The Completely Ridiculous Team

Meet The Completely Ridiculous Team

Ato Blankson-Wood

Faculty, Character and Energetics

Ato (he/him/his) is an actor, theatre-maker, and educator based in Los Angeles.

Broadway: Slave Play (Tony Award nomination), Hair and Lysistrata Jones. Off-Broadway: The Rolling Stone at Lincoln Center Theater (Drama League Award nomination), Slave Play at NYTW (Lortel Award nomination), The Total Bent at The Public (Drama League and Lortel Award nominations), The Public Works’ Twelfth Night and As You Like It, Transfers at MCC, Antigone in Ferguson at the Harlem Stage, The Foundry Theatre’s O, Earth, and Iphigenia in Aulis at ‪CSC. Film/TV: Worth, BlacKkKlansman, ‪The Kindergarten Teacher, Detroit, It’s Kind of a Funny Story, “When They See Us” (Netflix), “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel” (Amazon), “She’s Gotta Have It” (Netflix), and “The Good Fight” (CBS).

Ato is on the faculty of the Playwrights Horizons Theater School, a member of The Actors Center, and a graduate of NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts and the Yale School of Drama.

Tracy Einstein

Faculty, Alexander Technique

Tracy Einstein (she/her/hers) is an Alexander Technique Teacher and movement educator for individuals and groups who seek to discover sustainable movement, power, and creative action. Her style as an educator dances at the intersection of embodiment, mindful practice, play, and community. She currently practices at the Balance Arts Center and at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts, where she facilitates AT, movement, and mask classes. She has completed pedagogical training with Christopher Bayes (Theatrical Clown), Lincoln Center Education (Teaching Artistry) and the Balance Arts Center (Alexander Technique), where she completed the 1600 hr AmSAT certified Teacher Training Course under the mentorship of Ann Rodiger. She's taught movement for the Public Theater, ASTEP, LeAp NYC, and Redbull Theater Company. She maintains a private practice in Brooklyn, Manhattan and online.

Ralf Jean-Pierre

Faculty, Improv

Ralf Jean-Pierre (he/him/his) is a first generation Haitian-American performance-artist born and raised in Brooklyn, NY. He earned a BFA in Performing Arts from the Savannah College of Art and Design, and is currently teaching Clown at Brooklyn College and Columbia University's MFA Acting program.

Ralf completed the improv program at People’s Improv Theater, studying with teachers like Chris Griggs and Ali Farahnakian, the legendary Centralia. He also apprenticed for two years with world-renowned master clown, Eric Davis, and studied clown with Christopher Bayes and Virginia Scott, formerly of The Funny School of Good Acting.

Ralf spent most of 2012 riding his bicycle around the United States performing his solo repertoire of Street Shakespeare scenes in which he played all the characters. The show was developed with his collaborator Jolie Tong. In 2017 Ralf debuted a one-man show, called WHAT SHOULD BE THE FEAR, that chronicled this tour, co-written and directed by Jolie, and produced by Ralf and BK Wildlife.

Ralf has also performs music as Precious Gorgeous. He is part of a NY based artists’ collective known as the #BlackGodPantheon. In 2019-2020 he released three albums, Tryna Get My Live Together, Everyone Dies From a Bullet vol 1, and TRIP, all of which Ralf wrote and produced.

Ralf has most recently sat in with acclaimed NYC hip-hop improv teams OffTop and North Coast as a featured player, coached PIT house-team, At the Diner.

You can find Ralf's music, comedy and additional content at www.preciousgorgeousralf.com

Chalia La Tour

Faculty, Sourcing Self

Chalia La Tour (she/her/hers) is a 2020 Tony nominee for her work in the critically acclaimed Broadway production of Slave Play and a recipient of the inaugural Antonyo award for Best Featured Actor in a Broadway Play. Originally from Stockton, California, La Tour is a multi disciplinary artist in theatre, television, film and visual art. She is committed to work that promotes social justice and the intersections of humanity. Film: The Future is Bright , Love Repeat and Three Pregnant Men. The Future is Bright had the honor of screening at the inaugural Smithsonian African American Film Festival. TV: The Good Fight , The Code and Elementary on CBS. Off-Broadway: Slave Play (New York Theatre Workshop), The Review or How to Eat Your Opposition (Women's Theatre Project), The Danger: An Homage to Strange Fruit (JACK). Regional: Cadillac Crew (Yale Repertory Theatre), Cymbeline (Yale Repertory Theatre) La Tour is an alumna of the Yale School of Drama MFA Acting program and The British American Dramatic Academy. For more information on her work follow @chalialatour on Instagram.

