Educator

“My number one goal as an educator is to create an environment founded in playfulness. Everything we do as artists is a game after all! Once we accept that, we can begin to walk the tender balance between our fear and our courage, our breath and our body, our feelings and our thoughts.

In the end, I strive to create a space where the student will leave equipped to confront the harsh realities of the industry, without ever having lost their sense of of what truly makes a great artist:

their own unique love

for play

for people

for transformation

for exploration

for true seeing, hearing, and feeling

for the never ending journey into the unknown

and to accept what we find there.

So, let’s begin the game, shall we?”

Jacob Dresch, BA in Acting and Directing (DeSales University), MFA in Acting (University of California, Irvine) has consistently balanced a professional career in the theatre with teaching at the collegiate level since his graduate school days at UC Irvine. During his time in NYC, he served as an instructor at the New York Film Academy at their New York City campus; teaching courses in Voice and Movement, Clown, Shakespeare, Audition Technique, Improvisation, Physical Characterization, and Scene Study. He also was a lead instructor at the New York Film Academy’s satellite campuses in Mumbai, India and Harvard. He has also served as an Adjunct Professor at DeSales University; teaching Introduction to Acting for Non-Majors, in addition to creating and directing two special projects that merged tabletop roleplaying games with improvisational character and script development. He currently serves as an Adjunct Professor at MSU Denver and CU Boulder.

Courses include:

Acting for Directors

Audition Technique

Business of Acting

Clown

Devised Theater

Improvisation

Mask

Monologue

Scene Study

Script Analysis

Speech

Physical Characterization

Playwriting

Voice and Movement

Improvisational Screenwriting