Faculty Directory

Lenny Jones

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I’ve worked for the last 30+ years in Los Angeles as a Sound Designer, Editor and Supervisor.

My body of work includes hit TV shows such as Ancient Aliens, Curse of Oak Island, Penn and Teller’s BS and Unsolved Mysteries. Theatrical campaigns for Sony, Dreamworks, Warner Bros, Paramount, 20th and Marvel studios. VR experiences for Netfilx’s Stranger Things, Daredevil and Death Note. Independent features: Terror on The Prairie (2022), The Fallen (2022), Cinnamon (2023) and Bunker (2023) I also own my own publishing company for Music and Sound Design elements. I’ve been teaching at NYFA since 2022.

Bob Kale, CSA

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Representative Casting credits: Broadway—Souvenir, King Hedley II, An Inspector Calls, A Tale of Two Cities, Little Women-The Musical, The Who’s Tommy, Titanic-The Musical, The Life, Jekyll & Hyde, The Scarlet Pimpernel. Off Broadway—Bedbugs!! The Musical (APA and ArcLight), I Forgive You Ronald  Reagan, Frank McGuinness’ Gates of Gold, Rounding Third, Dietrich & Chevalier,  Over the River and Through the Woods, Noel Coward in Two Keys, Avow, Tails,  The Deep Throat Sex Scandal, Tap Dogs, Worm Day, the Melting Pot Theatre  production of Tintypes. Tours include—The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas starring Ann-Margret, Barry Manilow’s Copacabana, Nunsense (25th  Anniversary Tour), Bring in da Noise, Bring in da Funk starring Savion Glover;  Television includes—Elmo’s World: Happy Holidays!, PBS Sesame Street, As the World Turns, Sally Hemmings (NY Casting). Feature Film includes—NY Casting for Jack & Jill, You Don’t Mess With the Zohan, I Now Pronounce You Chuck and  Larry, Beavis and Butthead Do America, Looney Tunes: Back in Action. He was a professional actor for 19 years before becoming a Casting Director and Teacher.

Krysanne Katsoolis

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Krysanne Katsoolis has over 20 years of experience in financing, producing and distributing film and television properties. She is an entertainment attorney and recently launched a media venture, Liquid Media Group, on NASDAQ.

Prior to Liquid Media Group Katsoolis formed film sales company Cargo Entertainment which specialized in International distribution of feature films up to $15M including The Angriest Man in Brooklyn with Robin Williams and Zipper with Patrick Wilson. Katsoolis founded Cactus Three for the production of high end non-fiction films such as The Cove and The March, executive produced by Robert Redford. Prior to this Katsoolis served as Head of Acquisitions and Business Affairs for Winstar New Media Company, Inc., the content arm of Winstar Communications, a publicly traded (NASDAQ) provider of broadband communications services and content. At its peak the company had a market capitalization in excess of $4.4 billion and revenues of $445.6 million.

Krysanne was a Fulbright Scholar at Columbia Law School and after graduating went on to start her career at Miramax Film Corp and Fox Lorber Associates, two of the main players in setting the paradigm in aggregating film and television content for worldwide distribution. She has worked as an Executive Producer on over fifty films and series along with Academy and Emmy Award winning directors.

Phil Kaufmann Associate Chair of Performing Arts Department

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MFA in Acting, Yale School of Drama; BA in Drama, Dartmouth College. TV appearances on “Law and Order”, “Harry’s Law”, “The Mentalist”, as well as many commercials. Director of several short films, including pilot presentation, “Intelligence” and Emmy-nominated short-form series, “Send Me”.

Brian Kazmarck

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Brian is an award winning writer/director whose films have screened all over the world. He has directed 7 shorts and a feature, including his debut feature “Terminal Legacy” and “The Portland Empire,” which premiered at the 2012 Festival De Cannes and proceeded to sell to Shorts International (U.K.) and the Worldwide Mobile Movie Theatre App in the US. His short “Standing Eight,” a boxing drama, won over 15 awards and is available for streaming on Amazon Prime. He is currently developing a feature-length horror film tentatively scheduled to shoot in the UK in early 2026.

Natalja Kent

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https://www.nataljakent.com/

Natalja Kent is a Czech-American artist based in Los Angeles, CA. Her work investigates process, materiality and embodiment through the expanding parameters of drawing, photograms, painting and sculpture. Solo Exhibitions include Light Waves at Oolong Gallery in San Diego, CA 2024; Light Waves Broken Waters at And Pens Gallery in Los Angeles 2024 and Light Moves at Situations Gallery/Foreland Catskill, NY July 2022. She was recently included in group exhibitions at The Museum of Museums, Seattle, WA; Pace Gallery New York, NY, Good Naked Gallery, Los Angeles/NYC and The Berry Art Museum, Norfolk, VA. She has shown work and/or performed at Tate Liverpool; Carpenter Center for The Visual Arts at Harvard; Hiromi Yoshi Gallery, Tokyo, Japan; PS1, MOMA Queens. She is the recipient of the ArtAffect Grant, Google Artist-in-Residence, Camera Obscura at the City of Santa Monica AIR, RISCA Artist Fellowship amongst others. 

