The Bay Area Actor

Laurie Burke is a San Francisco native and comes from a family of professional actors and musicians (think “The Partridge Family” meets “This is Spinal Tap”). With an adventurous spirit and a genuine joy of all things creative, she decided to also turn her creative passion into a full-time career. For over fifteen years, Laurie has been a professional Actress, Voice Over Artist, Host and Singer.

With an un-quenching thirst to learn her craft, Laurie has studied Dramatic Arts in London (Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts), Paris, Berlin, Los Angles and San Francisco (American Conservatory Theater).

Her many TV Credits include playing lawyer Alice Kaye opposite Hugh Laurie in Chance, staring roles in Wives with Knives and I (Almost Got Away With It) and numerous commercials for major companies including Blackberry, Volkswagen, Raley’s, Walmart, Metro PCS, Nokia and Wells Fargo.  Currently she is playing Sheriff Laura Stevens in the Rosario Dawson based web series The North Pole.

Her many Film credits include “Mr. Invincible”, “The Mendoza Line”, “Redwoods”, and numerous award winning Short Films including voicing the main role of “Hisayo” in Roadside Assistance. Recently she worked opposite Adam Devine in the feature film “Jexi” - providing the “on-set” (behind the scenes) voice of Jexi.

Known as the “Original Voice of Google Voice”, Laurie has lent her voice to such varied productions ranging from The Emmys to countless radio and T.V. commercials including Channel 36(L.A.), Cisco, LinkedIn, Kaiser Permanente, 24 Hour Fitness, Symantec, First Republic Bank, Wells Fargo, TV.com, and voiced for all Raley’s/Nob Hill commercials.

Theater credits include the role of "Amy" in Stephen Sondheim's musical "Company", "Gal" in the touring production of "Just for Laughs", and starred in countless Sold-Out performances as “Claudia Roe” in Lucy Prebble’s “Enron”.

For over eight years, Laurie has been an On-Air TV and web Host for Common Sense Media, a company she is very proud to represent. She’s also their go-to for Voice Over and Award shows.

As a professional singer, Laurie has fronted many different bands of different genres as well as performed in many musicals, films, jingles and Voice Over projects.

Laurie always feels extremely happy and grateful for every opportunity she has been given and believes sharing her creative passion and helping others is her true purpose in life.

Kristen: An independent casting director for over twenty years in San Francisco, Los Angeles and nationally, Kristen specializes in commercials, industrials, short films, print, and music video. She has an extended database of SAG/AFTRA actors and non-union actors as well as a comprehensive selection of real people.

Gregg: Gregg Cohen has been casting in San Francisco for 25 years. She casts for commercials and industrials and the occasional short film and music video. Gregg is also co-owner of Das Studio casting studios.

Elaine A. Clark has spent over 35 years immersed in the voice-over business as an actor, author, app creator, director, coach, audio engineer, producer, casting director.  She is the owner of Voice One and Voice One Productions and the Founder of the first full-time voice-over training academy, Voice One in San Francisco. Her best-selling book, There's Money Where Your Mouth Is, is used as a text book in colleges and universities and with individuals around the world. The two apps she created are designed to improve diction, breath support, resonance, melody, and precision.  Activate Your Voice is an effective and powerful 5-minute voice warm up.  Adding Melody To Your Voice includes a 16 minute training video and an interactive listen, record, and playback practice area. Elaine's newest book, Voice Overs for Podcasting, will be available in the latter half of 2020.

You can currently see Elaine on-screen as the futuristic game show host in the movie, Sorry To Bother You. Gamers can hear her as the dispatcher in Mafia III. Over her long career she's recorded hundreds of commercials, narrations, and toys. She's cast, directed and/or performed in close to 100 video games a couple anime series [JoJo's Bizaare Adventure and Saikano], looped several movies such as Super8, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, The Master, and Titan A.E., and a handful of audiobooks.

Elaine has trained and launched the careers of 1000s of voice actors and looks forward to seeing many of her past and current students and meeting the rest of you!

