A former student of Lee Strasberg, Lyle Kessler has served as co-moderator of the The Actors, Writers and Director's Unit of The Actor's Studio West, as well as director of the Sundance Screenwriter's Lab.  His Tony-nominated play Orphans recently starred Alec Baldwin and Ben Foster on Broadway.  Orphans has been performed on stages around the world, to international acclaim, with such stars  as Al Pacino and Albert Finney.

Mr. Kessler's Master Class meets every Saturday morning from 10am - 1pm at a theater in downtown Manhattan.  While primarily an acting class exploring scene work and character development, the group also focuses on developing new material with our guest playwright and director members.  The actors in class work on Mr. Kessler's new plays, his published works as well as new or published work from a select group of playwright participants.   This is a rare opportunity to create theater with some of the brightest talents in the world.  Various guest artists, writers, actors and filmmakers pop into the class from time-to-time to observe and participate.  Our hope is that real and original work will be built directly from this class in forms such as short plays, webisodes, short films, full length plays or feature length productions.