Bernice Loren
Encyclopedia
Bernice Loren, was a well known actress, director, teacher and mentor to many actors, best known for an inspirational combined performance technique, "emanating from a place of unity,"
"I developed something of acrusading spirit about the quality of theatre and of theatre practice. I think acting is at its most exciting and rewarding when, along with the ability to communicate with and affect the audience, there is a characterization so full and true that the actor may not even be recognizable from role to role."
Her initial theatre training was with Erwin Piscator
and included studies with Lee Strasberg
, Reiken Ben-Ari, Valerie Bettis
, Marian Rich, and many others. Throughout her professional career she has continued to study, experiment, and do research for her work. From a throughout background in Stanislavski’s approach she went on to investigate various act9ing methods and styles, performing under and observing foreign specialists at work, among them Ono’é Baiko VII, George Devine, Yuri Zavadasky, Dimitros Rondiris, Jacques Charon. To modern dance instruction she added ballet, period manners and movement (William Burdick), Mensendieck, Yoga (Acharya and Hatha), and T’ai Chi Ch’uan. Voice and speech training was extended to include dialect studies (Milenko Rado) and singing (Margaret McCulloch).
Miss Loren has played over forty roles Off-Broadway and in stock and resident theatres. She has directed over twenty-five plays Off-Broadway, in stock, and in community theatres. She has taught acting, voice and speech, and movement in resident theatre companies, City College, and community theatres. As co-founder-director-manager of a summer stock theatre in East Jordan, Michigan she was involved in every aspect of theatre work, onstage and backstage, in addition to teaching apprentices. As the director of the Professional Workshop of stage 73 she helped to formulate its experimental program, selected Workshop personnel by auditioning a large body of actors and interviewing numerous directors, and also directed along-run children’s play. She is the author of a text on voice and speech, Effective Speaking, and has written plays, stories, articles, and poems.
Biography
Bernice Loren co-founded with Roland F. Bernstein and Marilyn Lief Kramberg Expressions, a not-for-profit theatre school:"I developed something of acrusading spirit about the quality of theatre and of theatre practice. I think acting is at its most exciting and rewarding when, along with the ability to communicate with and affect the audience, there is a characterization so full and true that the actor may not even be recognizable from role to role."
Her initial theatre training was with Erwin Piscator
Erwin Piscator
Erwin Friedrich Maximilian Piscator was a German theatre director and producer and, with Bertolt Brecht, the foremost exponent of epic theatre, a form that emphasizes the socio-political content of drama, rather than its emotional manipulation of the audience or on the production's formal...
and included studies with Lee Strasberg
Lee Strasberg
Lee Strasberg was an American actor, director and acting teacher. He cofounded, with directors Harold Clurman and Cheryl Crawford, the Group Theatre in 1931, which was hailed as "America's first true theatrical collective"...
, Reiken Ben-Ari, Valerie Bettis
Valerie Bettis
Valerie Elizabeth Bettis was an American modern dancer and choreographer. She found success in musical theatre, ballet, and as a solo dancer.-Biography:...
, Marian Rich, and many others. Throughout her professional career she has continued to study, experiment, and do research for her work. From a throughout background in Stanislavski’s approach she went on to investigate various act9ing methods and styles, performing under and observing foreign specialists at work, among them Ono’é Baiko VII, George Devine, Yuri Zavadasky, Dimitros Rondiris, Jacques Charon. To modern dance instruction she added ballet, period manners and movement (William Burdick), Mensendieck, Yoga (Acharya and Hatha), and T’ai Chi Ch’uan. Voice and speech training was extended to include dialect studies (Milenko Rado) and singing (Margaret McCulloch).
Miss Loren has played over forty roles Off-Broadway and in stock and resident theatres. She has directed over twenty-five plays Off-Broadway, in stock, and in community theatres. She has taught acting, voice and speech, and movement in resident theatre companies, City College, and community theatres. As co-founder-director-manager of a summer stock theatre in East Jordan, Michigan she was involved in every aspect of theatre work, onstage and backstage, in addition to teaching apprentices. As the director of the Professional Workshop of stage 73 she helped to formulate its experimental program, selected Workshop personnel by auditioning a large body of actors and interviewing numerous directors, and also directed along-run children’s play. She is the author of a text on voice and speech, Effective Speaking, and has written plays, stories, articles, and poems.
Debut
- Karen André, Night of January 16, Center Stage, East Jordan, MI, 1948.
- New York Debut: Calpurnia, Julius Caesar, Everyman's Theatre, 1951.