Hailing from Boston, Stephen began pursuing his acting career during his college years in Atlanta. Completing small films, he moved to California enrolling in Academy of Art University. From there he enrolled in The Meisner Technique Studio completing the 2 year program and business class in 2012. Since then, Stephen has made a completed numerous short films and stage plays. In 2015, Stephen signed with and has since been represented by NYLO Model & Talent

Amy Huckabay is a writer, director, comedian, and trained dramatic actress who realized she was funny. Her feature screenplay, Sam Dean Can't Die, won the Screenplay Contest at the Napa Valley Film Festival and was a top ten finalist in Screencraft's Comedy Contest.

She wrote, produced, and starred in her award-winning webseries, Managed, screened in competition at the 2018 ITV Fest. You can catch her around town on various stages attempting to make strangers laugh.

When she's not writing her own roles, she can be seen in the Sundance award-winning Advantageous and practicing her SNL monologue in the mirror.

D.J. is the founder of Hub Strategy & Communication, an integrated advertising, design and production company based in San Francisco. At Hub, D.J. oversees the brand and creative development efforts for all clients as well as directing much of the television work. DJ and Hub work with and have worked with Dropcam, The Oakland A’s, The San Francisco 49ers, Slingbox, Nike, Google, Microsoft, Oculus from Facebook, Levi’s, the University of San Francisco, Monterey Bay Aqaurium, Blue Shield of California and LinkedIn. DJ is a writer, creative director and director. D.J. was an adjunct professor of integrated marketing and advertising at both graduate and undergraduate levels at the University of San Francisco for 3 years. Previously, D.J. co-founded Seidel, O'Neil & Partners Advertising in 1995, where he worked for seven years as Co-President.

Lisa Steindler (Executive Artistic Director, Z Space) joined Z Space in 2007 and has been at the helm since 2008. Under her leadership, Z Space has become a multifaceted venue that supports risky new work by local and international artists. In 2009, Lisa engineered a long-term lease on Z Space’s first venue, the 244-seat warehouse space known as Theater Artaud, and guided the expansion in 2014 to encompass Z Below, an 85-seat blackbox theater. Lisa has commissioned and developed notable new works such as Hundred Days (The Bengsons), The Lucky Ones (The Bengsons), House Tour (Peter Nachtrieb), and Weightless (The Kilbanes). Lisa has served on numerous national panels and now serves on the Board of Directors of the Zellerbach Family Foundation. Lisa is a graduate of A.C.T.’s MFA program after which she joined the company and started the ArtReach program, which she ran for 17 years. She then went on to serve as the Artistic Director of Encore Theatre Company. Through her artistic direction with Z Space and Encore, Lisa has produced over 45 world premiere productions.

Santiago Rosas was born and raised in the state of Arizona to immigrant parents from Sahuayo, Michoacán, Mexico.  Santiago, a graduate of the Meisner Technique Studio in San Francisco, has called the Bay Area home for seven years.  He’s been in such roles as Jeremy from the theatrical production of Home Front. Benny from the “The North Pole Show”, Raymundo from “Driving while Undocumented” and starred, co-wrote, and produced the short, Indulto where he won the Best Actor award in the 2017 Sanford Meisner Film Festival. In his leisure time, he is actively involved in his communities in Phoenix and SF/Oakland and loves to play and listen to music.

Kevin Rasted is the Director for the On Camera and Voice Over divisions at MDT Agency in San Francisco, CA. He has been an agent for the last 7 years in San Francisco and has represented talent in a variety of major motion picture, network television and national commercial projects.

*Catch Fred in his solo show, The California Missions and Race Tour, directed by ShawnJ West August 17 and 24 at PianoFight*

Fred Pitts has been performing in the Bay Area for 20 years. He is a company member of African-American Shakespeare Company and Custom Made Theatre Company and has worked with numerous theatres throughout the Bay. Regional credits include All The Way, A Streetcar Named Desire, Jitney, Julius Caesar, Clybourne Park, Middletown, The Heidi Chronicles, Eurydice (Bay Area Theatre Critics Circle nominee for Best Supporting Actor). He can be seen in upcoming productions of One Man, Two Guvnors (Palo Alto Players-June 2019), Sweat (The Pear Theatre-October 2019) and Never The Sinner (Exit/Black Ice Theatres-March 2020). He also has numerous film and commercial credits. He is a member of SAG and is represented by JE Talent. 