Suzanne Kent

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Founding company member of The Groundlings Theatre Company in Los Angeles and created the Sunday Company program at The Groundlings. Over 30 feature film credits, including “Middle Men,” “Honey, I Blew Up the Kid,” “Nuts,” “The Boost,” and “History of the World: Part I”. Television series regular roles on “Pee-wee’s Playhouse,” “St. Elsewhere,” “The Garry Shandling Show,” and “Brotherly Love.” Voice actor on “Rugrats,” “The Wild Thornberrys,” and “Rocket Power”.

Viktor Kerney Director of Student Life

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With 20 years of experience in Student Affairs, Viktor has engaged with talented students and staff from different walks of life. He has a Master’s in Organizational Communication from Murray State University in Murray, Kentucky.

He previously held professional positions at Occidental College, Loyola Marymount University, the University of Southern California, and Cornell University. Viktor is well-versed in developing and overseeing success initiatives for specific groups of students – particularly students of color, LGBTQIA+, transfer, and first-generation students. He has solid experience in student activities, student organizations, diversity and inclusion programming, student leadership development, and residential education.

Besides being a Higher Education professional, Viktor is a comic book writer and active board member of Prism Comics, an organization promoting the awareness of LGBTQIA+ creators, stories, characters, and readers in the comics industry. And a consistent panelist at WonderCon and San Diego Comic-Con, discussing diversity and inclusion in comics.

Claude Kerven

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Kerven’s career began with the debut of his short film Candy Store, which won an Academy Award for Best Dramatic Student Film. In 1982, he directed a series of Afterschool Specials for ABC-TV, including the Emmy Award-winning Starstruck and the Director’s Guild of America-nominated High School Narc. Kerven also directed over 25 short films for Saturday Night Live, including the much-celebrated Synchronized Swimmers. His most recent directorial work, They Never Found Her, starred Madmen’s Elisabeth Moss and Fargo’s Peter Stormare. In 1990, Kerven co-authored Mortal Thoughts, for Columbia Pictures, starring Bruce Willis, Harvey Keitel, and Demi Moore. 

Simon Kiser

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Simon Kiser is an East Coast-based stunt coordinator, fight choreographer, and martial artist with the Society of American Fight Directors. They’ve worked in the field for over twenty years, have choreographed for the National Players, PigPen Theatre Company, and various off-Broadway houses, and are currently an associate instructor at the New York stage combat school Neutral Chaos.

Chris Knight

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Chris Knight was born in Wiesbaden, Germany and hardened by the sweaty, nearly chewable, humidity of Florida. He combines his unconditional love of art history with his conditional love of technology, topping it off with a flair for the cinematic and an uncompromising eye for detail.His work has appeared in or on Vogue, People, MSNBC, ABC, Oxygen, Ocean Drive, GQ and others.
Chris is the author of “The Dramatic Portrait,” a Profoto Legend of Light, and an instructor at Pratt Institute as well as the New York Film Academy.

Ronald Kopp

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Ron Kopp has been a regularly featured film commentator for NPR, the “Dr. Video” columnist for barnesandnoble.com, and the Film Programmer for the Paramount Center for the Arts. He is currently in post-production on a short fiction film, “The Resurrection Love Song.” His feature-length version of Jeff Cohen’s play “The Soap Myth” has been broadcast on PBS. Both “The Soap Myth” and his documentary “I Will Refuse to Bubble” are distributed by Digital Theatre. Ron joined the faculty of the New York Film Academy in 2010. He teaches Documentary Cinema Studies and hosts master classes with visiting filmmakers.

Veronika Kurshinskaya Community Outreach Manager

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Veronika Kurshinskaya is a writer, producer, and actress. She has a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Political Science from Yaroslavl State University. Then, she studied theater at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts and later received her Master of Fine Arts in Acting from the New York Film Academy. Veronika believes that through art we can inspire future generations to make the world a better place. In 2023, she successfully completed a professional development program at the internationally renowned Music Center of Los Angeles County as a Teaching Artist for Theater. Veronika’s passion is creating, organizing, and supporting outreach programs that help to reveal the beauty of storytelling to underserved children.

