Action (1996) and Acting Class (both the 2001 and 2008 editions). Allen held a very close working relationship with Milton, and over the last 18 months of Milton's life, was granted the privilege of teaching alongside him in the Advanced level classes, which Allen now teaches.
Rob Brownstein has worked as an actor and director at The Odyssey Theatre, The Falcon Theatre, The Court Theatre, Yale University, The Hollywood Court Theatre, The Hudson Guild, The Roundabout, Circle Repertory Company, Interact Theatre Company, The Riverside Shakespeare Company, the Williamstown Theatre Festival, among many others.
National tours include The King and I and The Little Prince. Television credits include The Guardian, For the People, Purpose, Snitch, Georgetown, Astronauts, Room 302, Hostage Hotel, Outreach, Very Bad Things, Bean, Chicago Hope, Picket Fences, L.A. Law, and Desperate Housewives.
He has taught at the University of North Carolina and at Circle Rep School of Theatre, as well as privately coaching in New York and Los Angeles. He has been Director of Development for Palisades Pictures, and a Director/Writer for the Walt Disney Company.
He was a longtime member of the Circle Repertory Lab in New York, a founding member of the award-winning Interact Theatre Company in L.A., and is has been now a longtime member of the BHP. His wife, Robin, is a veterinarian, and their son and daughter, professional children.
Art Cohan is an accomplished award-winning actor and director who has worked extensively for over 25 years in New York and Los Angeles in theater, film and television. Some of his film and television credits are available on IMDB. Art first started his studies with Milton Katselas in 1987 in a workshop in New York and has been attending classes at the Beverly Hills Playhouse since 1992, where he is currently Director of Student Affairs.
In addition to his Scene Study classes, Art has also been teaching the "What's This Play About?" class to the advanced classes since 1992. Milton considered this class "the most important class at the school," as it teaches the actor and directors in a practical way how to read a script and "take the black words on a white page and create life's colors." He also principal teacher for the BHP's Audition Classes. This is a 4-week intensive where actors can discover what's getting in the way of them booking jobs and solve that problem. Many of his students enjoy a higher percentage of callbacks, booking ratios and landing professional representation.
Art's primary focus is human nature and he is passionately committed, dedicated, and devoted to the student who wishes to understand every aspect of emotion, motivation, agenda, plot, plan, scheme or trick that any human is capable of in trying to determine a character. Many of his students credit him with changing their life as a person as well as a performer. It's one thing to dig deep inside and find your strengths and weaknesses to make the character live and breathe; it's quite another to take that inner journey and re-emerge with additional personal power as a human and an artist.
Art's students learn the BHP approach as developed by Milton Katselas, as well as the business savvy required to maintain a successful career. His "no holds barred style" empowers the actor to refuse the limitation of imitation and discover the endless imagination of the artist within.
Jennifer Gelfer is an Actor, Director, Teacher, and private coach to some of the finest actors both here and abroad. Among her many acting credits are HBO's Sex and The City, NBC's The Doctors, and Disney's Ice Princess. She has directed theatre in NYC, LA, and London. Her 2008 revival of Lanford Wilson's Burn This, for The Collective Tree, was widely acclaimed. Directing credits in LA include Pearls Before Swine, The Owl and The Pussycat, and the Associate Direction of the Los Angeles Drama Critics Circle Award-winning Dylan.
In NYC she has directed the MITF's production of Padraic O'Reilly's Stray Dog Hearts, which won the award for best show, the Duo Theatres' production of Brilliant Traces, as well as the world premiere of Colors of Autumn.
Gary is a 22 year member of the BHP, and is currently Producing Director for the school, a member of its teaching staff, and Artistic Director for the Katselas Theatre Company. He has produced over 200 stage plays, including over 50 world premieres. Among his other celebrated productions are Romeo & Juliet (3 LADCC Awards), AIDS Us (3 LADCC Awards), Dylan (3 LADCC Awards), Lone Star, Balm and Gilead, Four and Visions and Lovers.
