Jeff Nahan's
Actors Alliance
has become a
training ground
for fledgling
talent of all
ages.

Teaching Emotion

AARON HALABE SPECIAL TO THE JEWISH NEWS

111 f you're bursting
with creative energy
but you don't know
how to express it,
Jeffrey Nahan has
an idea: jump on
stage, bathe your-
self in the warmth of a
spotlight and learn to
become an actor.
Mr. Nahan is founder
and executive director
of the Actors Alli-
ance Theatre Company
(AATC), a Southfield-
based non-profit reperto-
ry company and actor
training program.
Staffed by local and
regional actors and direc-
tors, the company has
staged a diverse reperto-
ry of critically praised
productions at Orchestra
Hall, Music Hall and

in outreach programs
around the state.
AATC also enjoys a
strong reputation in
actor development. Since
1981 (when AATC began
offering classes) nearly
40,000 adults and chil-
dren have taken courses
in voice technique, stage
movement and improvi-
sational expression. The
company's professional
actors and directors
serve as faculty and
guest instructors in the
educational division.
The program, Mr.
Nahan says, provides "a
nurturing environment"
that encourages students
to master acting funda-
mentals and "unlock the
creative spirit that exists
in all of us."

That spirit is often
easier to draw out in
AATC's younger students
who attend two–to-
three–hour Saturday
classes during the year.
The youth, Mr. Nahan
says, have a natural
exploratory and imagina-
tive energy that makes
them eager to learn. "We
give them ideas and
skills — a structure
around which they can
use and manipulate (the
acting process) to have a
lot of fun and to express
themselves."
AATC regularly takes
its show on the road, per-
forming and teaching for
community organizations
and schools around the
state. On one recent trip,
Mr. Nahan visited

Detroit's Northern High
School for an Arts
Foundation of Michigan-
sponsored production of
A Midsummer Night's
Dream.
Working with the
school's drama club,
AATC presented a mod-
ern-day rendition of the
Shakespeare classic. "We
found a way for them to
appropriate the language
from the 16th century,"
Mr. Nahan says. "We put
Oberon in leather with a
whip and Titania in
this Caribbean kind of
flouncy mu-mu. We sim-
ply changed a sense of
the environment."
Other AATC outreach
programs use theatrical
techniques in "therapeu-
tic situations...to build
levels of communication"
for learning disabled stu-
dents.
"When we go into a
school, it's not just to put
on a performance. We're
going to do some demon-
stration talks or mini-
teaching sessions, and to
get as much participato-
ry involvement as possi-
ble," he says.
The AATC's adult stu-
dent body is a mix of
business people, home-
makers, doctors and oth-
ers of varying ages and
ethnic backgrounds.
Some hope to make act-
ing a full-time career,
but the majority of stu-
dents are simply looking
for a creative outlet and
a renewed sense of joie
de vivre.
"Our lives get so
entrenched and compart-
mentalized," says Mr.
Nahan, age 38, "and 90
percent of the adult stu-
dents get up in front of

EMOTION/page 92