Hello Aspiring Actors!

Hi Current and Future Colleagues!

Hey Toronto!

My name is Eugene Ma, and I’ve been training actors a little more than a decade. I’ve been lucky to have worked at some of the most storied institutions in this field, mainly in America. As a university acting prof, as faculty member at private studios, as private coach for known actors and as pre-production coach for film tv projects in Asia, as an activeas a composer for other directors, as a busy working actor in the American theater, as a member of the largest full time acting company in America at Oregon Shakespeare Festival, even as a dramaturg and a composer. It is from these many angles, mediums, capacitie I synthesize how I imagine a new training program, as we build this utopian Atelier on Broadview.

As a born-Canadian, who worked largely abroad my entire career, I yearn to bring useful fresh lenses that will electrify a tiny corner of Canada. One that is full of appetite, joy, flow, transparency, community, inquiry, rigor and intrinsic satisfaction. One that responsibly breeds the new best practices fit for today from the already potent training traditions, as well as attracts the students who just want the work, the craft, the knowledge, the know how, a base of inspirations and springboards we can provide with no frills, so they have the tools to lead a varied career, capable of evolution, in our field, including and beyond the Canadian context.

We focus on the individual, we care about what you are after and what you need. We will scour our networks and try to match the right techniques and the best teachers with your needs. We think actor training must be custom and evolving. Accessibility* is having space and time to listen to our students, via behavior, words and the work — and responding IN ACTION —  so we see them as three dimensional and intersectional artist/humans and track their full development. An organic process.

(And on that note, our building is not yet accessible, and we will begin to investigate solutions with the landlord and grant organizations as we grow. We are currently trying our best, stretching our resources, just to put this venture up!)

My work and current ventures are supremely inspired by my mentor Christopher Bayes (see more info under my course descriptions and bio) and the storied acting professor (and “star-maker” - he’ll probably dislike this descriptor despite its truth) Ron Van Lieu. When Ron brought me into Columbia’s Graduate Acting Program as a young professor, where I watched him - as a more progressive prof about to enter his 8th decade than the younger teachers - completely rebuild a program and question the current structures and curriculum, in his discontent with how what we teach (and how we structure that) didn’t evolved with the times, and bound by institutional limitations. He would often put his job on the line to fight for student needs. Ron has no idea, but witnessing him at work, and seeing how human and without fanfare he was in the classroom, has prompted my ideation to create a space where that investigation is possible.

To find a lab for the most progressive and contemporary training (rooted in a strong track record) that is elementally transformative for actors, old and new. A space that doesn’t require much energy in fighting the structure, a space where like-minded students and teachers alike craving similar long-term ways of working come together for similar intrinsic reasons. Context, and the composition of the room,  are elements that hold the potential for the work to become magical. When the space doesn’t just aspire to be safe, which should have some immovable boundaries and mechanism to uphold, but ultimately we want space for collective dreaming, daring and transcendence.

Recalling my days in training, I wanted to know how things worked then and there. A sure fire way to work and get work. A winning procedure. A tried and true way of working. Yet the journey is not linear, and all my peers who are being lauded in public — the names you’ve heard of and will continue to hear — are the ones focused on the work, their practice, who continue to stay curious and continue to investigate and grow. They don’t get distracted by fame or increasing resources, and grow into a life’s work. That’s what we encourage at the studio. As a performer, we just keep a practice, so when the right opportunities arise, it’s just an organic, inevitable matching process, when what you already serve is just on another platform. The news of “big breaks” and such really discounts the actual work folks put in. And most of the best folks keep their processes private, because it is. We are interested in guiding you in building YOUR personal process, based on some core principles.

We are looking for fiery artists not yet finding full tools for their expression with huge ambitions and dreams, who are beyond the dream phase and want to put in the very real time investment and action, inside and outside the classroom. Those who are deeply empowered, readily taking their agency and voice while taking responsibility for having a voice, those who can’t be quieted, those who can march to their authentic drums while being collaborative, and those with the dedication to develop craft over time. These are actors we want to train here. Not just consumers who are buying another hope, nor the type easy to manage by the institution, nor do we wish to attract a huge number of actors and just run a large machine for maximum profit. We just want to be sustainable so there can be a unique space for this very rooted practice that we do ultimately bridge to the scene and the industry interface.

In teaching, I was part of the first wave of younger teachers of colour at the so-called “A-list” programs in North America. I was witnessing and negotiating first-hand what’s required to both listen to the shifting needs of our shifting student population and industry needs. In merely seeing students in their full identities can be perceived as a threat at some institutions, that I don’t know how this work of full reckoning can begin so their full spirits can be lent to stories and characters! We assuming that no only acceptance being a given, but your unique intersectionality will be the superpower POV you intersect with the characters that will come from that instrument.

Come talk to us! Our Atelier is a fiery acting teacher’s bet on our existent systems! A space to create the “best-of” program that I wish I had access to in retrospect, yet built for tomorrow. An experiment in building a utopian, international acting school independent to bureaucracy and funding cycles to allow for more freedom and efficiency, serving only our mutual goals in the work. Also more readily bringing in the best teachers around the world with less red tapes.

This is raw and visceral hard work. Yet it is only when we are fully INVESTED that the pleasure of flow shows up, and it remains a privilege to show up to work for long hours loving your work. And I want to share that wonderful ultimate sensation with my budding, future peers. Possibly you, who are reading this.

With all my love,

Eugene Ma

Director of the Atelier and Head of Curriculum