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Welcome to LAACTTM

The Most Demanding Training For Actors In Los Angeles



"If you have built castles in the air, your work need not be lost; that is where they should be.

Now put the foundations under them."

-- Henry David Thoreau

Los Angeles Acting School (LAACTTM) offers a great
deal more than many other acting schools in L.A.

  • Five classes a week (not just one or two)
  • 18-Month program (not just a few weeks)
  • Over 1,000 hours in-class (in 18 months)
  • Over 100 hours on-camera (reviewed in-class)
  • Low monthly payments ($200 per month)
Details below ...

Click For Information on FREE CLASSES


See more on-line lessons and scenes from our classes on YouTube.

The Difference in Los Angeles Acting School.

There are only three things you do for your entire life as an actor: read scripts, practice, and look for work. The training at Los Angeles Acting School shows you a specific routine for extracting the acting from scripts, gives you a practice regimen you can employ for life, and prepares you to audition and work successfully.

First, you surround yourself with other smart, serious people. This is your network. You will get more work from people who know you, and know your work, than by any other means. This is especially true at the beginning of your career.

Five Classes Per Week
As a working actor you will be working five days a week. When you are not working you will be auditioning five days a week. You have to get used to that. If you are not working on getting your next job, every day, then you will not be working.

18-Month Program
Membership with Los Angeles Acting School is month-to-month. There is no contract, ever. The initial program takes 18 months. You may begin at any time. Many students choose to repeat the Intermediate II class. Membership with the Advance Group is by invitation and is on-going.

Over 1,000 Hours In-Class
Five classes per week, 3 hours per class, over eighteen months, is a good beginning toward the growth of an artist. By completing the program at Los Angeles Acting School you will have given yourself enough time to learn the fundamentals and establish a foundation of correct work habits.

Over 100 Hours On-Camera
Your first day on the job must not be your first day on-camera! When you see yourself on-screen you have to know for what you are looking, what is right, what needs fixing (if anything), and how to fix it. On-camera work begins in Intermediate, after you have the fundamentals in place.

Low Monthly Payments
There are no hidden charges, it’s just $200 per month.

Training at Los Angeles Acting School

The Beginning Work teaches you how to function when you act and begins to develop your imagination.

The Intermediate One Work teaches you how to genuinely prepare for an audition or scene.

The Intermediate Two Work gives you the concrete tools for work on a whole script and practical experience in finalizing your work. Many students choose to repeat the Intermediate Two Work.

The Advance Group (by Invitation) allows people who have trained together, and share a common vocabulary, a place to keep 'tuned up' and work on projects both personal and professional.

Actors must train to compete for a Golden Globe in the same way that athletes train and compete for a gold medal, or musicians toward a gold record. A thousand hours of training goes into your first hour of work.

Any serious training, irrespective of the discipline, should develop, cultivate, strengthen, and condition you through progressive practice. The things that are fundamental to acting need to be exercised this way. The exercise employed at Los Angeles Acting School develops your instinctual responsiveness, cultivates your imagination and creativity, strengthens your talent and sensitivity, and conditions you to work with your full capacity of emotional depth and range.

Training to act at Los Angeles Acting School is serious business because professional acting is serious business. If acting were the Olympics, this is how you would train.

Run a search on your favorite actors with IMDB.com and you’ll quickly see that, with few exceptions, it took eight to ten years for their careers to take off. The next eight to ten years are going to happen. If you are as talented as they say you are, what might you accomplish in that time?

Get Discovered at Los Angeles Acting School

The training at LAACT is a process of self-discovery. First you will discover what “being connected” with your working partner can produce in you instinctually and emotionally. Next, you will discover how deeply you can feel even in an imaginary situation. Along the way you will discover your personal depth and range of emotion and responsiveness.

You will discover, in reading a script, just how much there is to act, and you will discover how you bring meaning and clarity to every scene, speech, and line. You will discover the limitlessness of your imagination and creativity. Finally, at Los Angeles Acting School, you will discover the value of the fundamentals and how remaining disciplined in the fundamentals keeps your work both artistically and commercially fulfilling.

If you show up for every class, follow the direction you are given, practice between classes, and do not quit, you will be prepared to begin to compete professionally in 18 months.

