Since its inception in 1968, the Alliance Theatre has been a leading cultural institution in Atlanta, Georgia. It is the Southeastern US’ leading producing theater, with an annual audience of roughly 165,000 patrons. The Alliance Theatre is also known for premiering more than 100 original productions, including The Color Purple and The Last Night of Ballyhoo.
Beyond producing and hosting award-winning plays and musicals, the Alliance Theatre operates multiple artistic development programs and is a leader in theater education with drama camps and classes for children of all ages. It also offers acting classes for adults taught by the following instructors.
Sharon Foote
A professional theater, TV, and film actor with diverse experience in the entertainment industry, Sharon Foote’s credits include One Life to Live, Texas, Another World, and A Time for Miracles. She is a member of SAG/AFTRA and has appeared in films produced by Warner Brothers, ABC, and MTM Productions, among others. Foote has also worked as an associate casting director for many films, including the Academy Award-winning Driving Miss Daisy.
Foote teaches the Alliance’s four-session Acting II: Process class in which students learn how to move scenes/monologues forward and improve their confidence with acting techniques. A respected member of the Atlanta theater community, Foote is also the Alliance’s lead teacher for film and TV classes and has coached several celebrities for hosting and acting, including cast members of The Real Housewives of Atlanta and football players Ed Hartwell and Dorsey Levins.
Mary Michael Patterson
An Atlanta-based performer, choreographer, and director, Mary Michael Patterson has Broadway experience as Christine Daaé in The Phantom of the Opera and has acted in other well-known productions, including Anything Goes, The Sound of Music, and Sense and Sensibility. She has performed in iconic venues, including Carnegie Hall, Chicago’s Marriott Theatre, and the Lincoln Center. She was also a lead vocalist with the American Pops Orchestra in Washington, D.C.
Patterson has directed stage productions such as The Old Lady Who Swallowed a Fly (Arena Stage), Footloose (Pioneer Theatre Guild), and A Very Silly Vaudeville (The Broward Center for the Performing Arts). She holds a bachelor of fine arts in musical theater from the University of Michigan and draws upon this and her career experience to teach Musical Theater I: Acting through Song, a six-week program that culminates with students performing and recording a final song in the Alliance’s Blackbox space.
Morgan Rysdon
Morgan Rysdon teaches Actor’s Body and Actor’s Voice at the Alliance Theatre. Actor’s Body is a four-session program through which students learn to overcome any challenges that interfere with their natural and comfortable physical responses to dialogue or movement on stage. Rysdon coaches actors on how to improve their self-awareness, stay present and grounded in the moment, and provides them with tools to alleviate stress and anxiety. Through the four-session Actor’s Voice program, Rysdon helps actors gain confidence when speaking, improve their breathing and pitch, and reduce strain and tension in their voice.
Rysdon, who has also taught at the Horizon Theater and Actors Express, has a teaching certification from The American Center for the Alexander Technique. The Alexander Technique, endorsed by performers such as Keanu Reeves and Julie Andrews, is a method designed to maximize energy and improve ease of movement, best described by actress Juliette Binoche as “a way to transform stress to joy.”
As a performer, Rysdon has appeared in productions at multiple Chicago theaters, including Victory Gardens Theatre and The Redmoon Theatre Company.
Josh Price
An actor and writer with more than a decade of experience working in Los Angeles, New York, and throughout the Southeast, Josh Price teaches Alliance’s four-session Acting III: Scene Study program. As an actor, Price has appeared in Lifetime’s Devious Maids, AMC’s TURN: Washington’s Spies, and ID’s A Crime to Remember. He wrote Shrink Retreat, a feature comedy film that finished among the top 10 of thousands of script entries in ISA’s Table My Read Screenplay Competition.
A graduate of the University of Florida, Price later taught at the school and was its teacher of the year in 2006. He also has experience as an audition coach and has helped clients book films and TV projects for Apple TV, USA, VH1, and CBS.
Lon Bumgarner
A highly educated director and producer, Lon Bumgarner teaches History of Modern Acting Techniques, a two-session, lecture-style course that covers themes, individuals, and discoveries that shaped today’s acting techniques. Bumgarner, who has directed more than 125 plays and several independent features and shorts, holds master of fine arts degrees in film and theater production from the University of Southern California and Virginia Commonwealth, respectively. He also spent eight years as artistic director of the Charlotte Shakespeare Company and 12 years as a member of the theatre faculty at UNC Charlotte.
Sarah Wallis
Sarah Wallis teaches the Alliance’s introductory adult acting course, Acting I: The Foundation. With options for six- and four-class sessions, students learn basic acting techniques in small classes of 10 students or fewer. A graduate of the Savannah College of Art & Design, Wallis has experience as an actor and producer. She has been a member of the Alliance’s Education Department for nearly a decade.