Annelise Lawson

Faculty, Russian Études

Annelise Lawson (she/her/hers) is a New York-based actress and theatre-maker. Recent credits include Anna in Babes in the Woods (world premier, Signature Theater), Edmund in King Lear (Here Arts Center), Helena in MIDSUMMER (The Araca Project), and Masha in Dmitry Krymov’s √3 Sisters (International Festival of Arts & Ideas). Other theatre credits include Arcadia (Yale Repertory Theatre); The Last Act (world premier, Israeli Stage); I Should Have a Party for the Thoughts I Didn’t Say (Source Material Collective); The Oresteia, Our Lady of 121st Street, The Troublesome Reign of King John, The Tempest, In Arabia We’d All Be Kings (Yale School of Drama); Middletown (Yale Summer Cabaret); The Secretaries, (Yale Cabaret); The Madness of Edgar Allan Poe (First Folio). Film: Close-Up (NY Indie Theater Film Festival Winner). Annelise holds certificates in acting from the Moscow Art Theatre School & the British American Drama Academy, and is a graduate of the iO training program in Chicago. As a teacher, Annelise’s work focuses on developing technique and style through students’ personal sense of fun. Her areas of expertise include Clown, Commedia dell’arte, and the Russian Étude method – an improvisatorial rehearsal tool designed unleash an actor’s imagination into the world of the text. She teaches Chekhov at the Yale School of Drama, The New School for Drama, and the Stella Adler Studio. She has also taught at New York University Tisch School of the Arts, The Shakespeare Academy at Stratford, and The Pandemonium Studio.

Gabriel Levey

Artistic Director
Faculty: Acting as Play & The Fun of Failure

The Founding Artistic Director of Completely Ridiculous Productions and head of the Completely Ridiculous Conservatory, Gabriel Levey (he/him/his) is an actor/teacher/maker/producer living in Northampton, MA.

For the last 4 years Gabe has been teaching Clown, Physical Acting and Shakespeare as Play at NYU, Tisch School of the Arts. He also teaches Acting as Play at The Pandemonium Studio as a founding faculty member alongside his mentor of the past 12 years, Christopher Bayes. In addition, Gabe has led classes and workshops at The Berkshire Theatre Group, Smith College, Amherst College, and The Yale Summer Acting Conservatory, among others. Gabe also works as a private coach, specializing in graduate school audition prep. So far Gabe has helped his clients get accepted at the Yale School of Drama, NYU Grad Acting, Columbia, CalArts, UCSD, Brown, RADA, Guildhall, as well as call backs at every major MFA program in America.

With a focus on actor training and the creation and production of new works of theatrical comedy, Gabe founded Completely Ridiculous Productions in the fall of 2019. After producing three live shows at the Northampton Center for the Arts, the pandemic hit and everything shut down. It was at this point that Gabe created The Completely Ridiculous Conservatory, a six week program that, in less than a year, has served over 65 students from all over the world.

A maker of theatrical comedy, Gabe's original work includes, Dwellicle 109 (IRT); Brainsongs, or the play about the dinosaur farm (Yale Cabaret); And now we do LINDBERGH’S FLIGHT by Bertolt Brecht (Yale Cabaret); The Most Beautiful Thing in the World (Yale Cabaret/Boston University/Cloud City); How to Help the Self Needs Help with Carol A. Jantsen (The Peoples Improv Theater); and most recently A Super Serious and Not at All Funny Reading of Stories I Wrote After Brain Surgery, which kicked off Completely Ridiculous Productions first season of new work at the Northampton Center for the Arts.

Annie Piper

Faculty, Wellness Practice

Annie Piper (she/her/hers) teaches at Kula Yoga in Tribeca, The Shala and Prema Yoga in Brooklyn. She is on the movement faculty at NYU's Tisch School of Graduate Acting and The Yale School of Drama. She is the co- teacher of 'The Open Voice' with Jessie Austrian at NYU's Gallatin School. She is certified to teach trauma-sensitive yoga by both the Trauma Center in Boston and with the national organization Warriors at Ease, and continues to bring yoga to veterans throughout the New York area. She has served on the faculty at the Brown University / Trinity Rep Consortium as well as undergraduate Theater Studies at NYU. Formerly an actor and director, She received an MFA in Acting from The University of Minnesota and a BA in Theater from Oberlin College. She certified to teach in 1997 at OM yoga, and studies Qi Gong with Thomas Droge. She is also a Reiki practitioner based in Brooklyn, New York.

