Meet Our Instructors
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| Fontana Butterfield |
| Fontana is a professional actor and improv comedienne with years of experience casting, producing and coaching in San Francisco, LA and New York. After graduating from SFSU with B.A. in Drama, Fontana went on to complete the two year Meisner training program at the Laura Henry Studio in LA.
Recent film and television acting credits include the feature film "Her Best Move", national commercials for Microsoft and industrial films for Kaiser Permanente and Sun Microsystems.
As a casting director, Fontana has cast several films including "The Lost Coast" and "Desi's Looking for a New Girl".
She has many years of commercial casting experience in LA, SF and NY. Fontana performs weekly with the award winning improv troupe "Big City Improv" and is a company member of the critically acclaimed theater company Shotgun Players.
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| Kristy Campbell |
| Kristy is an actor, producer, and writer and has worked in San Francisco and Los Angeles for 20 years. As an actor, she has worked in feature film and television on WALL-E, Bicentennial Man, Phenomenon, A Smile Like Yours, and Nash Bridges and has appeared as herself on The Dr. Phil Show and The Tyra Banks Show doing parenting segments. She recently was cast as a panelist on a new show for the Oprah Winfrey Network (OWN) and worked with Jamie Redford on his Sundance documentary, "The D Word". She has appeared in over 75 commercial, corporate, and print campaigns for clients including Maxwell House, Crest, Walmart, McDonald's, Toyota, Chevrolet, Nabisco, NBC, Tony Hawk/RIDE, Visa, American Express, Subway, Gallo, Starz, Aetna, Cisco, IBM, and Macy's. She also covers live events and has served as host for the California Film Institute's Children's Short Film Festival featuring Pixar Animation with Xanadu Entertainment producing.
As a writer and producer, she launched KidsCookUSA, a children's advocacy project, collecting 1000 recipes from 1000 kids to send to Mrs. Obama for the Let's Move campaign. She writes for Maria Shriver, Huffington Post, and Modern Mom and is working on a book, "My Cape Is At The Cleaners: Secrets of An ExSupermom." She is currently in development on a webisode based on her writing. She teaches improv to kids and uses her experience as a mom of 5 for material (her children range in age from 4-20). You can find all of her work at www.kristycampbellcreative.com.
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| Melinda Darlington-Bach |
Melinda Darlington-Bach has been a working professional actor, film director and award-winning choreographer for over 28 years. She has worked in feature films with directors Bill Forsyth, Wayne Wang, Chris Columbus, and the national episodic television series "Nash Bridges". She has appeared in over 45 industrial films and national commercials working with the likes of Ridley Scott, Jon Francis and the Academy Award winning cinematographers Laszlo Kovacs and Vilmos Zsigmond.
Along with her producing partner, Cynthia Pepper, their production company, Xanadu Entertainment ,LLC has produced many award-winning dance films, movement sequences and specialized choreography for the stage, screen and film. They teach their trademarked commercial course covering every aspect of show business entitled: A to Z: The Filmmakers Perspective throughout the Bay Area most recently at the California Film Institute. Together they have created short films for several seasons for the Emmy Award Winning series, Sesame Street seen in over 140 countries.
site - www.xanaduentertainmentllc.com
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| Deb Fink |
Deb has been acting in theater, film, television and voiceover since she was 3 years old. She has worked on commercial and industrial projects for such clients as AOL, Volkswagen, Lincoln-Mercury, Oracle, Raleys, sprint, Handspring, Clorox, and E-trade.
Film and Television credits include the feature films Nine Months, Save Me, The Princess Diaries, This Space Between Us, and Indy Festival award winner Happily Even After. Television credits include guest starring roles on Nash Bridges.
She has worked in theater in New York City, Los Angeles, and the greater Bay Area.
Deb has coached on-camera auditions for the William Morris Agency (NYC) and has taught acting to adults and teens since 1992.
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| Zoe Galvez |
| Zoe Galvez aka, Improv Gal, is a professional improviser, actor, and coach who has been performing and coaching students and corporate clients in the Bay Area and beyond for over 10 years. She is represented by Stars the Agency. Her improv skills have landed her roles in industrials with John Cleese, Kaiser Permanente, Disney, Pepsi Co, Cisco and commercials such as Dodge Ram, VISA, Freddie Mac, California Tourism, Healthy Choice, as well as a lead voice in SIMS 2. Other clients include: Sprint PCS, Macy's, SFGate, SONY, PG and E, Yahoo!, Salesforce, and IBM. Abroad she has taught acting/improv workshops in France and South Australia. Locally she has coached for the AFTRA Conservatory, BATS Improv, Improvworks, and Improv HQ as well as coaching corporate clients such as Oracle, Yelp!, Twitter, Linkedin, and more. She has introduced thousands of people to the magic of improv. Her specialty is making stepping out of your comfort zone, FUN! Zoe's improv background includes study with The Groundlings in LA and Keith Johnstone: author of Impro. Her favorite voice over line ever was for Scooby Doo Interactive: "And I would have gotten away with it too, if it wasn't for you meddling kids and your pesky dog." Currently, you can catch her onstage at BATS Improv (Best of the Bay for 16 years) on Friday and Saturday nights where she performs regularly.