Genuine learning takes place through meaningful repetition of the fundamentals, over time. Genuine learning is our goal at Los Angeles Acting School. As such, every exercise, from the first day, has to do with scene work.

 

Classes at Los Angeles Acting School

Classes at Los Angeles Acting School are conducted 5 (five) days a week, Monday through Friday, beginning at 7:00 PM, sharp. Los Angeles Acting School never cancels class (except in the event of some natural disaster or emergency condition).

The ideal class size is 20-24 persons. That ensures everyone will work in every class and that students have a variety of working partners.

Tuition at Los Angeles Acting School is $200 per month. Payment is due on the class held on the 15th of each month (or the first class after the 15th). Remember, your classes are deductable.

Tuition payments are based on 244 classes per year divided equally between 12 months (you may get more than 244 classes in a given year-long period but you will not be charged more). Though you take two weeks off at Christmastime, your December tuition payment offsets the other months of the year. People who take the whole month of December off, in order to skip that payment, will not be welcomed back to class.

Los Angeles Acting School takes one day off each for Labor Day, Memorial Day, the 4th of July, and two days for Thanksgiving.

If you miss a class at Los Angeles Acting School, the school does not owe you for that class; we gave it, you missed it. Students who miss classes with any regularity, except for paying work as actors, are asked to study elsewhere.

Every student starts in the Beginning class. Every student is required to be in every class. Every student works in every class. Our schedule is full time because careers are full time. You treat your class the same way as you would any audition or job (showing up on time and prepared with serious work). This approach gets you into the habit of working seriously on your career every day.

 

FREE CLASSES at Los Angeles Acting School

Any Monday or Thursday night, at 7:00 PM you may audit our class. It costs you nothing to audit.

This is the class you will be joining so you'll want to see this class at work. If what you see is compelling and makes you want to join us then talk to the teacher after class about beginning your training.

YOUR FIRST WEEK IS FREE .

Here’s what to expect when you audit your first class at Los Angeles Acting School.

First, there's no sales pitch. No one will ask you for your phone number, eMail address, or any other personal information. We respect our members' privacy at all times (Los Angeles Acting School will never advertise that you study with us). When you audit you come in, sit down, and watch the class. If you have questions for the teacher you may ask them after class.

The classes at Los Angeles Acting School are three hours in length and as an auditor you will work last.

If you show up late you will find the door locked, just like on a movie set. Arriving late is not an option in the movie business. Los Angeles traffic is not an excuse. Plan your day around arriving 15 minutes early for class. This is the same habit you will carry over to your auditions and professional work.

Auditors are taught the first lesson in acting: to listen.

If all you take is one class, and learn how to really listen, you’ll walk out a better actor.

Before you make the decision to study at Los Angeles Acting School, you'll need first-hand experience of the training. So, your first week of class is free of charge.

That statement is somewhat misleading. The class actually pays for your first week. Since they’re paying for it you had better be in every class, on time, with serious work prepared, and an hour or two of practice since your last class. This FREE first week is your audition for membership with Los Angeles Acting School.

Training at Los Angeles Acting School is rigorous. After a week of class and practice you should have a feel for what is demanded of you, and what to expect.

This is not a marketing gimmick to get people to sign a contract. There are no contracts with Los Angeles Acting School. Study with LAACTTM is month-to-month. That first week allows you, and the class, to determine if you’re up to the task.

The only commitment you are asked to make is with yourself. Once you've made the commitment to be a professional actor, for the rest of your life, all your choices become clearer.

Meeting the demands of your classes at Los Angeles Acting School will make clear, to you, that you're prepared to meet the demands of being a professional actor.

You conduct yourself in class just as you would in a studio or on a set. Just like on a set, there is a certain decorum demanded of you.

On a set, if you’re chewing gum, eating, drinking or shuffling about while shooting is taking place, you’re fired. If you’re ‘texting’ or chatting and giggling during a take, you’re fired. If your phone goes off while they're rolling, you’re fired. If you get up and walk around during shooting, you’re fired.

Learning to respect the seriousness of the work at hand should take place in acting school.