Devin Shacket

Director of Program Design
Faculty: Embodying Circumstances

Devin Shacket (she/her/hers) is an acting teacher, audition coach, actress, casting director, founder/artistic director of The New York Drama Center and Director of Program Design at Completely Ridiculous.

She began her career as a casting assistant and quickly found herself working on Season II of the popular Netflix series, House of Cards, under the mentorship of Emmy Award winning casting director, Julie Schubert. While working in casting, Devin began teaching on-camera audition technique and coaching auditions, which she continues to do today.

Devin departed a full-time career in casting in 2013, to pursue her own acting training, studying with many of the best teachers in NYC and around the world. In addition to completing the two year Meisner training program with Terry Knickerbocker, and attending BADA, she has studied with Olympia Dukakis, Patsy Rodenburg, Larry Moss, Janet Zarish, Jim Calder, Tessa Lang, Fay Simpson, Christopher Bayes, Philippe Gaulier, Aitor Basauri, and many others.

In 2016 Devin founded The New York Drama Center, a nomadic acting center which offers access to master acting teachers (who mainly teach at exclusive MFA programs), and their proteges. She continues to design the programming for The New York Drama Center, committed to offering unique and high quality training opportunities to all actors.

Today, Devin focuses her energies on teaching and coaching, running her own private on-camera studio in NYC and also teaching advanced acting at The New Studio on Broadway at Tisch School of the Arts. To date, her students and private coaching clients have appeared on over 30 different NYC based t.v. shows, in off broadway and regional theatre productions, in feature length and short films, and in web series. She also has a student who was recently accepted to the acting MFA programs at NYU Graduate Acting and Yale School of Drama!

Arturo Luis Soria

Faculty, Actor as Generator

Arturo Luis Soria (he/him/his) is an actor and playwright with family roots in Brazil, Italy, Ecuador, and the Dominican Republic. He recently made his Broadway debut in The Inheritance by Matthew Lopez and directed by Stephen Daldry. Hilton Als of The New Yorker likened Arturo to “a young Al Pacino” for his portrayal of Tano in the World Premiere of Hit the Wall by Ike Holter at the Steppenwolf Garage Theatre and, subsequently, off-Broadway at the Barrow Street Theatre.

As a writer, Arturo wrote his own solo show NI MI MADRE that was performed at festivals around Chicago, a one night only event at Barrow Street Theatre in NYC, and at Yale Cabaret. In 2015, it received the Luso-American Scholarship at the DisQuiet International Literary Program in Lisbon, Portugal. He studied under the notable Portuguese-American writer Katherine Vaz.

His most recent play NOVIOS examines the lives of kitchen workers in an upscale restaurant in a nameless city. It addresses issues around citizenship, honor, class, race, ancestry, machismo, homoeroticism, and power.. NOVIOS: Part One received a workshop production at Yale Cabaret.

Arturo holds a BFA in acting from The Theatre School at DePaul University and an MFA in acting from the Yale School of Drama.

Storm Thomas

Faculty, Theater as Encounter: Towards an Anti-Racist Theater

Storm Thomas is a black-mixed trans/gnc writer, drummer and multi-hyphenate artist from Los Angeles who plays many instruments (drums, guitar, piano, mandolin, midi, etc.) and writes experimental, process-based, afro-futurist musicals: Notes on the Past (Trans Theater Fest), Ancient Future (in-house production, Polyphone Festival), and Be Like Bone (in progress). Storm is a co-founder of the performance collective Theater, But Dance. MFA, Sarah Lawrence College; undergraduate, UC Santa Cruz & CUNY Empire State. Proud member of Rainbow Theater & The African American Theater Arts Troupe (UCSC). Teaching: Black Musical Theater (Uarts), Music for Performance (Playwrights/NYU), New Musical Theater Lab beg. & adv (Uarts), Theater of the Oppressed NYC (Red Hook, Housing Works), Dreamyard (Musical Theater Factory). Dramaturgy: Orchid Receipt Service (Theater Mitu), Guys and Dolls (Uarts), Noise (The Public Theater, workshop). Workshops: Elementary Spacetime Show (Ars Nova), Revolt. She Said. Revolt Again. (Soho Rep), The Temple (Phreak and Queer Festival, PhilaMOCA), Merced de Papel (Vox Theater Festival, Dartmouth College), Parade Ground (Fresh Ground Pepper). Performances: Heather Christian’s Animal Wisdom Album Recording, Streep Show (Connelly Theater), Individual World Poetry Slam (Finals Stage), The Skin of Our Teeth (TFANA), Futurity (Soho Rep/Ars Nova), Obie Awards 2017, Lexus Verses & Flow Season 3 Episode 1 feat. Jill Scott, guest speaker at The Immersive Design Summit on Participation and Agency (Associate Director, The Universe is a Small Hat). Storm is currently in residence with Musical Theater Factory Cohort II and will be teaching Queer Musical Theater at NYU/Tish Drama in the fall.

Zenzi Williams

Faculty, Monologues from BIPOC Playwrights

Zenzi Williams (she/her/hers) received her MFA from Yale School of Drama, has a BA in theater from Temple University and studied at the British American Dramatic Academy at Oxford.

Zenzi is currently a Course Facilitator in Executive Presence at Cornell University and owns Zen Taping Space, a self taping business for actors in New York City.

Her credits include Broadway: The Crucible. Off-Broadway: runboyrun (NYTW), Lockdown (Rattlestick), School Girls (MCC Theater), Henry V (The Public), The Homecoming Queen (Atlantic Theater Company), Mother Courage and Her Children (Classic Stage Company). Regional: Imogen Says Nothing (Yale Repertory Theatre). Film&TV: “Chicago Fire,” “Blue Bloods,” “The Good Fight,” “The Defenders,” “Daredevil,” “Black Panther,” "The Mess He Made".

KT Grindeland

Studio Manager

KT Grindeland (they/them/theirs) is a nonbinary actor, educator, and artist located in Boston, MA. In New York, they have worked as an Artistic Intern with New York Theatre Workshop and as an Administrative Fellow with Global Art Corps, and with ArtsEmerson in both the Marketing and Creative Producing Department. In Boston they have acted, written, and designed with Boston Playwrights' Theatre, Commonwealth Shakespeare Company, Fresh Ink Theatre, Merrimack Repertory Theatre, New Repertory Theatre, Speakeasy Stage Company and more. They have toured with Olney Theatre Center as a National Player, and regionally with New Repertory Theatre while serving as both an actor and educational manager. They have taught acting workshops across the country. KT has also taught at Zoos, Senate House Replicas, and more. Education: Emerson College '16 (BA: Theatre Education & Acting). Website: www.katiegrindeland.com

Gregory Saint Georges

Director of Outreach and Enrollment

Gregory Saint Georges (he/them) is a New York based actor: born in Brooklyn, schooled in Queens and later New Haven. They are a recent graduate of Yale School of Drama, where you may have seen them in Yale Repertory Theater productions such as GIRLS; Brandon Jacobs-Jenkins or in productions on the main stage like SHOOT HER, SHOOTER; Margaret Douglas, TROUBLE IN MIND; Alice Childress, HENRY V PART III, or IN HIS HANDS OR THE GAY CHRISTIAN PLAY; Ben Benne and many others.

Guest Artists

Anne Tofflemire

NOW SING IT THE FUNNY WAY

Anne Tofflemire (she/her/hers) was raised in Northern California, where she starred in the long running San Francisco productions of Side by Side by Sondheim and Rap Master Ronnie; there she was discovered by the Academy Award winning lyricist Sammy Cahn, with whom she toured nationally and internationally in his Sammy Cahn: Words and Music. Her other theater credits include Peter Pan opposite Cathy Rigby, Maria in West Side Story, A Little Night Music, and Mama Rose in Gypsy. A winner of the Backstage Bistro Award for Outstanding Vocalist, Anne has appeared in New York at Birdland, Firebird Café, Delmonico’s, the Cabaret Convention at Town Hall, and Eighty Eights, at the Plush Room in San Francisco, and at the Gardenia in Los Angeles. Her CD, Let’s Face the Music, was released by Harbinger Records. She teaches at the National Theater Institute, Neighborhood Music School, and Yale School of Drama as well as privately.

