Directing Actors Workshop

Join us on Friday November 20th 2pm PT for a Directing Actors workshop led by Film Fatales member Adrienne Weiss (Love, Ludlow) and actors Candice Jean-Jacques (Hunters) and Ellie Foumbi (Suicide by Sunlight).

How do you get the best out of your actors? How do you fix a performance that’s off? Directing Actors founder Adrienne Weiss developed The Tools, a method that gives directors the skills they need to correctly diagnose what’s wrong with performances and swiftly make them great.

RSVP HERE

If you missed the event, no worries! You can catch up on past events and watch HERE

A graduate of Yale, Adrienne began as a theater director but became a filmmaker after realizing that in film she could combine her two great passions – powerful images and raw, intimate performances. Love, Ludlow, her debut feature film, premiered at Sundance ’05 and starred David Eigenberg (Sex and the City) Brendan Sexton III (Boys Don’t Cry, Russian Doll) and Alicia Goranson (Roseanne). Robert Ebert praised the film as “Sundance treasure” and the film went on to win the Humanitas Prize, Best Screenplay at Method Fest, screen at over 30 festivals worldwide, was released by Time/Warner DVD and broadcast on Sundance Channel, Starz and many other cable networks. Adrienne has written and is currently in development with Oscar winning producer Cathy Schulman (Crash, The Illusionist) for her second feature film, FREE. After coaching Joan Cusack to her Oscar nominated performance in In and Out, Adrienne began work as a Directing Actors consultant for feature films, television and commercials. Favorite projects include Lost Girls (Amy Ryan, Gabriel Byrne, Netflix), I Carry You With Me (Heidi Ewing, Sony Pictures Classics, 2020) and Down in The Valley (Edward Norton, Evan Rachel Wood, Ellen Burstyn) and is currently in pre-pro on The Farnsworth House (Ralph Fiennes, Elizabeth Debicki) and Silverton Siege (Mandla Dube, Netflix). Adrienne has also consulted on multiple episodes of Betty (HBO), Girls, Ray Donovan, American Horror Story, Orange is the New Black, 30 Rock, Damages, In Treatment and Law & Order among many others, as well as with commercial production companies including The Mill, missing pieces, and on campaigns for Nike, Hyundai and Miu-Miu among others. For over 20 years Adrienne has taught private Directing Actors workshops in New York, Los Angeles and London. She has taught for the last ten years at the Columbia University Film Program and prior to that, for seven years at the NYU Grad Film program. Prior to her work in film, Adrienne directed numerous theater productions at venues including The New York Shakespeare Festival, Circle Rep, The Women’s Project, Naked Angels and La Mama. With composer Carter Burwell (Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri, No Country for Old Men) she co-founded the theater company The Sticking Place and together she and Burwell co-wrote and she directed a series of music theater pieces. She also directed the premiere of the jazz opera Golem at the Hoebbel Theater in Berlin, and a series of classic American musicals in Poland.

Ellie Foumbi is an actor/filmmaker whose work has been featured on several award-winning short films, including her own Columbia thesis film, Zenith, which was nominated for an African Movie Academy Award and the recent Sundance darling Suicide by Sunlight. Other film credits include the daring new feature, American Thief, which is currently in select theaters.

Candice Jean-Jacques is an actress and writer whose love for telling stories carried her from the island of Haiti to the United States, in pursuit of an acting career. Candice studied at Towson University in Baltimore, Maryland where she graduated with a B.A in Theatre. Ms. Jean-Jacques then moved to New York where she attended Circle in The Square Theatre School. This passionate actress, fluent in three languages, is currently a proud member of The John Anthony Acting Studio, under the tutelage of Mr. John Anthony. Her New York stage performances include Inez in Stephen Adly Guirgis’ Our Lady of 121st Street, Marci in John Cariani’s Almost, Maine and Edith in Lanford Wilson’s Ike, Ike, Nye, Nye, Nye. Ms. Jean-Jacques is equally at home in front of the camera as she is on stage and has performed in numerous independent short and feature-length films. She is featured in the Academy Award nominated documentary I Am Not Your Negro. You can also see Candice on the Amazon Prime show Hunters. She has recently booked a co-star role on an NBC weekly series.