Fred’s first solo show, The California Missions and Race Tour, dramaturgy by David Ford, had its debut at PlayGround Solo Performance Festival this past winter. It was featured as part of The Marsh’s program Marsh Rising in May 2019 and will be presented at Dragon Theatre’s Solo Festival and at PianoFight in August 2019. 

Fred is in recovery from 20 years as an Emergency Medicine physician. He now runs an Occupational Medicine clinic in San Francisco and has regained some of his sanity. He lives in San Francisco with his wife, Kelly Rinehart, who is speech language pathologist and also an actor. Remarkably, they have been in 10 shows together. 

Paul has been a professional actor in San Francisco for 35 years, performing in films, theater, television, radio, commercials, internet, industrials, trade shows, voiceovers and full performance (voice and body) motion capture.

He's worked with film directors Spike Lee (Livin Da Dream), Peter Weir (Fearless), Carl Franklin (High Crimes), and Jonathan Parker (The Californians). Paul has been paired up with Noah Wylie, Jeff Bridges, Dennis Franz, Ashley Judd, John Rubenstein, Jack Warden, Cheech Marin and Don Johnson. He had a co-starring role on NBC's Trauma, filmed in San Francisco, as well as a lead role in the award winning, full length independent feature 'Crashing Eden', and appeared in Rob Lowe's  'Knife Fight' .  Nationally, Paul hosted HGTV's Landscape Smart for 13 seasons (170 shows!)  and locally for Best Of The Bay on KRON TV. He's also worked in San Francisco as a radio dj, production director and television producer. Select national commercial clients include Princess Cruises, Homelight, Credit Karma, Foot Joy, Alamo, Toyota, Lexus, Walgreens, Sara Lee, Gateway and One Touch Ultrasmart. Recent regional  spots include CBIZ,  and Bay Alarm.  .

For the last 26 years Paul has worked as a Session Director for Beau Bonneau Casting,  as well as CD’s Kristen Beck, Greg Cohen and Nancy Hayes.  He has also been an instructor at The San Francisco Acting Academy for 18 years and manager since 2012.  He has seen thousands of actors do their thing in the audition environment.

Leonard

While performing work-for-hire rewrites on many indie and studio feature films, Leonard became known for his rare ability to devise both tight story structures and compelling visual narratives – and then synthesize them into singular storyworlds.

He has performed work-for-hire screenwriting for Oscar-winning director John Schlesinger (produced; Madonna, Rupert Everett, Paul Giamatti) and Oscar-nominated director Lasse Hallstrom (produced; Julia Roberts, Robert Duvall, Gena Rowlands). He co-wrote a TV pilot commissioned by exec-producer/director Roland Emmerich (unproduced), and co-ghost-authored the adaptation of a Philip K. Dick novel into a feature film (produced).

With his own short film, The Paris Crystal (writer/director) he received national and international awards; it aired repeatedly for several years on SHOWTIME.

After his schooling at Parsons School of Design and NYU/Tisch (full merit scholarship/top honors), Leonard designed concert-stage sets for Lou Reed and James Brown; album cover environments for Sting and George Michael; and music video set design for The Ramones and Joan Jett.  He specialized in designing “the look” of high-end fashion advertising, worldwide print campaigns & TV commercials, along with editorial fashion spreads and celebrity portraiture with world-class photographers for most-every leading lifestyle and fashion publication.

Further influences on his multileveled construction of CALL ME TANIA have been his “day jobs” including: engineering manifold narrative pathways and alternative storytelling for the transmedia game company LudInc in Berlin, Germany; and his concept and design for an original knowledge-banking system that won him the $25K 1st-place in BearingPoint’s Innovation Award international competition.

