Shurtleff On Acting

(16 mm film, 60 min)

An unforgettable hour with the famous casting director, author and teacher. He helped launch the careers of Barbara Streisand, Robert Redford, Lily Tomlin, Dustin Hoffman, Bette Midler and many others.

"Shurtleff On Acting" is a lively documentary on the life and teaching of the remarkable Michael Shurtleff. Join Michael Shurtleff for a dynamic series of acting workshops. Michael shows how to find the core of each scene and teaches how to take the emotional risks along the way. The workshop scenes are complemented by remarkable interviews with Gene Hackman, Elliot Gould and others, unfolding the story of Michael's work with the many of the luminaries of the American stage and screen.

When Streisand, Redford, Tomlin, Midler and Hoffman got their first breaks, Michael Shurtleff was there. When he published his classic book on acting, "Audition" it sold over two million copies. Educated at the Yale School of Drama, Michael Shurtleff virtually invented the position of casting director on Broadway. A casting director of David Merrick, Bob Fosse, Jerome Robbins, Peter Brook and others, he has cast over 60 hit shows including, Ethel Merman's "Gypsy," "I Can Get It For You Wholesale," "Irma La Douce," "Pippin," "Beckett," "The Lion In Winter," "The Odd Couple" and "Jesus Christ Superstar." He has also cast many films including, "The Graduate" and "The Sound Of Music."

The animal correspondents of pirate television station ECO-TV, crash onto the airwaves with a colorful and insightful look at the environment and the many ways we can help to save the planet and improve our lives.

Joined by Mr. Fix-it Jan Eakes, Otterby (anchor-otter) guides us through a lively exploration of some of the major efforts by corporations to help improve our lives by reducing, reusing and recycling our common waste materials. Set in a secret cave broadcasting center, Otterby and his animal reporters explore hydrogen cars, water saving plumbing products, the Brewers Retail recycling program (the largest of it’s kind in the world), and subjects as varied as composting and water conservation.

Co-written, Produced and Directed by Ron Leach, ECO-TV was a pilot project for EarthDay Canada and produced with the participation of Marketworks Communications.

Produced in association with TV Ontario, Audition brings to life Michael Shurtleff’s ground-breaking school of audition technique in a four part series for television and the compact device market.

Filmed on super 16 mm on location at the historic Jarvis Collegiate and intimate thurst-stage environment of the Annex theatre, AUDITION chronicles the journey of eighty actors working with the master over a six week period. Featuring performances by many emerging Canadian and international actors, AUDITION captures in Michael Shurtleff’s own words and countless dramatic scenes (and their adjudication), the twelve guideposts that have become course curriculum for every major talent on the stage and screen and the countless want-to-be’s from around the globe.

Commissioned by Marketworks Communications, and sold exclusively in Canada, Ron Leach produced; wrote all of the scene descriptions; directed; and voiced several of the characters in the best-selling talking book series “The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.”

Featuring the voices of renowned pop artists Moxy Fruvus as the turtles, the three part series of talking books went gold in their first month of sales in Canada, outselling it’s U.S. counterpart by a margin of two to one.

The three part series of cassettes and accompanying comic books, The Ninja Turtles broke new ground in talking book production, featuring a full foley sound mix and original music.

Captive Audience is an offshoot from Ron Leach’s acclaimed Audition Dynamics master-classes. A group performance of one act plays and individual scenes strung together in an entertaining evening showcase. Conceived by Leach and directed by him, a group of actors came together; chose all of the performance pieces in one marathon weekend of auditions and reading (sixty plays submitted); and designed the promotion for a showcase to take place thirty days later.

Anchoring all promotion to a web site, Captive Audience never revealed what it was. Instead, teasing the industry professionals with tidbits about the event and repeating over and over the date and place. On the eve of Captive Audience, producers, directors, casting directors and agents received a subpoena to appear. The city had never seen anything like: a collective of actors; self promoting in an aggressive and highly sophisticated fashion; presenting themselves for review in a professional environment; catered and with an open bar. The 70 minute show was an enormous success, garnering work and representation for all of it’s participants, as the industry watched thirteen short plays strung together like film and presented in a minimalist environment.