Acting Coaches

Jeff Alan-Lee, Artistic Director

Jeff Alan-Lee is the Artistic Director of The Young Actor’s Studio, a top acting coach Los Angeles and the author of “A Young Actor Prepares” (published worldwide by Applause Books). He has taught and directed young people for over 30 years, both in New York and Los Angeles.

Jeff was a former child actor himself and began acting with his own television series at age 9 in Detroit, Michigan on WXYZ-TV. As a child actor, he completed over 60 commercials, a television special, and over 40 stage productions. As an adult actor, he was Andrew McCarthy’s co-star in Warner Brothers’ feature, The Beniker Gang, and on stage co-starred with Andrea McArdle in Snoopy, and worked with Broadway legend Joshua Logan in Huck & Jim on The Mississippi. Television credits includes roles on As The World Turns, The Street (Universal TV), Could it Be a Miracle and many others. Leading roles in professional regional theatres and off-Broadway include Brighton Beach Memoirs, The Lion In Winter, Auto-Da-Fe (also in Edinburgh and Ireland), Assassins, Losing It, and critical acclaim for the lead role in The Zoo Story at The Wallis Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts in Los Angeles.

Jeff has a BFA from New York University and has taught and directed at private schools, public schools, youth shelters as well as teaching and directing children and teens at The Lee Strasberg Theatre Institutes in New York and Los Angeles. He has directed over 200 studio productions, has commissioned top playwrights to create new work, and encourages kids and teens to develop their own scripted work at The New Works lab at The Young Actor’s Studio. His students include Scarlett Johansson, Shia LeBeouf, Olivia Rodrigo and countless creative artists and award winners in all areas of the performing arts.

 

Andrew Shafer, Producing Director

Andrew Shafer received his B.A. (cum laude) from UCLA School of Theater, Film, and Television (playwrighting emphasis). Recent writing credits include: Weak/Side/Help (Guignol Theater- Lexington, Kentucky), Colossus of Rhodes (Tri-State Actor’s Theater- New Jersey), Touch of Genius (Senior Theater- Washington D.C.), Checkpoint in the Safe Zone (development with Moving Arts, and Athena Theater), Electra (Theater/Theatre- Hollywood), Wonderland (The NoHo Actor’s Studio), and Infinite Glory (in development with A Theatre Connection); screenwriting credit- Hollywood Desertion (developed with Breakout Entertainment, Boulevard Industries), This Shining City (in development with Triangle Road Productions). Other credits include directing Ryan Scott Oliver’s Making Beautiful (Powerhouse Theater- LA Times “Recommended”), and producing “Portrait of the Architect in Ruins” (The New LATC), Eugene Ionesco’s “Exit the King” (The NoHo Actor’s Studio), and “Detective/Partner/Hero/Villain” (A Theatre Connection). He has been a producer of new works development at The BLANK Theater (Hollywood, California), and at the Los Angeles Theater Center. He is currently Managing Director of The Young Actor’s Studio