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| Paul Ghiringhelli |
| Paul has been a professional actor in San Francisco for 30 years, performing in all facets of the business-films, theater, television, radio, commercials, internet, industrials, trade shows and voiceovers. He is also at the helm and managing The San Francisco Acting Academy.
He's worked with film directors Peter Weir (Fearless) Carl Franklin (High Crimes), Finn Taylor (Cherish) and Jonathan Parker (The Californians). Paul has been paired up with Noah Wylie, Jeff Bridges Dennis Franz, Ashley Judd, John Rubenstein Jack Warden, Cheech Marin and Don Johnson. He had a co-starring role on NBC's Trauma, filmed in San Francisco, as well as a lead role in the award winning, full length independent feature 'Crashing Eden', and recently appeared in Rob Lowe's 'Knife Fight' at the end of 2012. Nationally, Paul hosted HGTV's Landscape Smart for 13 seasons, and locally for Best Of The Bay on KRON TV. Over the last 30 years he's also worked in San Francisco as a radio dj, production director and television producer. Select national commercial clients include Alamo,Toyota, Lexus, Walgreens, Sara Lee, Gateway, One Touch Ultrasmart, Rex Agreement.com, and currently "the Grandpa" for Spee Dee Oil Change and Tuneup.
For the last 20 years Paul has been a Session Director at Beau Bonneau Casting for both commercials and industrials, and teaching at SFAA for 13 years. He has seen thousands of actors do their thing in the audition environment.
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| Michael Navarra |
| Michael Navarra has taught acting at Berkeley Rep School of Theatre, Ohlone College, Napa Valley College, Pacific Unyion College and the University of Washington. He works as an actor in both theatre and film and is a member of SAG-AFTRA and Actor's Equity. He has played leading roles with TheatreWorks, B Street Theatre, San Jose Stage Company, Traveling Jewish Theatre, Word for Word, San Francisco Shakespeare Festival, Lake Tahoe Shakespeare Festival, and the Teatro di Cestello in Florence, Italy, among others. Michael also works as a producer, director and casting director with 3 1/2 Egos Productions in San Francisco. His producing credits include: US, a feature film starring Alanna Ubach; the pilot episode for FINDING THE ONE, which he also wrote and directed; the documentary RESURRECTING LOVE, with author China Galland and actor/producer Nate Parker; SAVASANA, a short film which is currently being seen at festivals all over the world; and Sam Shepard's play FOOL FOR LOVE, in Seattle, Washington. Michael is a graduate of UC Irvine and holds an MFA in Acting from the University of Washington, where he studied with Jon Jory.
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| Cynthia Pepper |
For over 25 years Cynthia Pepper has been producing, directing, choreographing, teaching, acting and writing for the all the performing and entertainment arts throughout the Bay Area. She taught dance and choreography for 16 years at Marin Ballet, and has collaborated with Marin Theatre Company, The Mountain Play, Vector Theatre Company and Marin Shakespeare.
Along with her producing partner, Melinda Darlington-Bach, their production company, Xanadu Entertainment,LLC has produced many award-winning dance films, movement sequences and specialized choreography for the stage, screen and film. They teach their trademarked commercial course entitled: A to Z: The Filmmakers Perspective throughout the Bay Area including the California Film Institute. Together they have created short films for several seasons of the Emmy Award Winning series, Sesame Street.
site - www.xanaduentertainmentllc.com
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| Mary Windishar |
| Mary Windishar is a popular San Francisco/Bay Area on-camera and voice talent. She’s the horoscope voice for NBC’s astrology.com, where she provides a daily look at your future. Over 15+ years, she's acted in hundreds of regional and national radio and television commercials, and moderated more than 600 webcasts. She specializes in narration and industrials, and has hosted TV shows for PBS, infomercials for QVC and more.
Mary is also a trade show presenter, television producer, audio editor and engineer, and talent coach. Other skills include teleprompter, ear prompter, and mastery of her complete audio production facility.
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