TESTIMONIALS

Joan Darling, Emmy and Directors Guild Award-winning Director/Actor/Master Teacher:
Paula is one of the few people who really understands the technique of acting and the artistic center of it. She is highly capable of passing that knowledge on in an exciting and pragmatically useable form.… extremely knowledgeable … great courage … able to make full use of her impressive talent. Her work with actors and material is excellent. All her students have been enthusiastic and loyal. They stay with her for years at a time. I found that they were exceedingly well trained [with] an excellent grasp of technique and even more important a strong understanding of the philosophy and personal growth necessary to do artistic work as an actor. I can’t recommend her highly enough.

CK McFarland,  Actor/Director/Master Teacher and Founder of Alleywood Studios:
When Paula taught my advanced film class everyone was thrilled. Paula’s work was refreshing and fun and brought a new layer of insight and understanding to our work. In this day and age of splitting hairs to get it exactly right and follow everyone’s rules, the actors got to let their hair down and have fun. Paula covers everything from relaxation to tantrums, working with props and food while having accidents, telling jokes, embracing mistakes, taking chances while staying in the here and now and making it personal and poignant…while knowing your character. She covers everything and makes it all so easy and accessible. She helps grow strong actor bones. Wow!

Will Wallace, Film Director, Producer, Actor, Writer: http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0003930
After having Paula work with my acting students in Los Angeles, I, as well as my students, recognize she has a wonderful gift to teach. She has a powerful insight into character study and a strong set of tools to assist an actor in finding colorful and creative choices needed to book a role.

James O. Costy,  Professor Emeritus of Theatre Arts, California State University:
I recommend Paula with great enthusiasm and absolutely no reservation. Her technique is so non-threatening and creative that students are able to release their emotions and to find new and exciting choices in their acting. After a summer of working in Paula’s classes, I returned with two of my graduate students and took another session with them. After learning “The Joan Darling technique” as taught by Paula Russell, I experienced the best and most artistically rewarding teaching years of my career and at retirement became a professional working actor.

Hedrick Smith, Pulitzer prize-winning author and award winning documentary film maker and Susan Zox, artist and photographer: http://www.hedricksmith.com
Paula Russell’s  acting workshop is a treasure. It was fun. It was active. We were immediately engaged and challenged, digging into our emotional experience and finding our own ways to acting, and constantly learning from Paula's fund of experience. Her teaching and coaching was excellent, full of insights -- understanding the text so well, freeing us to risk powerful personal choices for the scenes each of us was trying to put together. We were amazed at how quickly Paula moved us into the essence of acting. Can't wait for another round of her classes.

David H Overturf, Photographer "PictureMaker": http://www.picturemaker.net
What can I say but, WOW! You are, without a doubt, the best Acting Coach I have met. Your technique, knowledge, and attitude are just outstanding. I was constantly amazed at what you were able to bring out in your students. The photos from your class look great. Because this was my first time to work with you and to say, "thank you" to you and the students for a marvelous day, I will make an exception and burn a DVD for each of your students as well.

Pauline Rubben, Interplay Workshop leader:
Paula is the most dedicated, present, perceptive, gifted & HUMBLE mentor I've ever known, ... and can sing like Patsy Cline !

EJ Stapleton, Professional actor, award winning author and painter:
Paula Russell is an extremely qualified and gifted instructor in the tradition of Uta Hagen and the heavy hitters at HB Studio, NY. Paula’s workshops have made it possible for me to push through to new depths, new layers of performance. Paula brings a surgically sharp directorial eye and a no nonsense style to the table. For me, Paula Russell’s workshops are a “must go” for the serious committed actor.

Mark Holliway, Austin Actor/writer/producer: http://www.pecanstreetproductions.com
Paula’s hard work, tremendous focus, and heartfelt passion for this craft are beyond belief. Her vast knowledge is a gift to the acting community. I learned so much and I’m honored to have the privilege of being trained by her. I feel exhausted and at the same time like I’ve been uplifted so much. I was challenged to step outside the box and grow in ways I knew I could, but didn’t know how. Paula built us a bridge using exercises that build on one another, freeing us to be in the moment, at one with ourselves and the role. It’s a great feeling to cross that bridge! I tell my son all the time, “Do whatever you want in this world, just make sure it’s your passion. Paula is the model for my words to him – “if you can achieve what Paula has, you’ve done it right”.

