Advanced Method Acting
These are advanced, professional level acting workshops.
Recommended for advanced actors seeking intensive focus. New students must audit before registering.
Advanced Method
Meets In-Person
Two Friday’s every month
6pm – 11pm
Tuition $250/Mo.
This class is designed for actors who crave a deeper connection to their work. It’s not about following the crowd but about finding your unique artistic voice. Through this process, you’ll awaken the soul of the artist within, building a strong foundation of technique that will serve you throughout your career. It’s a lifelong practice that embraces the full spectrum of your experiences—celebrating the messy, complex parts of yourself and turning them into tools for bold, fearless storytelling.
Every class includes Strasberg’s Relaxation and Sensory work, followed by intensive scene and monologue study. Together, these elements form a uniquely powerful training experience that continues to draw actors seeking the next level of their craft. Whether you’re a seasoned performer or just beginning this journey, this class offers a space to be brave, to grow, and to explore the artistry that makes you truly one of a kind.
Requirements:
meets the prerequisites to progress from Acting Technique
Prior training/professional experience
All interested actors can pursue this class by attending an audit, via registration. Current Acting Technique students can ask their coach to advise.
- Your AT instructor has clearly communicated your readiness to move to advanced training.
- Been in Acting Technique for One Year (this does not include Acting Foundations).
- Worked on at least 3 separate characters in AT (“worked” means fully developed that character over many classes – monologues and/or scenes, the same character).
- Worked on a scene in AT.
- Attended one of Brandy’s workshops OR audited one session before joining.
Schedule
1st Quarter 2025
January 10th and 24th
Feb. 7th and 21st
March: Feb. 28th and March 28th
Auditors will arrive at 7pm to observe the students working. Sensory starts at 6pm for enrolled students.
Advanced Method at Arizona Actors Academy
In these specialty classes at Arizona Actors Academy, Artistic Director Brandy Hotchner guides actors on a transformative journey through Method Acting—a technique rooted in the teachings of Lee Strasberg. This approach goes beyond surface-level performance, inviting actors to explore their deepest truths and bring unparalleled realism and authenticity to their craft.
Brandy teaches these workshops in the traditional format, nearly 100 years old, as passed down by her mentors, Barbara Poitier and Sandra Seacat—both students of Lee Strasberg and Elia Kazan. Adding her own insights and modern updates,
Brandy helps each actor discover what inspires their creativity, unlocks their empathy, and ignites a passion for bold, unapologetic artistry. Every class will include Relaxation and Sensory followed by intensive scene/monologue study. Read more below about the unique approach to both and why this training is so highly sought after.
“When you work with Brandy, the lineage is clear: Lee Strasberg to Barbara Poiter to Brandy. She creates a safe, joyous and rigorous environment found only in the classroom of a precious few coaches living today. But she doesn’t stop with just Method work. Her extensive background in classical acting is the foundation she imparts to all actors who study with her.”
Lee Strasberg’s Relaxation and Sensory
Lee Strasberg’s systematic technique of Relaxation/Sensory was 80 years ahead of its time. He had a keen understanding that the physical body held acute memory in the muscles and reflexes far greater than cognitive or narrative memory. Known today as neuro-psychology, nearly 100 years ago, it was just actors blocked by conditioning and habit, unable to freely express their inner experience externally, on stage. Our life experiences and conditioning form a powerful structure of protection against further harm by means of tensing the muscles, clenching the jaw, holding the breath and so forth. Relaxation and Sensory exercises train the actors concentration, eliminates mental and physical blocks that limit full expression and develop the senses to bring the imaginary circumstances of the play to life.
American Method Acting at Arizona Actors Academy
“I know of no other advice than this: Go within and scale the depths of your being from which your very life springs forth.”
Actors in this workshop work individually with exercises from the highly sought after and too often mis-understood American Method tool box of acting. This class is at its core a deep dive into Lee Strasberg’s Method, Sandra Seacat’s mining of the unconscious, Stella Adler’s expanding of the human spirit through imagination, and Barbara Poitier’s mastery of moment-to-moment work through research/empathy. Actors are expected to always be working on fully prepared monologues and scenes while actively looking for and introducing new material.
