Austin Pendleton: Tony-nominated Director, Actor, and Acting Coach | Episode 055

Actorcast

In episode 055, we are joined by none other than Austin Pendleton. Austin is a wealth of knowledge when it comes to the wide world of acting. Having trained with him myself, I was excited to share his perspective on the show. We talk about what initially fueled his excitement about acting, some of the strongest skills that successful actors have, and what were some of the biggest takeaways that Austin learned from his acting teachers.
Austin Pendleton is a playwright, actor, director, teacher, and a Steppenwolf ensemble member since 1987. He received critical acclaim in 1964 for his performance as Motel in the original Broadway cast of “Fiddler on the Roof.” He appeared in “The Last Sweet Days of Isaac” (for which he won the Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Performance and an Obie Award), “The Diary of Anne Frank,” “Goodtime Charley,” and “Up from Paradise” as well as many other plays. In August 2006, Pendleton played the Chaplain in Bertolt Brecht’s “Mother Courage and Her Children” with Meryl Streep and Kevin Kline in the Public Theater production. As a director, Pendleton has worked extensively on and off-Broadway. His direction of Elizabeth Taylor and Maureen Stapleton in Lillian Hellman’s “The Little Foxes” garnered him a Tony Award nomination. In 2007, Austin Pendleton received a Special Award for his contributions to American theater at the 52nd Annual Drama Desk Awards.
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