As an actor, his feature films include Bachelor Party, Mr. Saturday Night and Leprechaun 4. Television credits include: Series Regular On The Air (ABC), recurring roles on Push Nevada (ABC), Night Court (CBS), Wonder Years (ABC) plus guest starring roles on Everyone Loves Raymond, Mad About You, Murphy Brown, just to name a few.
Melissa Hayden was nominated twice for an Emmy Award and won for her role in Guiding Light. In addition, she has won both the Soap Opera Digest Award and Young Artist Award. Melissa has been a series regular on: Almost Grown, TV 101, and Kids for Kids. She guest starred on Hunter, Alfred Hitchcock Presents, and Love American Style. Melissa appeared in the Movies of the Week: Silence of the Heart, Not My Kid, and Tattletales. She was in John Huston's Annie, Herb Ross' Pennies From Heaven, and on the cutting room floor of David Seltzer's Punchline.
Richard Lawson has to his credit an auspicious list of film, television and stage appearances. His first professional job was in the national company of the Pulitzer Prize winning No Place to Be Somebody. He has also starred in the Los Angeles Drama Critics Award winning performances of Ma Rainey's Black Bottom and Streamers. Other productions include Fool for Love, Checkmates, Vision and Lovers, The Mighty Gents, The Talented Tenth, Hapgood, and The Exonerated.
Some of his films include Poltergeist, Streets of Fire, Stick, The Main Event, Coming Home,Audrey Rose, Wag the Dog, How Stella Got Her Groove Back, and Guess Who.
His vast television experience includes being a series regular on The Days and Nights of Molly Dodd, Dynasty, and Chicago Story. Movies of the week like Jericho Mile, The Golden Momentand Johnnie Gibson, FBI, Pandora's Clock and Jackie's Back. He has also guest starred on such popular small-screen series as MacGyver, Wiseguy, Amen, Parenthood, St. Elsewhere,Picket Fences, Judging Amy, The
Division and NYPD Blue to name a few. Lawson created the part of 'Lucas Barnes' on the soap opera All My Children.
From 1983 to 1994, Lawson helped to administrate and run the drug education, training, treatment and aftercare program for the National Basketball Association. Today he is a highly sought-after interventionist and continues to counsel people all over the country.
Lawson has been a teacher at the Beverly Hills Playhouse for twenty-five years and a student for thirty years.
His training took him from a B.A. in theatre from the University of New Hampshire to studying Shakespeare in Performance at Cambridge University in England. After graduating, he backpacked through Europe by himself. He landed in Avignon in the south of France. There he studied French, one of his other passions. "I have this incredible passion for the French culture and language. My dream is to be fluent and to live in Paris." The initial 3-week tour turned into 4 months and, finally, he decided to return to the States to pursue his dreams. One month after landing back in New York he was in Los Angeles.
In L.A., he began his professional training with Milton Katselas at the Beverly Hills Playhouse. Since arriving, he has performed in over a dozen of L.A.’s most respected theatres, and met Zack Norman while appearing as Eugene in a critically acclaimed and award nominated production of Neil Simon’s Broadway Bound at the Hudson Theatre. ("Mann wins the audience...and captures our attention"...LA Times.) Mr. Norman brought him in to meet Henry Jaglom for the role of Barry in Festival in Cannes, which led to his first lead role in film. Regarding Festival in Cannes, he’s been quoted as saying,
"It is every actor’s goal to one day work with a director and a cast such as this one. I realized a number of dreams in doing this film. I remember one day, waiting to go to the set, and sitting around a table with Henry Jaglom and Maximilian Schell while they traded stories about their lives in art. I sat in amazement as I listened to Max tell stories of Brando and Clift. No matter what happens in my career or life this experience will remain a highlight."
On T.V. Mann has appeared in several popular shows including Friends, Party of Five, Seinfeld, King of Queens, and Las Vegas. His film work includes Frank Oz’s Bowfinger, Terry Gilliam's Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, Strange Wilderness (for Adam Sandler’s Happy Madison Productions), and is currently starring in Steven Rothblatt’s Oh Baby.
