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MCASB is dedicated to freeing the actor’s talent and highest human and professional potentials. Our approach to acting and actor-training encourages the creative imagination, promotes community, and empowers achievement and success to the level of the individual's loftiest ambition.
Scott Fielding
Studio Director and Master Teacher
Scott is MCASB's founding director and master teacher. He leads the studio's core training programs including The Chekhov Training and The Meisner Foundation Training. His artistic and pedagogic work across multiple disciplines is strongly influenced, above all, by thirty years’ experience with Michael Chekhov’s visionary perspective and creative method.
Scott is a long-standing member of the international faculty of the Michael Chekhov Association (MICHA). He studied with first generation Chekhov teachers Beatrice Straight, Mala Powers and others personally trained by Michael Chekhov. Most impactful upon his development as an actor, director and teacher was ten years of intensive creative work with Ted Pugh and Fern Sloan, also his teachers and Actors’ Ensemble colleagues.
Scott trained in Meisner technique with Suzanne and Bill Esper at New York’s William Esper Studio. After graduating from the main program, he was invited to complete a third year of advanced training with Mr. Esper, the foremost authority on Meisner technique.
Before relocating to Boston in 2010, Scott lived for several years in Southeastern Europe, directing and teaching extensively throughout the capitals cities of the former Yugoslavia, Europe and Brazil. In Croatia, he held a full-term appointment at the Academy of Dramatic Art, Zagreb, and a one-year guest professorship at the Academy of Arts, Osijek. In the northeast, he's taught on the faculties of New England Conservatory/Graduate Opera Studies Program, Emerson College, Tufts University, and given workshops across the continental United States including at NYU, Yale, Cal State and elsewhere. He continues to teach abroad on a regular basis.
An internationally-awarded stage director, Scott’s production (with Serbian pianist Nada Kolundzija), John Cage Musicircus/A House Full of Music, was cited for Best Performance of the Year in Belgrade, Serbia; his production of (His) Three Sisters (Mostar Youth Theatre) won multiple awards including Best Play in Bosnia-Herzegovina. Other stage productions include Koltes’, In the Solitude of Cotton Fields (Belgrade) and Night Just Before the Forests (KUD, Ljubljana); Irene Fornes’, Mud (Zagreb Theatre for Youth, Croatia); St. Vincent Millay’s, Aria Da Capo (Slovenia); Sara Kane’s, 4.48 Psychosis (Academy of Dramatic Art Zagreb); and in collaboration with Slovenian director Tomi Janežić, King Lear (Atelier 212, Belgrade) and The Blind (Macedonian National Theatre, Skopje).
His U.S. productions include works by Ibsen, Garcia Lorca, Gertrude Stein, Mrozek, Robert Frost, and Günter Grass. For The Actors’ Ensemble, Scott directed works by Tina Howe, Henry Miller, W.B. Yeats, Ray Bradbury, and at the invitation of Buddhist monk and writer Thich Nhat Hahn, the U.S. premiere of Nhat Hahn’s, The Path of Return Continues the Journey.
Scott is the former founding Co-Artistic Director of Alchymia Theatre in Chicago and, in New York, a member of The Actors’ Ensemble. As an actor, his stage credits include Off Broadway, Chicago and Los Angeles. His dissertation, “Regarding the Significance of Divided Consciousness,” is published in Michael Chekhov: Critical Issues, Reflections, Dreams.
Laura Lee Bahr
Teaches Creative Process, Playful Endeavor and Extravagant Possibilities
Laura Lee Bahr is a filmmaker, author and performer with over two decades of experience creating independent cinema and black box theater. She is the author of the novels Haunt Long-Form Religious Porn, and the short story collection, Angel Meat. Her short stories have been featured in over a dozen literary magazines and anthologies. In addition to her credits and festival awards as a screenwriter and actor, her filmography includes writing/directing the feature film Boned (Best Microbudget Feature, Toronto Independent Film Festival). She served as Vice-President of both Membership and Production at the Eclectic Company Theatre in Los Angeles, working as an actor, director, and producer for a decade’s worth of productions. She has worked as an instructor at private schools teaching a diversity of subjects, as well as offering panels, workshops and seminars as part of film and book festivals. Laura Lee believes that creativity is for all of us, and accessing our inner-path to authentic expression is key to compassion and humanity.
Kurt Brungardt
Teaches The Actor's Workout Laboratory, Solo Performance and New Play Development
Kurt is an active member of the WGA and the author of 14 books (several bestsellers, including The Complete Book of Abs and The Complete Book of Core Training, and the soon to be published, The Complete Pickleball Book) and screenplays. He writes for Vanity Fair, Men's Health, Aspen Peak, and SLAM. As a teaching artist, Kurt has taught playwriting and poetry for Teachers and Writers Collaborative. He has had residencies in public school, Salvation Army centers, prisons, and senior centers. Most recently, he created the program: Shakespeare for Parkinson’s, funded by the Parkinson’s Foundation. As a director focused on new work and one-person shows, his projects have been produced in New York, Los Angeles, and regional theaters. As a personal trainer for over twenty years, Kurt’s worked with a wide variety of clients from actors, kids, senior citizens, as well as elite athletes and Parkinson’s patients. He’s a certified personal trainer with the American College of Exercise (ACE). He studied theater and Philosophy at NYU.
Jesika Regonini
Teaches Movement and Voice
Jesika Regonini-Beaufils is an English and French speaking actor, dancer, musician, and wholistic healer. She began her studies and career in performance and healing arts as a child. She currently splits her time between Boston, Massachusetts and Nice, France. She received her BA in dance and French at NYU and later went on to earn her BA in music, vocal performance, opera concentration, at APSU. She began her performing arts career at age 10 as a classical flutist, playing in national orchestras and ensembles, and became an award winning soloist at age 14. She has sung in choral and jazz ensembles and with opera companies and has recorded several projects as a singer-songwriter. She danced, choreographed and taught dance in NYC and abroad. She has focused primarily on acting for the past 4 years, training intensely. She completed the two-year Meisner program at MCASB and is currently studying Chekhov technique with Scott Fielding. Jesika also has an active practice as a wholistic bodyworker, merging physical and non-physical approaches for the healing of the whole person. She was trained in medical massage and various psycho-physical healing techniques.