Bay Street Theater Will Host Free Seminars in Acting, Improv, Writing, and Public Speaking

Bay Street Theater & Sag Harbor Center for the Arts is pleased to announce the four-part Lifelong Learning Series, a free online seminar series sponsored by AARP Long Island, held as part of Bay Street's online programming platform Bay Street To-Go. The series consists of monthly hour-and-a-half-long seminars focusing on topics such as stage acting, improv, creative writing, and public speaking. All seminars are recommended for adults ages 18 and over, and are free to attend! Advanced registration is required. For additional information, contact Director of Education Allen O'Reilly at allen@baystreet.org.

• On Thursday, September 17, from 6 to 7:30 p.m., Bay Street Theater's resident thespian, Director of Education Allen O'Reilly, will host Intro To Acting, an exciting and engaging seminar, where participants will be introduced to concepts of annunciation, delivery, staging, and pacing.
• On Thursday, October 15, from 6 to 7:30 p.m., improv master Scott Baker will host IMPROVing your Life with IMPROV! Using the "Yes, and..." improv method, Scott will introduce students to the engaging, entertaining, and inspiring side of improv during this fun and motivational seminar.
• On Thursday, November 12, from 6 to 7:30 p.m., Bay Street Theater's Associate Artistic Director Will Pomerantz-master storyteller, playwright, and director-will present Writing Your Life Story, a unique writing seminar where students will learn how to access their creative writing skills to write their own story in their own words.
• On Thursday, December 10, from 6 to 7:30 p.m., stage, film, and television actor Paul Hecht will lead Public Speaking, an informative seminar designed to help participants overcome their fear of public speaking by introducing a series of easy to use methods and techniques that will empower them.

Allen O'Reilly has worked as an educator and professional actor for over thirty years, and has served as Artistic Director at Young Audiences of Atlanta, Education Director at Georgia Shakespeare and, most recently, Education Programs Manager at Cleveland Play House. While at Georgia Shakespeare, he directed touring productions of Macbeth, Romeo and Juliet, Julius Caesar, and A Midsummer Night's Dream. His television and film credits include Sleepy Hollow, TURN: Washington's Spies, Bobby Jones: Stroke of Genius, The Assassin's Code and The Enormity of Life.

Scott Baker is an actor and comedian who performs with several improv teams at top entertainment venues across the U.S., where he often incorporates his own experiences-both good and bad-into his unique direction as an improv performer. He is a retired veteran of the NYPD, in which he served six years as a decorated officer. Since leaving the force, he has written three books about his experiences as an officer: Funniest Cop Stories Ever, A Lighter Shade Of Blue, and A Warmer Shade Of Blue: Stories About Good Things Cops Do. He created and stars in the the TV sitcom "Midtown," and presently teaches improv comedy at Hofstra University.

Will Pomerantz is a writer and director who has developed new plays and musicals with such theaters as American Repertory Theatre, 2nd Stage, The Guthrie, Playwrights Horizons, The Public Theatre, Hartford Stage, and the New York Theater Workshop. He became the first American director to be invited to direct for The National Theatre of Poland, and his production of Cinders by Janusz Glowacki was performed as part of their repertory for four years. His own scripts for the plays and musicals, This Side of Paradise, For The Last Time and About Love have been produced in New York and regionally.

Paul Hecht is an English actor who made his Broadway debut in 1968 in Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead, which earned him a Tony Award nomination. Additional Broadway credits include 1776, The Rothschilds, The Great God Brown, Caesar and Cleopatra, and The Invention of Love. He received the Obie Award for his performance in the off-Broadway production of Enrico IV. His television credits include the recurring role of Allie's ex-husband Charles on Kate & Allie, Law & Order, Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, and As the World Turns.

Bay Street To-Go, Bay Street's virtual entertainment and education program, is an online platform that provides engaging live theater experiences for our audience and patrons, at a time when in-person programming just isn't an option. We are excited to bring our community this creative outlet in the form of Facebook streams, virtual sing-alongs on Zoom, or online education classes. While we continue to respect quarantines and mandatory lockdowns, we are eager to be able to explore this new online platform, and hope to keep it as a programming option at Bay Street Theater even when we're all able to gather together again under one roof.

Bay Street Theater is a year-round, not-for-profit professional theater and community cultural center, which endeavors to innovate, educate, and entertain a diverse community through the practice of the performing arts. It serves as a social and cultural gathering place, an educational resource, and a home for a community of artists.

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