In recent years, Alex has turned his attention towards his newest passion – directing. In 2004, he directed Eric Bogosian’s Suburbia, for which he won the Ticket Holder Award for Best Director. He followed that with several critical and box office successes – Neil Labute’s Autobahn, John Patrick Shanley’s Savage in Limbo, and the world premier of the highly touted award winning play by Bruce J. Robinson, Another Vermeer. He is currently signed to direct the 2005 runner up for the Pulitzer Prize, The Clean House by Sarah Ruhl. Recently, he made his first venture into filmmaking with his two shorts Benny and Love & Marriage.
He is a 17-year student of Milton Katselas and is thrilled to be continuing his teaching. He currently resides in L.A. with his wife, Gabrielle, and baby boy, Parker.
Rick Podell has spent his career in all areas of the business - actor, writer, producer, director, and teacher. Rick's theatre career began by being hired by Andrew Lloyd Webber to be the original narrator in the musical Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat.
Rick went on to do such Broadway shows as Evita, Company, Two by Two, Sugar, The Fantasticks, Chapter Two, and most recently co-starred as one of the original Broadway cast members of Sunset Boulevard, opposite Glenn Close and Betty Buckley.
Rick has starred in over 75 episodic television shows, including a year on Days of Our Lives, and has co-starred in movies opposite such stars as Anne Archer and Melanie Griffith.
Also a stand-up comedian, Rick has played Las Vegas and around the world, opening for such stars as Cher, Tina Turner, Jerry Lee Lewis, Mac Davis, The Mills Brothers, and George Benson. He was the first American comedian ever to perform in South Africa.
As a writer, Rick wrote during the golden era at MTM, the home of such shows as The Mary Tyler Moore Show and others. His screenwriting break came when he wrote the script for Nothing in Common, starring Tom Hanks and Jackie Gleason. His most recent script was for the CBS Movie Gleason, starring Brad Garrett.
Actor, musician, writer, and producer Michael Petted studied with Milton Katselas in his master class for many years. He was directed by Milton in the play Tea and Sympathy, which he considers one of his most formative artistic experiences.
Michael was nominated for the Ovation Award (L.A.’s Tony Award) for Best Actor for his portrayal of Ray in Lone Star with Don Swayze. That same year he starred in another Ovation Award nominated play: A Gift From Heaven with Beth Grant. He was also named Backstage West’s Stage Spot Performer for his turn as Pony in Eric Bogosian’s Suburbia, and received critical acclaim for his performance as Tommy in the John Patrick Shanley play The Dreamer Examines His Pillow.
On television he has worked with George Clooney, Donal Logue, and Kevin Corrigan. Most recently he played one of the lead roles in the film Mayor Cupcake, opposite Lea Thompson and Judd Nelson. As a musician and songwriter Michael has produced and played drums in many successful touring bands.
He is very passionate about teaching at the Beverly Hills Playhouse.
Robert started working professionally at age eleven at The Sharon Playhouse. The next several years included training with Jack O'Brien (Old Globe Theater) and Tony Richardson (British National Theater) and some 60 stage productions from Connecticut to San Diego.
After taking a break to do a some globe trotting, Robert arrived in LA to begin learning about Film and TV. He has appeared in Twin Peaks, The Larry Sanders Show, Port Charles and starred in the BBC made for TV movie, Murder, Too. Other film credits include the controversial Don's Plum with Leonardo DiCaprio & Tobey Maguire and Working Trash with Ben Stiller. Rob also worked onstage at The Matrix Theater in the all star cast of The Tavern and received very strong reviews for his performance as the lead in Prelude to a Kiss.
Robert first came to the Playhouse in 1991 and, in the words of one his teachers, 'found [his] home.' Over the next decade plus, he dedicated himself not only to his studies, but to the other students' growth, as well. He is fascinated with the process of actors discovering what elements of the teaching work best for them. Working in as many as seven classes per week, Robert has helped guide literally hundreds of students to the rewards offered by Milton Katselas' technique and vision of 'a room full of stars.'