2013 Master Teacher: Alan Alda
“The prospect of working with talented, experienced actors as we explore spontaneity is exciting. That mysteriously compelling quality of life happening before our eyes is the goal, and I hope to learn as much as they do. This is going to be fun.” Alan Alda, 2013 Master Teacher
The 2013 Lunt-Fontanne Fellowship Class explored spontaneity on stage.
Master Teachers (2009-2012)
Every year, Ten Chimneys selects and collaborates with a Master Teacher for the Lunt-Fontanne Fellowship Program — a luminary stage actor whose talent, generosity, ability to teach, and dedication to mentoring are deeply admired by stage actors and the entire theatre community. The Master Teacher for each year is a key collaborator in the program, working with Ten Chimneys staff to develop the curriculum, content, and focus of the artistic elements of the experience. During the first two years of the program, the top regional theatre actors in the U.S. spent the artistic portion of their Ten Chimneys immersion delving into Shakespeare — with the late actress Lynn Redgrave in 2009 and renowned Shakespearean Barry Edelstein in 2010. In 2011, they explored Chekhov with award-winning actress Olympia Dukakis, and in 2012, the Lunt-Fontanne Fellows focused on American Musical Theatre with Broadway legend Joel Grey.
About Alan Alda
In 2005, Alan Alda had the rare distinction of being nominated for an Oscar (for his role in Martin Scorsese’s The Aviator), a Tony (for the Broadway revival of David Mamet’s Glengarry Glen Ross), and an Emmy (for his role as Arnold Vinick on The West Wing). The same year, Mr. Alda’s memoir, Never Have Your Dog Stuffed, and Other Things I’ve Learned, became a New York Times bestseller. Mr. Alda has earned an international reputation as an accomplished actor, writer, and director, as well as a tireless advocate for the sciences, hosting the award winning series Scientific American Frontiers on PBS for eleven years. Perhaps best known for his iconic role as Hawkeye Pierce on the classic television series M*A*S*H, Mr. Alda also wrote and directed many of the episodes, and was inducted into the Television Hall of Fame in 1994. On Broadway, Mr. Alda has inhabited a host of roles from the physicist Richard Feynman in the play QED to his Tony nominated turns in Glengarry Glen Ross, Neil Simon’s Jake’s Women and the musical The Apple Tree. We were honored and thrilled to welcome Mr. Alan Alda to Ten Chimneys in July to serve as the Master Teacher for our Lunt-Fontanne Fellowship Program.