How to Begin Your Career in Acting

Everyone wants to know how to make it in Hollywood. There are as many paths to success in acting as there are working actors (about 9,000 in LA). Success as a professional actor has to do with preparedness and luck. The more well-prepared you are the luckier you get.

First things first, don't take any kind of work except acting work. That practice will force you to work or else. Most people find a "shirt job" to cover rent, food, phone, and gasoline. Finding such a job that is flexible enough to give you time to train and later, audition, can be tough. Be prepared with 3 months expenses in the bank (1,000/rent, 400/food, 100/phone, 300/gas = $1,800 per month). Buy a Thomas Guide your first day (it takes two years to learn how to drive L.A.).

Join AFTRA (under $1,400) and sign up with Central Union Casting in Burbank (FREE) at 220 South Flower Street in Burbank -- Call ahead to register at (818) 562-2755. Go to Central every morning that you want to work and chances are even you'll get some background work. As a member of AFTRA you get the 'call sheets' for Dramatic Serials, Dramas and Sticoms, Non-Dramatic Programs, Digtal Animation Programs, and Local Programs, etc.. Additionally, all the Casting Companies and Studios are listed along with their phone numbers and addresses.

AFTRA (The American Federation of Television and Radio Artists) is an 'open' union. That means anyone can join at any time. Once you have your AFTRA card you're perceived a professional and you are on your way to getting your SAG (Screen Actors Guild) card. The SAG and AFTRA offices are in the same building at 5757 Wilshire next to the La Brea Tar Pits.

Do your background work (AFTRA rate: $98 to $150 per day) while you train and when you get on a SAG set make sure you get your vouchers signed. Work at least once on an AFTRA contract project in one year and you are SAG eligible. When you have your vouchers, your paystubs and proof of employment from three SAG jobs then you make an appointment to check your documentation, pay your initiation fee (under $2,400), and get your SAG card. Now, you can get the SAG call sheet. Keep working and making contacts while you finish your training. Now, you're ready to start looking for work and an agent (in that order).

To get an agent, get a job. Walk into any agency in L.A. with a contract to be negotiated and they will take the work. Don't go into any L.A. agent without serious training and your Union affiliations up to date. When you've trained for a couple of years (in the 21st century) and you have your Union Cards then the agent knows you're serious and prepared to work. Start working once a month and agents will come find you.

Subscribe to, and read, Daily Variety Magazine. Variety is the paper of record for the entertainment business. Every professional in the business subscribes to Variety. Know the names and faces published in Variety (make flashcards if you have to). Know Variety and you know the business.

You'll need 6 or 8 prime-time network credits to be considered for a lead in a feature film. That's how you build your name and your reputation. In the acting business the only thing you really have to offer is your reputation. You build your reputation by building serious credits.

DON'T WORK FOR FREE! If the grip (the person who carries things on a film set) is getting paid and you're working for nothing it doesn't take long to figure out who is more valuable to the production.

Los Angeles Acting Schools

  • Stella Adler Conservatory
  • Larry Moss Studio
  • Strasberg Institute
  • AIA Actors Studio
  • Weist Barron Hill
  • Marketing the Actor
  • Meisner Center
  • AIDA
  • AMDA
  • Black Nexxus Studio
  • Deaf West Theatre
  • The Met Theatre
  • NYFA
  • PLAYHOUSE WEST
  • S.M. Playhouse
  • South Coast Repertory
  • So. Cal. Children's Theatre
  • Steppenwolf West
  • TVI
  • William Alderson
  • Elizabeth Payne

    • Los Angeles Acting & Professional Unions

    The list below is of the Actors Unions and related Unions in Los Angeles.

  • Actors Equity
  • American Federation of Musicians
  • Association of Talent Agents
  • Casting Society of America
  • Directors Guild
  • Producers Guild
  • Screen Actors Guild
  • Stuntwomens Association of Motion Pictures
  • Talent Managers Association
  • American Federation of Television and Radio Artists

    • Los Angeles Acting School Links

  • Starseeker
    Starseeker is an entertainment directory. News about movie stars past and present.


  • College Research
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  • Contacts
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    LAACTTM and the LAACT LogoTM, Copyright © 2009 Joseph Dean Coburn All Rights Reserved.