Kareem Lucas

GETTING UN-LOST

Kareem M. Lucas (he/him/his) is a Brooklyn-born and Harlem-based Actor/Writer/Producer/Director/Educator. His solo pieces include The Maturation of an Inconvenient Negro (or iNEGRO), From Brooklyn With Love, RATED BLACK: An American Requiem, A Boy & His Bow, A Warm Winter, and Black Is Beautiful, But It Ain’t Always Pretty. He has performed his solo work at The Greene Space, Aaron Davis Hall at City College, The Town Hall, Fire This Time Festival, IRT Theater, The Slipper Room, Teatro Circulo, Judson Arts Wednesdays, Hi-ARTS, AFO Theater, JACK, HERE Arts Center, New York Theatre Workshop, The Public Theater, among others. His show “Black Is Beautiful, But It Ain’t Always Pretty” will have it’s World Premiere at The Woolly Mammoth Theatre in their upcoming 2020-2021 season. He is an inaugural Jerome Hill Artist Fellow and a NYTW 2050 Playwriting Fellow. He has taught at the NYU Tisch Graduate Acting Program, the Classical Theatre of Harlem, 52nd Street Project, among others; in addition to coaching privately for the last 10 years. MFA: NYU Graduate Acting Program. For more info you can visit www.KareemMLucas.com or follow him on Instagram @KareemMLucas

Kate Owens

Make S#!T

Kate Owens (she/her/hers) is a NYC-based, award-winning comedy actor, writer, and clown known for her commitment to characters and physical comedy style. She can be seen performing her critically-acclaimed character show, “Cooking with Kathryn,” throughout New York (UCB, The PIT, The Tank) as well as the PortFringe Festival (Critics Choice), the FRIGID Festival (Best Physical Comedy, Audience Choice). She has toured comedy shows in the U.K., Prague, and is a professionally trained clown (Cirque du Soleil databank, Ecole Philippe Gaulier). She has taught acting and clown at the Hudson Valley Conservatory and Improvisation and Shakespeare at the Alabama Shakespeare Festival.
www.kate-owens.com
ig: kate__owens

Paul Pryce

BIPOC PLAYS OF 2018-2019: A SCENE STUDY CLASS

Paul (he/him/his) is on the MFA Acting faculty at Brooklyn College and he is the Director of the Hagen Core Training and the Hagen Summer Intensive. Has taught master classes and workshops at Yale, NYU Tisch, M.I.T. Music & Theatre, Amherst College, New York Film Academy as well as universities and acting studios in Puerto Rico, Trinidad and Tobago and South Korea. He is a proud member of the National Alliance of Acting Teachers and The Actors Center. He earned an M.F.A in Acting from the Yale School of Drama. As an actor he appeared on recent television shows like Marvel’s Jessica Jones on Netflix, Unforgettable on A+E and on stage playing iconic roles in Shakespeare’s Hamlet, Julius Caesar, Othello, Pericles among others. He has performed in numerous plays across the United States and internationally. As writer and producer, Paul’s debut film COME OUT, COME OUT World Premiered at 2017 Cannes Short Film Corner and his sophomore project THE DELIVERER has screened at multiple film festivals around the world. His original television series SERPENTS MOUTH won Best Pitch and the Audience Award at the 2018 Toronto International Film Festival. Paul was born and raised in Trinidad and Tobago.

Christopher Tramantana

GAMES

Tramantana (he/him/his) is an actor, director, and educator. A proud member of Actors’ Equity Association and SAG-AFTRA, he has acted professionally in theatre, film, and television. He teaches Clown, Games, and Play at NYU's Tisch School of the Arts and Westminster Choir College at Rider University. He has also taught at The Graduate Acting Program at University of Tennessee in Knoxville, The Funny School of Good Acting, The John DeSotelle Studio in NYC, Queensborough Community College, and more. Some of the masters he has studied with include Jane Nichols, Aitor Basauri, and Jim Calder; head of Movement for The NYU Tisch graduate acting program. But the most life changing experience occurred when he met Christopher Bayes; master teacher of Clown and head of Physical Acting at Yale School of Drama. He trained in Clown and Commedia d’ell Arte extensively with Bayes at The Funny School of Good Acting, before being personally invited to work with him as his teaching apprentice. Tramantana assisted Bayes at Yale School of Drama, The Juilliard School, and The Funny School of Good Acting, and is one of a small number of teachers Bayes has mentored. Directing credits include A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Metamorphoses, Our Town, You Can’t Take It With You, Antigone, Sweeney Todd, and Into The Woods. Christopher holds a BA in Performance from Fordham College at Lincoln Center and an MFA in Acting from The University of Tennessee, Knoxville.

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