Jessica Robertson, Austin/LA actor:
Paula Russell has the innate ability to help actors find their best performance on their own terms. Her unique approach allows the actor to let go of preconceived notions of what their performance "should" be and provides the environment in which one can risk/realize their most powerful/playful work. She encourages actors to trust their talent and ultimately embrace the power of it.

Therese Baxter Fromm, Actor/Co-Director SIKE Health Institute, Los Angeles:
I have known Paula for many years. She is an extremely talented performer, as well as an accomplished and nurturing teacher. Coming from my background as a classically trained actor at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, I fully appreciate her grasp of text analysis and her ability to translate meaning with dramatic flair. I was very lucky to have her direct me in a difficult Corrine Jacker play at the Ensemble Studio Theatre some years ago. The play condenses time and place with rapid changes from one short scene to the next. Paula not only conceived an incisive through-line which linked scene to scene, but her staging was imaginative and helped bring clarity to the text. She has an uncanny way with actors and, with her help, we actors were able to bring humor and a sense of play to what could have been a hopelessly serious topic. The experience was joyful, collaborative and creative, and the audience found it to be moving with an unusual honesty. Any performer who has the chance to work with or be taught by Paula Russell should grab it!

Wolf Muser, Professional actor, L.A. and Europe:
Paula Russell is one of the most generous and imaginative teachers I've known. She has great insight and views each student's challenges individually rather than superimposing the same method on everyone. She is a real hands-on coach; involved at all times. Her manner is wonderfully positive and supportive. It's a delight to be one of her students. I recommend her to anyone, beginners and pros alike.

Norm Stamper,  Author of “Breaking Rank”, retired Seattle Chief of Police: http://www.normstamper.com
I found the classes powerful and relevant for those of us who write, teach or do public speaking. Paula shares her vast knowledge, experience and wisdom in a fun, accessible manner, creating a safe creative environment for risk-taking, learning and growth. I’ve taken three of Paula Russell’s workshops, including two 6-week scene study/performance intensives. I plan to continue to work with her at every opportunity.

Helena Hale, actress, writer, producer
Working with Paula's teaching felt magically psychic to me, but she is clear that what seems like genius is really a deep commitment to fine-tuning the working tools of the actor's instrument. After taking her workshops, I hired Paula to coach me through my early work on my Georgia O'Keefe and Louise Nevelson one-woman shows. With patience and compassion, she is relentlessly demanding. She does not give up until you find your own unique way--not her way. If your are willing to work, she leads you to become your own muse. If I wrote about a cigar, she let me know I could smoke it! She threw me a lot of balls and I ran with them all. We laughed a lot. She moved to the Northwest, but stays with me when she visits Santa Barbara.

Tony Lee, Actors Equity, AGMA, actor, singer, teacher:
Paula Russell gives us all the utensils we need to serve up a gourmet meal in the kitchen of what I call "actorcraft". She seems psychic in her ability to pinpoint each actor's individual strengths and needs. Using kindness, eloquence and a true understanding of the foundations of acting, Paula intelligently, firmly and with humor, leads us to our personal best, whether preparing for a role, an audition, commercial or camera work. As a professional actor/singer for nearly forty years I have never been coached or taught by anyone better ......... Brava Paula!

Nicole Graf, Professional Actor
Nurturing and freeing but with clarity and discipline, Paula's workshop is unlike any other I have experienced. After training with Paula, my work as an actor was taken to the next level, and my enthusiasm for the craft grew substantially. I highly recommend Paula Russell, and look forward to working with her again!

Jan Zehner, Retired United States Diplomat:
Paula Russell is an exceptionally talented teacher and mentor. I am impressed with her training ability myself and have heard many laudatory comments from colleagues who have attended her workshops. I plan to work with her again.

Betty M. Hatch, President, [SAG franchised] LaBelle School and Commercial Agency:
You are an exceptional teacher; your students love you. Thank you for sharing your wonderful talent with all of us.