DAVID

David has performed in professional theatre, television, radio and films. His debut stage performance was at the age of six in a community theater in Detroit. His feature film work has included scenes performed with Sigourney Weaver and Holly Hunter (COPYCAT, 1995); Eddie Murphy (METRO, 1997); and Will Smith (PURSUIT OF HAPPYNESS [sic], 2006).  

As a fine art painter he has had various solo and group exhibitions in Los Angeles and San Francisco, most notably inclusion in two juried group shows at The de Young Museum: A TRIBUTE TO GILBERT AND GEORGE (2008); and WARHOL AND BEYOND (2009).

He is a featured contributing artist in the internationally acclaimed book San Francisco Street Art: MISSION MURALISMO that documents three decades of the artistic, social, and political forces that shaped the Sand Francisco street art movement (Abrams, 2009).

Leonard and David are currently looking for Creative Collaborators & Producing Partners.

They can be reached at   contact@5dmedialab.com

Jim currently teaches the advanced acting class at The Margie Haber Studio and former staff member at Playhouse West School and Repertory Theater where he taught the Meisner technique as well as founding the first comedy program there for 8 years. Jim got his start doing comedy improvisation, theater and stand up comedy in high school. 

Currently living and working in Los Angeles, when not teaching acting, Jim has had some wonderful opportunities to act on stage, in film, on television and in commercials as well as new media. He’s currently waiting excitedly for the release of “Barney Burman’s Wild Boar” and is in pre-production on a new web series called “Ax Man” where he plays the title character.

Conceived in Germany, born in Ohio, and raised in Northern Virginia Jim started his career doing stand up comedy his senior year of high school. In 1992 joined ComedySportz, DC and his professional comedy career officially began. It was around that time that he also began doing anything he could that was performance based: on camera, voice-over, improv comedy, teaching, juggling, stilt-walking, renaissance festivals, clowning, magic, balloon sculpting, fire eating, impersonations, corporate entertainment, and much more.

2004 was the year that found Jim making his move to Los Angeles.

Since moving to Los Angeles Jim has had the great fortune to work on camera with some amazing directors over the years including such legends as Peter Farrelly, Clint Eastwood, J.J. Abrams, and Jerry Zucker to name a few.

In 2005, while waiting to join the writing lab at Groundlings, Jim was introduced to the prestigious Playhouse West School and Repertory Theater and knew he'd found a home and he began training. The school, founded by Robert Carnegie and Jeff Goldblum, is one of the very few Meisner schools in LA sanctioned by Sanford Meisner himself. During his time at Playhouse West Jim performed in a number of shows and plays including being in the original cast of Scott Caan’s new play, Word Faithful, which premiered at Playhouse West in 2014.

A student at the school for many years under the watchful eyes of Chris Liebe, and Mark and Tracy Pellegrino, Jim decided he wanted to give something back to the school that had given him so much. In April, 2009 he launched the Playhouse West Comedy Program until leaving the school in the fall of 2017. Over those years the program grew and evolved seeing hundreds of students come through the program in a school not, previously, known for comedy. You can now find the program at The Zoo Comedy. 

Terrance Smith has lived in the Bay Area for his entire life and couldn’t have asked for a better hub to start his acting career. He began his studies at the Academy of Art in San Francisco where he earned his B.F.A. in acting. It was there that he was exposed to various methods of acting and training, including, but not limited to: Stanislavski, The Sanford Meisner Technique, Stella Adler, The Alexander Technique, Kristin Linklater, Shakespeare, improvisation, musical theatre, stage combat and acting for the camera.

Upon earning his degree, he jumped head first into the Bay Area acting circuit. After paying his due diligence, the doors began to open. He signed with the NYLO Talent Agency, which allowed him to book commercials ranging from small independent industrial applications and software, to some giants like Pandora, Apple and McDonalds.

He’s worked on several television shows for Discovery Investigation. He’s collaborated with various independent film artists in the Bay Area on shorts and features that have been shown in film festivals in Oakland and Los Angeles. He’s currently doing voice work for a project due to release on Netflix in December 2019.

