The Beverly Hills Playhouse is an acting school with theaters and training facilities in Beverly Hills, California, and also in Los Angeles, San Francisco, and New York City. It is one of the oldest acting schools and theatres in the Los Angeles area.
The location was originally home to the Bliss-Hayden School of Acting run by the husband and wife team of actress Lela Bliss (over 45 credits 1915–1965) and actor Harry Hayden (over 260 credits 1936–1955). Veronica Lake, Mamie Van Doren and many other professional actors studied there.[citation needed]
In 1954, the Bliss-Hayden Theatre was acquired by Douglas Frank Bank and Jay Manford, and renamed The Beverly Hills Playhouse. This was a showcase for many productions written by Douglas Bank (The Preacher, and Journey to a Lonely Star) as well as well-known plays of the time including Jenny Kissed Me, Room Service, The Lawyer, Harvey, and The Second Man. Many actors had performed there including Stanley Adams, Anne Baxter, Ken Mayer, Michael Fox and Louella Parsons, and directors Larry Stewart and Arthur M. Lowe, Jr., as well as others. They owned the theatre until 1959.[citation needed]
In 1978, director and acting teacher Milton Katselas moved his already established acting classes to the location.[1][2] Katselas ran the school until his death in 2008.
The Beverly Hills Playhouse (BHP) Acting School
The Beverly Hills Playhouse is one of the city's oldest. The BHP is one of only a few schools that not only teaches the craft of acting, but also attitude and administration. With regard to acting technique, the BHP uses Katselas' approach, which is decidedly independent of the major acting philosophies of Stanislavski, Strasberg, Adler, Meisner, Hagen, etc.[citation needed]
After Katselas' death in 2008, the BHP has been run by his longtime administrator Allen Barton, and the BHP's connection with Scientology is less noticeable.[3]
The BHP operates out of its headquarters in Beverly Hills, as well as programs in San Francisco and New York City. Since 1984, it has also had an in-house non-profit theatre company (currently called The Skylight Theatre Company), which has produced hundreds of theatre productions, largely originated and fulfilled by the talent and interests of the BHP students. Its current focus under the leadership of Gary Grossman is the development of new plays, using the full array of talent available in the Los Angeles theatre community.[4][bettersourceneeded]
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