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Matthew & Megan coach as a team! They are available for monologue and scene study, audition preparation, and acting a song.
Matthew is an actor with two decades of professional theater experience that includes five starring roles on Broadway, five national tours, dozens of regional theater performances, as well as international concerts and theatrical events. A Pittsburgh native and a proud graduate of Penn State with a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Musical Theatre, Matthew’s Broadway credits include: Gregg Allman in The Cher Show, Buddy in Side Show, Greg in It Shoulda Been You, Tony in West Side Story, and Kenickie in Grease. Off-Broadway Matthew starred as John in Tomorrow Morning at the York Theater. National tours include If/Then, Rent, Fame, Grease, and Flashdance. Matthew has performed concerts and special appearances with the LA Philharmonic, Kennedy Center, Jazz at Lincoln Center’s Broadway Song Book Series, The Lyric Opera of Chicago, MUNY, Planet Hollywood Las Vegas, Stages St. Louis, Anneberg Theater Palm Springs, ACT of Connecticut and the Fulton Opera House. Matthew specializes in vocal performance, audition training, and acting/scene study of both contemporary and classical theater and musical theater performance.
Megan has had the great opportunity to find success on both sides of the table during her career in theatre. As an actress, she performed in hit shows such as “Jersey Boys” (Las Vegas) and “The Drowsy Chaperone” (1st National Tour) in addition to extensive regional theatre credits including “Mamma Mia” at the Fulton Theatre. As a casting director in NYC with RWS Entertainment Group, she launched an international casting tour for Virgin Voyages and identified talent for multiple theme parks and corporate events. She’s had the honor to work with and learn from Broadway’s best and brightest directors and choreographers including Casey Nicholaw, Casey Hushion, Sam Pinkleton, and Sergio Trujillo. She received her BFA in Musical Theatre from Penn State University. Megan’s teaching style is motivating and encouraging, seeking to bring out the very best, most genuine version of her students.
Brandon has been working as a professional actor for nearly twenty years now, after receiving his Bachelor of Fine Arts in Music Theatre from Elon University in North Carolina (also his home state)! He spent two years working for Flat Rock Playhouse, the “State Theater of North Carolina” before moving to Pennsylvania and beginning a long career as a leading actor at Sight & Sound Theater. While stage acting has been his primary focus, he has often worked in the film and commercial industry, as well as doing voiceover recordings for a range of projects.
Brandon seeks to build confidence in each actor and draw out their strongest natural qualities. He specializes in Music Theater Performance/Acting the song, monologue and scene study, audition preparation, and film/commercial acting.
Johnny Russell is an actor, director, and educator with over two decades of experience working across the country as well as internationally in Canada, England, Scotland, Wales, Germany, Austria, the Netherlands, and China. He earned his M.F.A. in Theatre from Penn State University, where he was awarded the Manuel Duque Scholarship, and has held faculty positions at Penn State, Malone University, and Lancaster Bible College. After completing his residency at Steppenwolf Theatre in Chicago, where he worked alongside Sheldon Patinkin and Tony Award nominees Amy Morton, Tina Landau, Rondi Reed, and K. Todd Freeman, Johnny co-founded the award-winning SiNNERMAN Ensemble and went on to serve as the founding Artistic Director and Head Teaching Artist with Parallax Ensemble. A native of Northeast Ohio, he also served as a Teaching Artist for the Players Guild Theatre and Cleveland Playhouse
Johnny prides himself in creating a safe place where students have the freedom to experience both success and failure without judgement. His focus is on working with students to develop a practicable process that emphasizes the pursuit of truth and encourages a spirit of play, imagination, and specificity leading to an actor that is versatile, relevant and flexible to impulse. Many of Johnny’s students have gone on to study across the country, including at AMDA and the NYU Tisch School of the Arts, and have been cast around the world with companies such as Cleveland Public Theatre, Chicago Shakespeare Company, and Disney.
1525 Oregon Pike Suite 202
Lancaster, PA 17601
(When entering from Oregon Pike, drive towards the brick building and take your first left at the parking lot. Drive down to the end and take a right, then drive down to the that corner. That is where Creative Pursuits is located. You will find the entrance in between buildings.)
Phone: 717-617-2859
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Creative Pursuits Academy works in association with Creative Pursuits Studio.
Visit our Studio Site: CreativePursuitsStudio.com