Perhaps what he’s most proud of is his growing theatre resume. He’s performed in leading and supporting roles all across the Bay Area, from the county of Marin all the way down to Salinas, CA. He’s performed on stages at The Town Hall Theatre, B8 , The Marin Shakespeare Theatre Company, The African-American Shakespeare Company, The Role Players Ensemble, The San Francisco Playhouse,  The Western Stage, and The Contra Costa Civic Theatre to name a few.

Several of the shows he’s performed in over the years have been Theatre Bay Area Award Recommended.  He’s been nominated for a Shellie Award for Best Actor Featured in a Musical for his Town Hall Theatre performance in a “Civil War Christmas.” He was also the runner up for The San Francisco Broadway World Regional Award for Best Featured Actor in a Local Play for his performance in the African- American Shakes’ production of “Richard III.”

He’s currently SAG-Eligible and an Equity Member Candidate. By the end of September, he’ll have enough EMC points to join the Actor’s Equity Association. Once he achieves this milestone, he planes on furthering his acting outside of the Bay Area market.

As owner of Lisa Keating photography, Lisa has helped artists & actors chase their dreams & businesses create a higher profile in their industry. 

Her passion is to bring out each person's "potential" and share their potential and their passion about what they do.

Lisa has photographed 10,000+ people over the last 25 years. She has taken over 1,500,000 images and captured each person’s individual personality while helping them reach a higher level of success in their chosen field.

Lisa is the winner of IMTA best headshot in the United States. 

She has been published in multiple magazines & newspapers across the United States including; Fortune Magazine, The New York Times, The New Yorker, Rolling Stone, Vibe, Essence, San Francisco Magazine, Billboard, Food & Wine enthusiast, Harvard magazine, and others.

Her clients include, TONY WINNERS, EMMY WINNERS, & AN OSCAR WINNER!

Lisa enjoys helping elevate talent as they climb in their fields.

Andrew Juncker is a director, writer, and producer in the Bay Area and is co-founder and Executive Creative Director at French Press Films in Oakland, CA. He is an alumni of the Meisner Technique Studio, which he attended with the aim of becoming a better director for his actors. 

He has produced and worked on feature films, documentaries, shorts and music videos. Andrew firmly believes that the Bay Area is full of creativity and talent, and hopes to be a part of seeing it get the recognition it deserves.

Tina D’Elia is a Bay Area award-winning solo performer, actor, producer, co-screenwriter, and casting director.Tina also coaches actors and public speakers and teaches acting on-camera. Tina’s west coast premiere of Overlooked Latinas at the Brava Theater received a successful audience response of multiple standing ovations and sold-out houses. Her show is featured as a Rising Star show Wednesday June 5th as part of the National Queer Arts Festival. Directed by Mary Guzman and Dramaturgy by David Ford. 

Tina’s solo show: The Rita Hayworth of this Generation, also directed by Mary Guzmán, won Best of Fringe (2015) and won Best of Sold Out Shows at the San Francisco Fringe Festival (2015). Tina has presented her solo show work for a variety of venues including: The New Theater, The Theater Offensive, The Marsh Rising Star, Case Western University, Stage Werx, Women on the Way Festival/Shotwell Studios (2002), The National Queer Arts Festival, Best of LezWrites/3Girls Theatre Company.

Tina recently received a producer award from the Equality International Film Festival April 13that the Black Berkeley Theater. Tina is the San Francisco Casting Director for Lissette Feliciano SAG MLB film Women is Losers, shot in San Francisco this past February-March 2019.

Tina cast and is a principal actor the ground breaking short film SAG film series Transfinite by Neelu Bhuman playing around the country including in the San Francisco International LGBT Film Festival playing at the Victoria Theater in San Francisco 6/25 6:30pm and 9pm at the Landmark Theater in Piedmont, CA 6/27. 

