Max Hafler
Max Hafler began his professional life as an actor, training at LAMDA and working with a whole number of distinguished actors and directors. He is a theatre tutor, director and writer who now specialises primarily in Michael Chekhov Technique and Voice. He trained in Chekhov Technique at MICHA and Michael Chekhov Europe. He teaches at University of Galway Ireland, and has guested at Boston MIT, USMaine Gorham, the Lir and others. He has worked extensively on youth and applied theatre programmes. His book, Teaching Voice,and most recently "What country Friends is This?" are published by Nick Hern Books . He set up Chekhov Training and Performance Ireland to make the West of Ireland a hub for the acting technique. Of his many productions, his most recent professional production was for The Sacrificial Wind , a poem-play by Lorna Shaughnessy about Iphigenia which was made for online viewing and shown at several events and festivals. His college and youth theatre work include The Caucasian Chalk Circle, Yerma ,The Trial, The Bacchae in the version by David Greig and Twelfth Night, which was explored in "What Country?"
Declan Drohan
Declan Drohan M.A. H.Dip.Ad.Ed teaches on the B.A. in Performing Arts and the M.A. in Creative Practice at ATU Sligo.
He was been a theatre practitioner for 30 years. His practice encompasses acting , directing, lecturing and consultancy.
He trained at the Gaiety School of Acting , and with Michael Chekhov Europe.
He is co-director of Chekhov Training and Performance Ireland, and serves as a director of the Glens Centre Manorhamilton.
He is regular tutor at the DLI Summerschool at University of Limerick and is member of the Association of Drama Adjudicators ( ADA)
Roberta Nolan
Rena Polley
Rena Polley is a Toronto based actor, writer, producer and teacher. She has worked in theatre, television and film for over thirty years. Rena originally studied with Uta Hagen and Herbert Berghof in New York City. She has been studying with master teachers from the Michael Chekhov Association for twenty years and has her Teachers Certificate in the technique. She is a member of MICHA and a regular participant in international workshops in the US and Europe. Rena is co-founder of Michael Chekhov Canada and the Artistic Director of The Chekhov Collective , a theatre company inspired by the principles of Michael Chekhov.
Roberta Nolan enjoyed a professional career as a dancer/singer in musicals and worked for a production company for fifteen years before she opened an exercise and dance studio on the Upper East Side of Manhattan in the 1990s. Roberta worked as an NYC high school teacher in Dance and Drama after securing an NYS vocational license in the Performing Arts and Dance. In 2001, while working on her Ph.D. at the University of Limerick, she was hired by Martin Whelan to teach movement workshops in character for Siamsa Tire and went on to teach on the Folk Theatre Course at the Institute of Technology at Tralee. In 2008, her mother’s health deteriorated and Roberta returned to teach in NYC, where she directed and choreographed musicals and plays. In New York, she began to study the Michael Chekhov Technique with Bethany Caputo and for the last ten years with Lenard, Emma Wade, and Bethany, who now runs Chekhov Studio NYC. She also had the good fortune to study with Ted Pugh, Fern Alexander, Ragnar Freidank, Dawn Arnold, Marjolein Baars, Peter Paul Gerbrands, Max Hafler, and Declan Drohan. Roberta is back home on the farm in West Limerick, still immersed in her studies of the Chekhov Technique and completing her three-year Teaching Certificate from The Michael Chekhov Association. She is over the moon to be teaching with Max and Declan as part of Chekhov Training and Performance Ireland.
Liz Shipman
Liz Shipman—Director/Choreographer, Specialist in Psychophysical Actor Training, Acting Shakespeare and Active Integrations.
Co-Artistic Director of the Meisner/Chekhov Integrated Training Studio in San Diego (2013-present),Co-Artistic Director of the Kings County Shakespeare Company (NYC) where she directed and/or choreographed over 50 productions (1983-2001),Certified Laban Movement Analyst, self-taught & trained in the Chekhov work
(1987-present). Her approach integrates the work of Michael Chekhov, Rudolph Laban, Irmgard Bartenieff and Arthur Lessac.
In 2020, she launched Virtually Shakespeare, a recurring course on Zoom. Liz relishes working with language-rich texts & creating work that engages both the actor & the audience through heightened atmospheres & fully committed performances.
