Our Approach
Complete actors have a variety of tools at their command - an expressive and impulsive physical instrument, a strong understanding of text analysis, and heightened powers of concentration, imagination and emotional expression.
There are specialized classes you can take that focus on specific aspects of your craft - and you should take those classes. You should acquire as many tools as possible. But sometimes you need a place to put them all together; to get them working in sync. We offer a place to help you do that.
We like to think of the complete actor - a fully connected actor - as working from three interconnected aspects of the craft. The first aspect, which we call “Brain,” involves everything you need to address WHY things are happening in a script. They include script analysis (uncovering circumstances, actions, objective, relationships, etc) as well as any external research that is needed. Essentially, any world-building you are required to do before showing up at the audition or rehearsal.
“Body” is next. That's breath, voice & speech, movement: physical expression. Your instrument is all you have. How much of it can you play? Maybe you have some training - dance, yoga, Alexander, voice coaching, M. Chekhov, Suzuki among other things. Our job is to help you better utilize what you know in service of the script as well as identify what aspects of your instrument you may need to address to keep you open, relaxed and connected to yourself and to others.
Finally, there is “Being.” Being is essentially HOW things happen. It is your moment-to-moment truth. It is the result of listening fully and in context. Your imagination lives here. Your access to emotional life is here. Being can be thought of as how the work of Brain and Body synthesize into performance.
BRAIN identifies and builds connections.
BODY provides the access to absorb those connections and the freedom to respond
BEING is the truthful expression of those responses in action and in context
Through group exercises, scenes and monologues, and the individualized work of breaking bad habits, we help you open up greater possibilities in your craft, we will help you on your journey toward being a more complete actor.
We also invite directors who want to deepen their understanding of acting work or who want to practice aspects of their own craft in a safe, respectful and judgement free space.
The Team
Who We Are
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10-week Course
One-on-One Online
One-on-One In Person
Rico Rosetti
Company Director & Lead Instructor
Rico Rosetti has been acting, directing and training actors for over two decades. He is currently the lead acting teacher at The New York Film Academy where he teaches BFA classes in the Acting For Film and Filmmaking departments. He also teaches Voice and Speech in NYFA’s school of Journalism.
Past teaching credits include classes or workshops at Rutgers University, The Pratt institute, UW-Milwaukee, Delaware County Community College, in Media, PA, The Acting Studio in Philadelphia, and The Mississippi Summer Arts Institute.
He has directed plays in many places across the country, with a focus on new works, including the award-winning A Gentleman From Mississippi, which debuted Off-Broadway and toured nationally, as well as the New York premieres of Lia Romeo’s Green Whales And 5Boys.Org by Simona Semenič.
Rico was a founding member in several regional companies including The Actor’s Lab Theatre of Philadelphia, The Acting Studio in Philadelphia, and Cornerstone Theater Co in Milwaukee. TV acting credits include Law & Order (prime), Homicide: Life on the Streets, The Guiding Light and All My Children. Other acting credits abound, primarily in regional theater and off-off Broadway. Rico received his MFA in Acting from Rutgers, Mason Gross School of the Arts.
Laila Matuk
CEO & Instructor
Laila is a New York City-based actor and writer born in Mexico City. With a background in dance and 18+ years of theater training, Laila is a fellow recipient of the New York Film Academy’s Talent-Based Scholarship, where she graduated Suma Cum Lade with a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Acting for Film.
She has experience both in stage and film, most notably as Juliet in Romeo and Juliet (dir. Juan Carlos Roldán) presented in Mexico City and Candace in the off-off-Broadway production of The Bookstore (dir. Diana Henry) presented in New York City. In film, she most recently starred as Mare in the short film Dust (dir. Micah Spayer) and Emma in Negatives (dir. Natalia Vignolo).
As a writer, Laila has placed, alongside her co-writer Lily Malm, as a Finalist at the Austin Film Festival and in The American Zoetrope Screenwriting Contest, Top 5 in Final Draft’s Big Break 2023 Screenwriting Contest, and won Best Screenplay at the Big Apple Film Festival with their feature screenplay "Scent of Marigold", among other accolades. Laila also won Best Screenplay at the Society of Secret Scholar’s Writing Competition for her short film “Inside” and is now working on a TV adaptation and an original graphic novel.
