- Michael Howard came to see me in a show at Lincoln Center,
he said, he knocked on my door, he opened it up,
he said, "You may not remember me,"
I said, "Remember you?"
I said, "I carry you around in my pockets."
(light piano music)
- The teachers are magical human beings
and they're like magical masters
and stunningly beautiful people.
- There really was a vital role, that they all played.
- I say this in general about faculty members,
I think every single one of them
makes an amazing Pixar character.
- Oh yeah.
- And I was thinking, you know, who was my favorite teacher
and I can't tell you any one.
- They had so much to offer
and they really were a great balance.
- I still think about Chris's comedy class,
because it's an amazing class
and everybody kind of, I mean,
everybody just weeps a kind of humiliating,
kind of soul-crushing catharsis during that class.
- One of the things that's really great
about Chris and Marsha
is that they were really open-hearted.
- They were both really amazing in that way
and they shared their vulnerabilities with us
and they shared you know, their war stories and--
- And they acted like equals.
- So we had the privilege of studying theater history
with Anne, brilliant, brilliant woman.
- Kate Wilson, she's a dreamboat of a teacher,
she really is. I was able to just tell her
once again how grateful I was
for her pushing us
to learn material so quickly.
- I got to know Margot and her ferocious advocacy
on behalf of actors and classically trained actors
and classical theater in general,
so very grateful for her stewardship.
- Eve Shapiro was a guiding light for me,
she was a mentor,
she was a pillar of support.
- Ellen Lauren, (gasps)
one of the two people,
who got me to - Ellen Lauren.
- realize that I have a physical body,
that can move accordingly to,
you know, me and not the world at large.
- He doesn't care if The Tempest
in room 301 is any good,
he wants me to use this as a tool
to make myself a better actor.
- Carolyn Serota, who's one of the great teachers
I feel very blessed to have worked with,
got me to stand up straight for the first time,
I'm a tall man, so I was always apologizing for my height
and she got me to stand up straight and own my height
and it's something that I've been trying
to continue day to day ever since.
- Everybody was scared, she was scary,
because she was so good, but she didn't suffer fools gladly
and she had no time for weak, for people who were weak.
The thing you had to learn with Liz
was that the more you cowered from her,
the more she would lose respect for you
and when you finally stand up for yourself,
she'd be, "Alright then, let's keep going,
"let's go, let's go from here."
- Oh my God, she was the kindest,
gentlest, I was like a ball of wire
and she put her hands on me and I just relaxed.
She was great, she's a great teacher, you know,
a teacher is someone that pushes you
past where you think you can go.
- I mean, it was incredible, yeah,
I was scared to death of her, everybody was scared of her,
but at the same time, you weren't really scared of her,
you were scared of what she was showing to us,
you know, kind of like the Eye of Sauron going, "Theater,"
and you're like, "Oh my God, that's what it is."
- Whenever I think of Mina, I'll think of her
opening that little door next to room 304,
it's this little closet, which is this treasure trove
of like costume pieces and masks.
Whatever happens in 304, masks class was like Vegas
(laughs), you know, what happens happens.
- Deb could make anybody cry while singing
and that was sort of the thing.
She had this...she's fantastic, fabulous,
and you'd sing a song for Deb and then she'd, you know,
have you shake a chin or think of something
or move your arms and suddenly
you were sobbing while singing.
- And Kahn was like, "Kevin, when you came here,
"you had a big, red crayon and you used it for everything,
"you colored everything with your red crayon,"
and he goes, "we're not trying to tell you
"to break your red crayon or not use your red crayon,
"because that's what got you here,
"we're just offering you green, yellow, blue,
"we just want you to add colors to it,
"but don't stop doing the thing that got you here."
- And Darryl, oh God, there's not really words to...
that can, like, fully describe his aura.
He was a saving grace, energetically and spiritually.
- Oh Kathy, I love Kathy. Kathy's,
Kathy's like...
the mother of all drama beings,
and everyone would be completely screwed without her,
literally everyone, all the faculty, all the students.
She just looks out for everyone,
and it's kind of inhuman, the...
her ability to just keep going, going, going
and do so many things at once.
It's like she's a mystical being, that we all love.
- Richard Feldman again, Richard,
he used to always say, "You are enough. You are enough."
And I remember in school,
I'd be, "Yeah, yeah, yeah, I'm enough, I'm enough." Like okay,
like, you know what I mean, like "Let's get to it,
I'm enough!" and he'd just be like, "You're enough."
Now when I'm on stage
and in those quiet moments,
where I'm like revealing the deepest parts of myself,
I sometimes, I can just,
I get it, I get that I am enough.
- Moni has a way of focusing on your creativity
and your artistic being and helping you
to find the Olympian dimensions
of your own being.
The consistency of Moni's approach,
the exploration and discovery
and transmission of technique
is something that we all share,
something that binds us all together
through the generations, groups one through 50.
- When I look back at my experience,
I think about how selfless the teachers were,
how they truly did care
and how much love there was in these rooms.