Sing Smart Act Smart is a theater lab whose mission is to enrich how artists study and perform songs. SSAS offers affordable lessons, workshops, and performances in New York City, as well as throughout the United States and abroad. Our artists impart an all-embracing perspective of musical style and performance practice, while fostering a diligent approach to technique and musicianship. We observe that traditional musical theater artists, as well as classical singers, pop vocalists, actors, writers, composers, and comedians benefit from venturing into each other’s terrain and swapping techniques. Since artists are required to “crossover” more now than ever, SSAS vitalizes musical theater training by always welcoming into our studio the challenges of pop rock, opera, art song, cabaret, speeches, and monologues. Our practices correlate undeniably to the traditions of classical vocal technique, vaudeville, and Golden Age musical theater, each being a key in overall proficiency. SSAS’s cornerstones always remain legato singing, imaginative storytelling, and expressive physicality. Seeking to abolish our enemies Frustration, Confusion, and Inhibition, we emphasize the importance of a balanced mind-body-spirit.

Most anyone can learn to perform songs effectively but few become expert.  Converting ink on a page into a theatrical moment can easily set even the most intuitive, sensitive artist upon a fruitless path.  Factors such as pitch, timing, and gesture lie in a delicate balance and become easily misaligned. Many times performance choices you’re sure will work strangely don’t and seemingly improper choices do. The reasons are often not so obvious nor the solutions blatant. SSAS labs are designed to set you upon a profitable and inventive course of action in record time! Whether your aim is singing with confidence, building a better audition book, or boosting your stage authority, Sing Smart Act Smart will bring your act to light!

A SSAS instructor is always a “crossover” artist and therefore, draws upon experience in more than one artistic discipline while observing you.  We will inspect your skills from every angle and thoroughly diagnose any stumbling blocks. Fusing together our observations, your instructors will tailor-fit class methods to your specifications. You will practice your craft in our interactive community where everyone understands just how many pieces must fit together to beget a powerful singing actor. SSAS instructors shall work collaboratively within our very own system of checks and balances to bring out a fearless, exuberant you!

SSAS was established in 2008 by non-profit theater company and school The Artist’s Crossing.

Some Things We Believe

• One should acquire a positive connotation for the word manipulate. In capable hands this verb manipulate designs authentic, enlightening, refreshing, and genuine performances.
• An “audition” is ideally a proof that you are skilled for the required tasks, animate the suitable essence for a role, and are pleasantly flexible in collaboration. An “audition” is not proof that you are talented, smart, deep, or worthy of admiration.
• It is not superficial that a person’s physical appearance during a performance is a significant factor.
• All movement is dance, but thankfully, the requirements are most often astoundingly basic and easy to execute.
• All speech is music, however, much of life does not require us to exploit duration and range.
• Specific, even arbitrary choices, are better to execute when first crafting a song than what you may want to produce consciously or unconsciously.
• As performing artists, whether or not we love, respect, or sympathize with the songs we are studying is best paid little mind.
• You do not have to feel a thought or line of text: simply choose an appropriate message that you know how to deliver and behave so it lands outside yourself.
• It is simple fact that we know how to say things that we may never choose to say ourselves, but these things are often well chosen when used in our song performances.
• Song performance is healthy and positively life altering when approached as a practice, like yoga or the martial arts, rather than emotionally or psychologically.
• Even the most troubled or inexperienced student can teach you something beneficial.
• Wisest to seek for absolute freedom before setting a public performance–even if this involves temporarily mocking your song, performing it in a lawless way, or setting ridiculously narrow perimeters.
• It pays to work cheerfully and openly–like an exuberant puppy!
• Vulnerability is like salt, a little goes a long way.
• The profound artist shall become frivolous, and the frivolous and artist shall become profound.
• Modifying the abstract elements of composition (shape, size, weight, speed, volume, etc) can instantly boost your work.
• Singers must externalize the internal. Try placing the emotional content of your song outside yourself and speak to it. Extract part of yourself if you must and materialize it into a impressionable entity.