Tina’s SAG feature film credits include: The Pursuit of Happyness, Knife Fight, GuitarMan, Junkie, and television/webseries credits: Trauma (NBC) Sense8 (Netflix),and Dyke Central (Amazon).  She was nominated for the Best Actress in a Comedy with the San Francisco 48 Hour Film Festival (2010). Tina is honored to be part of the leading national lesbian magazine’s CURVE Power list of 2017. Tina received the Best Actress Award from the Equality International Film Festival (Emeryville, CA, 2017) and received the Diversity Casting Award (2017) and the Trail Blazer Award and Executive Producer Award from the Equality International Film Festival (Sacramento,2015). Tina and director Maria Breaux won the Frameline43 Film Festival Audience Award for her co-screenwriting in the short film Lucha, (2009).

Tina teaches acting classes in the Bay Area including with the San Francisco Acting Academy run by the beloved Paul Ghiringhelli at Das Studios. Tina is proud to be the Program Director for 3Girls Theatre for the LezWrites BTQ playwrights/solo performance program.

CURT BRANOM, singer and actor, is a leading cast member in San Francisco’s popular long-running hit show, Beach Blanket Babylon at Club Fugazi. Among many roles he plays in the show, his principle and personal favorite is the flamboyant King Louis XIV. But thanks to an eventful few years, he also now plays Vladimir Putin, Kellyanne Conway, Buster Posey, Jeff Sessions, Bernie Sanders, Baron Trump, The Pope, and the notorious Ruth Bader Ginsburg! New York credits include Hurlyburly, A Lie of the Mind, Our Life and Times (MAC and Bistro Award), and How Now Voyager. Regional credits include Sweet Charity (Bay Area Theater Critics Circle Nomination for Best Actor), Little Shop of Horrors, Li’l Abner, Sugar, Oklahoma, Some Enchanted Evening, And What Give Up Showbiz?, and You’re A Good Man Charlie Brown.

Curt has been heard throughout the San Francisco Bay Area singing in concerts to benefit education and health, sometimes partnered with Frederica von Stade in duets. He has sung with the San Francisco Symphony and been a featured artist with the San Francisco Gay Men’s Chorus. Commercial and voiceover credits include Sutter Health, Microsoft, Intel, Blue Cross/Blue Shield, Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk, 3DO, MTV, Evite.com, and “Fly Away Home” and in the video games Grand Turismo 2 and Crash ‘N Burn. Curt also founded the non-profit organization Pacific Singer & Actors Workshop (singersandactorsworkshop.org) and teaches at public schools throughout the Bay Area. Curt lives in San Francisco with his husband, Jake Heggie, who is an opera composer. Curt’s greatest role to date is being Grayson’s dad.

Nancy Hayes has been casting films, commercials and voice overs in the San Francisco Bay Area since 1984.  She has worked on over 100 films (Day Players & Extras) and thousands of commercials.  Commercials include just about anything you can eat, drink or drive.

A few of the films are The Boat Builder, Tenderloin, Twisted, Teknolust, Haiku Tunnel in addition the Bay Area portion of the following films, Beautiful Boy, Terminator Genisys, Need for Speed, Hereafter, Memoirs of a Geisha, Just Like Heaven and Mrs. Doubtfire.

Her passion for casting comes from the challenge of the search and the people she gets to work with on a daily basis in the city she loves.

Joan began her entertainment career in the production offices of Romper Room School and Dialing for Dollars, and then moved to radio at legendary underground rock stations KSAN SF and KMET LA. She served in the creative and production offices of Foote, Cone & Belding for six years which led her to open the first casting office in San Francisco. 

Shortly thereafter, the opportunity to head up the talent division at the world class Grimme Agency presented itself and Joan spent the next six years there, working with San Francisco's infamous modeling agent, Jimmy Grimme. In 1986 Joan was recruited to develop her own talent division at Look Agency and has enjoyed tremendous success and rewards in building Look. 

She has taught voice-over acting and business for actors in England at the Drama Studio London and at UCDavis, at San Francisco and Sacramento State Colleges, the American Conservatory Theater, The Voice Factory and VoiceTrax. Joan also serves as President of the Board of Encore Theatre Company.