We are fortunate to have such inspiring teachers at ASC. We’re excited to highlight a few new additions that have been helping our students grow. Meet our instructors, Sarah Tolan-Mee, Joshua Moaney, and Sara Mountjoy-Pepka!
Sarah Tolan-Mee is an actor and director from NYC. She guides actors and creative artists, including Pulitzer Prize winners, MacArthur Fellows, and PEN award winners, in expressive embodiment. She is a protege of the great movement teacher Moni Yakim and holds an MFA from Juilliard in Drama. Acting includes: Martyna Majok’s queens (LCT3), Sarah Ruhl’s Melancholy Play (13P) and Stage Kiss (The Goodman). Additionally, New Saloon’s Minor Character (Under the Radar), and Wallace Shawn’s A Thought In Three Parts (FRANK). Also including Lucy Thurber’s Named (Rising Phoenix Rep), Kenneth Prestininzi’s Love in the Seventh Kingdom of Wrath (Dream Up Festival) and Chaste (Trap Door), Ibsen’s Hedda Gabler (Andre Gregory). She has developed work with Playwrights Horizons, Soho Rep, Clubbed Thumb, NYTW, P73, The Roundabout, The Vineyard, The Lark, Primary Stages, Denver Center, and The Playwright’s Center.
What’s your favorite part of teaching?
My favorite part of teaching is watching students’ radically different processes, and seeing them come alive through exploration of technique. The words “technique,” “craft” or “skill” can sound overly mechanical, but I have found the opposite. Good technique frees an actor, opens her imagination, and creates an immediacy in her work. It is breathtaking to witness actors truly experiment and to be in a room full of people who are willing to take the plunge into creative process. I love witnessing the magic of transformation and the living laboratory nature of the classroom. I wish more rehearsal rooms included the daring of an ASC class.
Why ASC?
I love ASC’s mix of warmth, rigor, and commitment to truthful, expansive acting.
BONUS: If you weren’t an actor (or a teacher), what would you be?
If I weren’t an actor I would be a physicist. The drama of space and time!!!
Take a class with Sarah:
Joshua Moaney is a Chicago-based actor and teacher. He graduated with his MFA from The Theatre School at DePaul University in 2013. Moaney’s stage credits include theaters such as Remy Bumppo, Chicago Shakespeare Theater, and Lifeline Theatre, where he is also a teaching artist.
Concurrently, Moaney works with The Lyric Opera of Chicago. His most recent acting credits include Le Comte Ory, Macbeth, Eranani, and Fire Shut Up in My Bones.
On-camera credits include Empire (Fox) and Chicago Med (NBC). Josh has also been seen in national and regional commercials for brands like Dicks Sporting Goods, Target, Kraft, ComEd, Big Lots, Room Place, Ace Hardware, and more.
What’s your favorite part of teaching?
I learn as much from my students as they do from me. The enthusiasm and joy they bring to the studio makes teaching easy.
Take a class with Joshua:
Sara Mountjoy-Pepka comes to Chicago via Los Angeles and Seattle and is very happy to be here. As an actor, Sara loves all theater but has a particular focus in Shakespeare. Sara has enjoyed working regionally with Great River Shakespeare Festival, Seattle Shakespeare/ Wooden O, Montana Shakespeare in the Parks, Will Geer’s Theatrical Botanicum, and more. A professional improviser, she was a company member of the award-winning Impro Theatre in LA and Seattle’s Unexpected Productions. Each with a special focus on improvising full-length plays in classic genres like Shakespeare, Chekhov, and Dorothy Parker. A company member of Magic Circle Mime Company, Sara spent 17 years miming across North America, Europe and Asia with the world’s best symphony orchestras. Sara is also a director, including Impro Theatre/ Garry Marshall Theatre’s smash-hit Jane Austen Unscripted, and seven sold-out seasons of The Improvised Generation (in the style of Star Trek: TNG).
What’s your favorite part of teaching?
I enjoy the journey of figuring out what each student needs to thrive and shine. Sometimes, [a student] has a breakthrough their very first class, and sometimes, you’re assessing and experimenting together for a while until suddenly, something clicks.
Why ASC?
Easy – I started as a student here and immediately felt this was a good community for me. I’ll continue being a student even as I step into teaching…I was refreshing the adult classes page today!
BONUS: If you weren’t an actor (or a teacher), what would you be?
A farmer. In another life, I own and run a self-sustaining organic farm in the Pacific Northwest with mostly crops/ orchards and a few happy hens. I cannot emphasize the gap between the knowledge it would take to succeed at that and the knowledge I currently have, but my city hobby in the meantime is native plant gardening.