Gunnar Todd Rohrbacher founded Actors Comedy Studio with Lauren Bertoni in 2011 and continues to educate actors on scripted comedy and audition technique in Los Angeles.
What is the goal of Actors Comedy Studio?We opened it as a counterpoint to improv and sketch comedy training that has proliferated massively in Los Angeles. We address the needs of actors who want a career in comedy in the current market. Improv and sketch, which is where so many people gravitate for training…it’s theatrical training and stage training, so what the system actually needs is great actors to audition well with the clear knowledge that no auditions are improvised.
What goes into your famous Acting for Sitcoms class?I work on the comedy last; I work on the truth first. I make sure the acting is great, then there’s an element of how important the cold reading skill is by itself because of how fast the system moves at this point—actors are often having to audition with a script in their hand. And then the technical aspect, [such as] framing and shot composition, projection, and scaling your performance so you’re not broadcasting it out the way you would in the theater while you’re auditioning for a
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