Molly White, Executive/Artistic Director, Orcas Center Theatre:
We are fortunate to have a teacher with such extensive professional skills. Paula’s workshops elicited rave reviews.

Doug Bechtel, President, WA State Community Theatre Assoc.; President, Actors Theatre of Orcas Island:
Students are unanimous in their praise. She has a special ability to sense what each actor needs from her and to tailor her approach to what works best for that individual.

Michael Hurwicz, actor, singer, writer, producer
Paula has a thousand little tricks and exercises to help you get out of your own way and let your natural uniqueness, eccentricity, emotion and humor come through.  She is a powerful and effective coach and teacher.

Barbara Kline, Principal: Orcas Island High School
Paula Russell taught Theater Arts at Orcas Island High School and it was a wonderful experience for our school. Students not only learned a great deal about the theater but also grew in speaking and presentations skills. In addition their growth in self-confidence was enormous. Paula proved herself to be an excellent teacher. Her lessons were organized and her students treated her with a high level of respect, not only for her obvious skill in the subject but also in return for the high level of respect that she accorded to them as students and human beings. I would love to have her back again working with our students on theater productions. It is one of the major losses we have experienced from budget cuts.

Patricia Monaco, Teacher/Actor/Editor, NAPRA Review
I learned more about acting, understanding text, and the process of creating a character than I imagined to be possible.

Sharon Abreu, professional singer, vocal coach, writer, educator
Paula is an extremely talented teacher and actor. She is passionate about teaching and committed to her students and to the work. She is deeply caring, is an excellent communicator and fills her classes with fun. She guides us to get in touch with ourselves and relate to each other, to appreciate the truth in embracing and portraying a character. The results she gets from her students speak for themselves. I feel very lucky to have Paula as a teacher.

John Mazzarella, actor/73 year-old retired cardiologist
In praise of Paula Russell: I had a brush with acting in college, but until my first experience with training in Paula Russell's class six years ago, I never realized what joy the world of acting afforded. She has since become my idol. Paula's classes are heavy with the basics and, as is common to all art, the disciplines of the basics allowed me to gradually acquire the tools necessary to take on lead roles in several plays. Paula is incredibly sensitive, wonderfully informed, has an encyclopedic array of experiences to draw upon, is a versatile communicator, and always provides an ambience of total safety for the student. This latter point has given freedom to the most apprehensive novice and veteran alike. I cannot imagine how our community would have been able to develop its fine record of theater without her presence."

Valentine Click, Actor. L.A.
I loved Paula's class and hope to take it again! Paula gives you everything needed to be raw, brave and make bold choices in a safe space. After the workshop, I felt a renewed sense of self, my talents, and empowerment. This workshop helps overcome any fears and get all the layers stripped down so you can just "be". A great class, very helpful and a great boost.

Catherine Ascher, New Actor (Feb. 2007)
If you really want to go out on a limb, feel your heart bang around in your chest and come out the other side alive, in tune, confident and smiling, this class is for you. I never knew acting could be such an adventure! Paula Russell serves up the art and craft of acting in a clear, safe and nurturing environment. When she asks me to take a risk, or just to take a different approach, I feel confident following her guidance knowing she'll be right on.

Beverly Leyman, actor, director, retired teacher
I have to write you about our (Larry's and my) deep fun experiences in your acting class. Larry, who had never been on stage before, felt so free and comfortable working and playing in the supportive environment that you created. He experimented with the animal variations, with personalization and relaxation exercises and when it came time to do scene work he lived "in the moment". Talk about 'letting yourself laugh!'

I've taken your 6-week workshop, weekends and private coaching many times over the years because the growing and learning never stop. Each time I gain even more understanding of "the craft" and I get more comfortable taking risks. Last time, during a tantrum, I found an emotional place that I never knew existed and this time during the personalization exercise I finally understood the role of the "listener" and its relevance to working in a scene with others. I was able to cast and direct a successful production on my own because you taught me about text, ensemble and the value of each individual actor. It makes me wonder what wonders will be revealed next.

You are an excellent acting coach for all.

Len Kaplan, agent, Kingsley Colton Agency, Beverly Hills, 1983
After taking Paula’s classes: “I promise when I get my academy award, I will thank Paula Russell!"