The Actors Center

The Actors Center provides actors with extraordinary creative opportunities designed to advance their artistic development, spark innovation, and cultivate transcendent works of art on stage, on screen, and in communities throughout the United States.

Through our creative residency programs, artist development workshops, advanced training opportunities, and mentorship, we are a leading advocate for the highest levels of excellence in the craft of acting and the theatre, film, and television industries.

Over the past 29 years we have supported the artistic development of 650 leading professional actors as members of our acclaimed Resident Company, 200 graduates of our Teacher Development Program, and nearly 3,000 alumni of our studio classes and conservatory programs, while hosting 200 of the most respected artistic leaders, teachers, and guest artists from the United States and around the world.

In 2024, we launched a groundbreaking Mentorship Program for early career actors.The program connects them with our esteemed Resident Company for support and guidance, empowering them to forge careers that are not only successful, but sustainable, fulfilling, and reflective of their values.

At the foundation of our work is the belief that actors have a profound role to play in sustaining a thriving, equitable, and culturally prosperous society, and that respecting an actor’s artistic contributions necessitates valuing their creative process and investing in their long-term development.

We seek to enable actors to have the greatest possible positive impact in their communities by inspiring and empowering them to unleash their full creative and artistic potential in service of a more compassionate, connected, collaborative, and courageous world.

Through our work, we reinforce the actor’s consequential responsibility of bringing our diverse and vital stories to life—as actors have for thousands of years—to deepen our humanity, reflect our history, and shape our collective future.

Our Resident Company

The cornerstone of The Actors Center is our Resident Company—a one-of-a-kind, ongoing, creative residency program for a diverse collective of 300 actors and theater artists, leaders in the field who work regularly throughout theatre, film, and television.

Unlike most other creative disciplines, actors are rarely afforded artistic residencies, creative development workshops, or grant programs, and instead most often work within increasingly truncated and result-oriented production environments.

More than just skilled labor for hire, actors are essential collaborators in any creative team, equally responsible for developing inspired and original creative work. The Actors Center exists to counteract an underinvestment in actors by providing them dedicated time and space essential to their creative development and the cultivation of transformational works of art.

Each season we invite 30 faculty and guest artists—prominent teachers, actors, directors, filmmakers, and playwrights—to work alongside our resident artists in 400 hours of development workshops. Importantly, our work relies on no single aesthetic, methodology, or creative approach, allowing company members to have full ownership of their own creative process and to collaborate with any of the faculty and guest artists we host.

Spanning almost seven decades in age and a broad range of professional and cultural backgrounds, our resident artists and their collective interests vary widely. This intergenerational dynamic sustains our unique community and is central to our work, providing an unparalleled environment in which actors can innovate, create new work, and advance the evolution of their craft alongside a community of peers and in collaboration with some of the greatest artistic leaders from around the world.

A National Impact

In the past five years alone, members of our resident company have worked in more than 33 Broadway shows, 114 television series, 48 major feature films, collaborated with 81 non-profit theater companies in New York City, and performed in regional theaters across 37 states. They have also taught in more than 38 universities, independent studios, and public school programs.

With this national reach, The Actors Center is uniquely positioned to elevate the integrity and artistic standards of acting as well as our theatre, film, and television industries. Our members carry forward in their careers the countless creative discoveries and sources of inspiration they’ve uncovered in our studios, enhancing work witnessed by millions of audience members and students each year, and helping our society, arts, and culture truly thrive.

Mentoring The Next Generation

In 2024, we launched a new Mentorship Program. The 8-month initiative builds upon the diverse, intergenerational, and interdisciplinary dynamic of our existing Resident Company. Each year, the program offers a cohort of 16 early career actors a unique opportunity to help bridge the crucial gap between their training and a sustainable, fulfilling career by providing artistic development and mentorship from an unparalleled network of seasoned professionals from our Resident Company.

The program encourages actors to begin thinking as artists—inviting them to ask deeper questions of themselves, their peers, and the industry, while cultivating a dedication to process, artistic integrity, and defining their own set of values to work from over the course of their career.