Lisa Dalton


Lisa Dalton is an American stage and film actor, director, documentary filmmaker, acting coach, and the co-founder of the National Michael Chekhov Association, an accredited training program in the Michael Chekhov Acting Technique currently based out of the University of Southern Maine. Lisa is one of the most ardent proponents of the Michael Chekhov Acting Technique as can be seen in her lifelong dedication to sharing her knowledge about Michael Chekhov and his approach to acting.

Career

Lisa's professional career began in New York as one of the founding members of the Bond Street Theatre. Aside from acting, she also performed stunts while in New York, doubling for popular artists like Madonna and Cher, until she suffered a debilitating back injury in 1989.
Notable film acting credits include ER, Carnivale, Inspector Mom, Dr. Quinn Medicine Woman, and Berry Gordy's The Last Dragon. In 2011, she toured a solo performance of Anton Chekhov's The Darling, adapted and directed by Victor S. Tkachenko's, at the New York Fringe Festival after first premiering in Fort Worth, TX at the Pantagleize Theatre.

Michael Chekhov Acting Technique

During her time in New York Lisa trained with Ted Pugh who led her and a small group of actors in an exploration of the Michael Chekhov Acting Technique. These meetings eventually led to Ted's creation of The Actor’s Ensemble, a New York-based theatre company that still operates today. Under Ted's tutelage, Lisa was exposed to the first generation of Chekhov students through Beatrice Straight's Michael Chekhov Studio. It was during these training sessions that Lisa was introduced to Mala Powers, the Chekhov Estate Executrix.
In the late 1980s Lisa moved to Los Angeles and began teaching the Michael Chekhov Technique with Mala Powers. During this time she studied under Michael Chekhov proteges George Shdanoff and Jack Colvin and met future NMCA co-founder, Wil Kilroy, a professor at University of Southern Maine.
In 1993, Mala Powers, Lisa Dalton, and Wil Kilroy presented workshops on the Michael Chekhov Technique at the Association for Theatre in Higher Education. This experience led the team to establish a formal association that could provide training in the Michael Chekhov Technique. In 1994 the National Michael Chekhov Association held its first official summer intensive during the University of Southern Maine's Summer Sessions. The program continued to grow in credibility, leading to its full accreditation from the State of Maine educational system for both Graduate and Undergraduate studies.

Proliferation of the Michael Chekhov Technique

Lisa has taken the Michael Chekhov Technique to theatre and acting conferences around the globe, teaching in the UK, Berlin, Brussels, Paris, the Caribbean, and around the US at various other Theatre Festivals, professional acting companies and colleges; she has shot and produced several hundred hours of video on the subject of Michael Chekhov, including interviews with some of his famous students and segments from Chekhov classes taught in Russia, Berlin, England, and the US; and her extensive writing on acting has been published in both online and print media.

Conferences and Festivals

Lisa has taken the technique to the South Eastern Theatre Conference. She was the Co-chair of the Screen Actors Guild Conservatory Actor’s Evenings at the American Film Institute in Hollywood from 1988-2006, the Central Region workshop leader for the Screen Actors Guild and American Federation of Television and Radio Artists for their Professional Actors Training program, 2006-2010, leading sessions in the Chekhov Technique, and is now an elected SAG-AFTRA board member for Dallas/Fort Worth, TX as of 2013. For 4 years she participated as a faculty member and judge for the Donna Reed Festival; 5 years for the International & State Thespian Conference; and 9 years at the Kennedy Center American College Theatre Festival, Regions 1,4,6,8, at each sharing her knowledge of the Michael Chekhov Technique to participants.
Chekhov Specific Conferences and Workshops
Lisa was the Creator/Artistic Director of the first two International Michael Chekhov Workshops in the United States at the Eugene O'Neill Theater Center in Connecticut, 1998-1999. She participated as a faculty member at the Michael Chekhov International Workshop in Berlin, Russia, and London, 1992-1995.

Universities, Colleges & Actor Education Programs

Lisa has taught the Chekhov Technique at acting education centers, such as: the Actors Movement Studio, NYC; Guilford School of Acting, UK; International Theatre Studio, Washington, DC; New York University, NYC; School for Science of Art of Acting, London; Texas Christian University, Fort Worth, TX; and Teatre de la Inspiracion, Paris.

Documentary Filmmaking

She is the co-producer of the award winning documentary From Russia to Hollywood, and contributed about one third of the footage for Michael Chekhov: The Dartington Years, as well as for the first documentary about Michael Chekhov shown on Russia’s public broadcast channel, RTR-Planeta.

Writing