Michael Kushner

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Michael Kushner is NYC’s leading multi-hyphenate and one of the most sought after theatre photographers for headshots, portraits and backstage photography. Michael is the Executive Producer of the EMMY Nominated series Indoor Boys. His book, How to Be a Multi-Hyphenate in the Theatre Business: Conversations, Advice, and Tips from Dear Multi-Hyphenate, was released in the Spring of 2023 and published by Routledge Publishing of the Taylor & Francis Group. Michael has recently joined the board of the new regional theatre, Core Theatre Group, based in Warwick, NY. In true multi-hyphenate form, Michael served as the Director of Programming for The Green Room 42, providing the space with sold out programming post pandemic. Film: Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire (2024). Performance: On the Town at Barrington Stage (Pre Broadway, Directed by John Rando), Much Ado About Nothingat Barrington Stage (Directed by Julie Boyd), Sons on the Prophet at GableStage (Directed by Joe Adler). He is the creator of his one man show, Moo With Me (Directed by Max Crumm). In June of 2021, Michael’s one person musical cabaret Michael Kushner Sings His Hits for Pride was part of 54 Below’s reopening programming as the industry opens after the CoVid-19 pandemic. Photography: Featured in The NYTimes, Vogue, The Tony Awards, Playbill, Women’s Wear Daily, and more. Creator of The Dressing Room Project. Michael has photographed Hillary Clinton, Tom Hanks, Patti LuPone, Idina Menzel, Julie Andrews, and many more notable artists. Producing: Emmy Nominated web series, Indoor Boys, created by Wes Taylor and Alex Wyse, XaveMePlease, starring Isaac Powell, (Frameline43 Festival in San Fran). Michael is one of the founding members of Musical Theatre Factory, currently in residency with Playwrights Horizons, and was awarded the first ever MTF Builder Award. Michael produced and directed (as well as performed in) the sold out evening of 54 Celebrates Mel Brooks, starring Richard Kind, Veanne Cox, and more. During CoVid-19, Michael has stayed active in the theatre community by serving as Director of Photography and producing virtual events such as Moments in the Woods (A Virtual Gala for the HFWAA featuring Lin-Manuel Miranda, nominated for a BroadwayWorld Award), Betsy Wolfe’s A Pants Optional Holiday, It’s A Wonderful Life: A Live Radio Play featuring The Skivvies with Laguna Playhouse, and Leslie Kritzer’s Holiday Show for The Actors’ Home. Active participant with Covenant House. In 2020, Michael served as 2020 KeyNote speaker for Florida Thespians. Michael was recently awarded the 2020 Outstanding Young Alumni Award from Ithaca College. Michael teaches theatre business to the advanced NYU performance students at The Lee Strasberg Institute as well as the New York Film Academy.

Fred Lancaster

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Fred Lancaster is a director, acting teacher, and workshop facilitator working across the UK, US, and Europe. He trained as an actor at Guildhall School of Music & Drama (2010) and worked professionally in the industry for over a decade before obtaining a Post Graduate Certificate in Education from Goldsmiths, University of London.

Fred has extensive experience in drama school audition preparation, having served on the BA Acting audition panel at the Guildhall School of Music & Drama for over ten years. He currently teaches on Guildhall’s short course and online programmes, and delivers workshops on audition technique, connecting to text, and improvisation across multiple schools and universities in the UK. His independent coaching practice focuses on audition preparation and drama school applications, supporting emerging actors in their training journeys.

Fred teaches on the Acting For Film Semester Programme at the New York Film Academy in Florence, Italy, delivering lessons in Scene Study, Voice and Movement, and Directing Actors. He has also worked as a visiting acting tutor across the USA, including at the University of Notre Dame, John Carroll University, Occidental College, and Rice University.

Fred’s teaching draws on contemporary approaches to actor training, integrating techniques from practitioners including Uta Hagen, Patsy Rodenburg, and Michael Chekhov. He has developed international online course offerings in drama-based communication training for universities in Southeast Asia and continues to expand his work as an educator and performance coach globally.

Stephanie Jean Lane

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Stephanie Jean Lane is an actor, dancer, director, and teacher based in New York City. She was a company member of Punchdrunk’s Sleep No Morefrom 2018-2022, and has performed at Lincoln Center, Shakespeare Theatre Company, The Guthrie Theater, Berkshire Theatre Group, Barrington Stage Company, Elm Shakespeare, LaMaMa ETC, The Brick, in Edinburgh and Shanghai, and on TV and film. Prior to her acting career, Stephanie danced professionally for Ani Javian, Rocha Dance Theater, and The Painted Ladies. She teaches acting, movement, and voice at New York Film Academy, coaches privately, makes original work for stage and film, and collaborates and creates with Society Theatre Company. MFA: NYU Grad Acting.