Become the Hero of Your Own Story:
Life and Leadership Coaching
through Acting.
Private Coaching for Personal &
Professional Growth.
Explore who you truly are by pretending to be someone else.
Become the hero of your own story
Unlock your potential, gain confidence and build successful relationships.
As a professional actress and acting coach with a background in drama therapy and generational trauma, I use acting, improv, voice work, and physical expression to help people reach their personal and professional goals as well as live authentic and fulfilling lives. No acting experience is required.
Develop a passion for personal exploration and growth through play, imagination, courage, and vulnerability.
Identify old beliefs/habits that hold you back while forming new ones that point you in a healthy and powerful direction.
Cultivate the tools to build and navigate fulfilling relationships and an authentic life.
Art as Vehicle
Rediscover Yourself
Unlock Your Potential
Unlock your potential through the power of embodying a story.
It will be challenging, you will screw up, but you will have moments where the work feels gorgeously free and undeniably truthful. Then it will become fun. You will realize how much you want to do this story justice. The story will become more important than you. You will have to give up your self-consciousness and you will have to learn to fight to the bitter/glorious end in service of the story. To do this you will need to experiment with various actions, maybe actions you never knew you were capable of. You will have to make sure you are being truly understood, you will have to care deeply, you will have to know why you are here, right now, striving to accomplish something concrete, the most important thing in the world. You will have to be utterly alive in the moment.
Who is it for?
This is for professionals, leaders, creatives, entrepreneurs, singles looking for love, and full-time dads and moms who are interested in life coaching through acting. This is for those who want to challenge themselves to gain empathy, wisdom, courage, and insight in their personal and professional relationships by using breath and voice work, physicality, and story. My clients and students range from 20 to 70: it’s never too early or too late to focus on developing towards your highest capability. Bring your curiosity and creativity, your goals and dreams; no special training or acting experience is required.
I help people overcome challenges in various areas of their lives:
Assertiveness & Leadership
By practicing similar situations through acting or improv we can retrain your system to feel comfortable and confident in leadership roles. We will address beliefs and thought patterns that keep you small and safe but unimpactful. We will also pay special attention to your body language and the information it broadcasts to the world.
Personal Growth
If you’ve checked all the correct boxes, accomplished what you set out to accomplish, you may be wondering, “what’s next?” Humans aren’t meant to plateau, we need new trials and tribulations to tackle, we need to keep exploring who we are in the context of the world. Using a character in a story as a kind of mask will allow you to bring all the richness of your life experiences to acting class while uncovering the hidden or unused or unexercised gifts of who you are.
Connections with Family, Friends & Lovers
Relationships with others are often about the relationship we have with ourselves. This is a very personal journey, it may be about redefining your boundaries and needs while practicing helpful communication and listening techniques. We will work backward from what your ideal relationship looks like, step by step we will create the path.
Process
Overview
Through careful questioning and deep listening, I get a sense of your personal obstacles, which may include core beliefs, habits, or fears. From here I gather ideas of the kinds of characters, archetypes, and scenarios that will allow you to practice exploring new and useful tools to help you live your most authentic life. I help you to integrate, body, mind, and heart through imagination, voice/breathwork, and physical movements, reclaiming the entirety of your instrument. This is an adventure towards inner expansion, flexibility, strength, and expression; I look forwards to accompanying you along the way.
The Steps
1. Intake
This is where we spend the most time talking about your personal narrative. I want to hear a bit about your history, where you believe your strengths lie, what your day-to-day struggles are how you wish things were instead. This is where we get clear on the task ahead.
2. Warmup
Through stretching, yoga, and gym exercises, I will help you to link body and breath. Preparing the physical system for new ways of being is just as vital as preparing the psyche. I may take a look at how you stand, walk and present yourself physically to the world breaking away from habitual stances that may limit you. We will also look at breath support and control, and warm up the articulators with tongue twisters. We will fill you with energy and power and remind your system what it means to be a present in your body. Warning: playfulness will be required.
3. Acting
I will find a range of scenes from tv, film, and theatre that address your specific needs for you to choose from. At its most basic, acting is "being truthful under imaginary circumstances." By acting, we are using symbolism to directly address your issues. Through finding and expressing your truth as well as pinpointing the character's objectives and obstacles, you will practice forming new modalities and options when approaching situations in life. We will free you from negative conditioning and old habits. Your body doesn't know the difference between what is real and what is imagined, and with the right support, your nervous system can take the creative reins to heal itself.
Gain next-level confidence
Creatively solve problems by acting them out
Take risks in a safe space
Become the hero of your own story
Outcome
Grow towards your potential as a human being. Experience meaning, vitality, awareness, confidence, connectivity, playfulness, and more. Take risks. Gain insight into humanity, find freedom from inhibiting beliefs or habits. Find out what it means to be authentic by cultivating awareness, emotional complexity, and expression. Break free from restrictive conditioning. Train yourself to live a bolder, more satisfying, truthful, and beautiful life.
Why Acting
The Special Sauce:
Solutions in Real Time
Less talking, more doing.
Sometimes trying new things can feel embarrassing, vulnerable... but I dare you to keep going. There are so many rewards for stepping out of your comfort zone, for bravely venturing into the unknown – freedom and self-worth are a byproduct of knowing how to be your own hero.
We may uncover some drama, but having a sense of play throughout our sessions is vital.
Stop going in circles in your head, stop complaining to your friends, stop finding yourself in the same situation over and over again. Instead, practice getting clear on what’s really going on in the ‘scene’, actively form new habits by doing, learn from mistakes and try out new pathways in real-time.
Get unstuck.
Meet your Acting Coach
Raised in a Jewish-Italian household in the Rocky Mountains by two hippie therapists, self-expression was mandatory – it was only a matter of time before I realized I was going to be an actress.
After graduating from a performing arts high school in Colorado, I moved to New York, big dreams on the horizon and ready to work hard – my plans were suddenly curbed by a #MeToo ordeal where I lost all sense of self.
Acting became my compass; it played a huge part in becoming whole again.
It has always been obvious to me that acting is more than a
profession, it's a path towards the realization of our blueprints. It's
a psychological and physiological practice; it can be a deeply
beautiful and honest approach towards gaining insight into our
relationships with each other, the world, and the narrative that
gives meaning to our lives.
I am an international actress living between London and Hamburg. I have an MA in acting from the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland, a BA in Drama Therapy and Generational Trauma from Goddard College in Vermont, and an Associate in Acting from the AADA. I have studied Shakespeare at the Globe Theatre in London, Meisner, dance, yoga, viewpoints and have 6 years of NYC Scene Study training. I have been coaching actors, leaders, and entrepreneurs since 2019.
Annelise Bianchini
Reviews
"Annelise has helped me to learn about unconscious patterns of physical and emotional expression and how I might go about changing them. I’ve found the sessions profound, challenging and so much fun. My confidence to express myself more honestly has grown, much more than other forms of therapy. I’d recommend meeting Annelise and giving Drama Therapy a go."
- Dal Nijjar,
Product Manager
