Actor's Workshop of Sacramento

In the fall of 1989,  Edward Claudio co-founded (with Michelle Barnett) the Actor's Workshop of Sacramento, a place for actors of all levels of experience to develop their craft. Over the years, the Actor’s Workshop has taught a wide range of classes, including Directing, Play Analysis, Acting Theory, Speech for the Theater, Theater History, Great Plays of the Western Theater, Improvisation, Scene Work, Technique, and private acting classes.  In 1992, the Actor’s Workshop added the Teen Actor's Workshop and the Children's Actor's Workshop.

The Workshop offers private lessons, as well as group classes for children, teens, and adults. Many students have continued to develop their craft at prestigious training programs such as Julliard, Cal Arts, and Mike Nichols's New Actor's Workshop in New York City. Students have gone on to work at Regional Theaters including The Actor's Theatre of Louisville, ACT in San Francisco, The Milwaukee Repertory Company, The B Street Theatre, Sacramento Theatre Company, The California Music Theatre and The American Repertory Theatre in Cambridge, Mass.  Others have gone on to appear in television and film and have appeared in plays both on and Off-Broadway.

In order to give workshop members the opportunity to put into practice what they learn in classes, the Actor's Workshop Theatre of Sacramento, the theater arm of the Actor’s Workshop of Sacramento, has staged more than 200 plays, including plays by Shakespeare (Hamlet, The Merchant of Venice, Othello, A Midsummer Night's Dream), Henrik Ibsen (Hedda Gabler - “Four Stars” from the Sacramento Bee), Anton Chekhov (Three Sisters, The Seagull), Edward Albee (The Zoo Story, A Delicate Balance, Finding the Sun), Tennessee Williams (Sun and Smoke, I Can't Imagine Tomorrow), Eugene O'Neill (Long Day's Journey Into Night, Hughie), Arthur Miller (Death of a Salesman), and John Steinbeck (Of Mice and Men).   In addition to the classics, the theater stages modern plays, including productions of Brian Friel's Dancing at Lughnasa, Michael Weller's Loose Ends, and Athol Fugard's Valley Song (“Four Stars” from the Sacramento Bee), and has given full-scale productions to more than a dozen new works by local playwrights. For more than a decade, the Actor’s Workshop Theater has also produced annual one-act play festivals, teen shows, and children's shows.

In 1997, after two years of hard work, the Actor's Workshop finally built its own theater space and, in keeping with its long tradition of producing classic theater, opened The Actor's Workshop Theatre of Sacramento on Del Paso Blvd. in Sacramento with a critically acclaimed production of Long Day's Journey Into Night. After producing more than 100 plays at the Del Paso Blvd. location, in early 2007 the curtain came down on that theater and the Actor’s Workshop Theatre of Sacramento once again became itinerant. The Workshop, however, continued to be taught in downtown Sacramento.

In 1999, The Sacramento News & Review included the Actor’s Workshop Theatre in its Best of Sacramento issue as the Best Place to get down with the Classics. In 2000, the same newspaper stated, "Better than any other local company, the Actor’s Workshop stages top-shelf classics and mixes them with cutting edge avant-garde works, sometimes by local playwrights."

Ed Claudio

Ed Claudio’s theatrical career spans more than forty years as a producer, director, acting instructor, playwright, and actor. He has taught a wide range of classes over the years, including Directing, Play Analysis, Acting Theory, Theater History, Improvisation, Scene Work, Technique, and private acting classes. He has appeared in more than 150 plays and has produced and/or directed more than 70 full length plays and more than 200 one-acts throughout the United States and Europe. Ed is a  winner of the Sacramento Metropolitan Arts Commission Theatre Award for Arts Education, an award given in theater once every 6 years. 

As a founding member of Timothy Busfield's Fantasy Theatre for Children, he served as Artist-in-Residence for 3 years. He appeared in The B Street Theatre's first production -- Mass Appeal -- with Timothy Busfield (Four Stars from the Sacramento Bee).  Ed has also appeared in three World Premier productions at The B Street Theatre: Hidden in this Picture (starring Timothy Busfield and the play's author, Aaron Sorkin), The Virgin Weeps, by Joe DePietro, and Beneath the Moon, Beyond the Stars, by Buck Busfield. He is a member of the Screen Actor's Guild and Actors Equity.

Other highlights of Ed's local stage appearances included critically acclaimed portrayals of Joe Keller in Arthur Miller's All My Sons at The Sacramento Theatre Company and the dual lead role in Athol Fugard's Valley Song at the Foothill Theatre Company in Nevada City (Four Stars from the Sacramento Bee). His media work includes national television and radio commercials and a short independent film titled Marks. Film work also includes principal roles in the CBS Television Movies of the Week Spring Awakening and A Tangled Web.

Ed received his training from Stella Adler in New York City (1972-74) and was a candidate in the MFA Acting (1971) and Directing (1986-87) programs at Florida State University.  He has also studied with Stephen Strimpell, Tom Markus, Richard Hornby, Richard Schechner, Martin Esslin, and Herbert Berghof. Ed has had the privilege to have been directed by some of the foremost theatrical directors of our time, including Richard Schechner (he was also employed as his assistant director) and Martin Esslin. He has had lead roles in several Off-Broadway productions, including The Country Girl by Clifford Odets and William Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice.