Lenard Petit

Lenard Petit is the Director of The Michael Chekhov Acting Studio in New York City and the author of The Michael Chekhov Handbook, for the Actor. Mr. Petit is a founding member of the Michael Chekhov Association. He was a contributor to and appeared on the DVD series, Master Classes in the Michael Chekhov Technique, produced by MICHA and published by Routledge Press.  Petit has been working in the theater for thirty years collaborating with other artists to create original works for the stage, cinema, and television. He has directed plays and performance pieces on and off Broadway, and also Great Britain. As an actor he has performed in some works of such notable directors as Julie Taymor, Meredith Monk, Richard Foreman, Ping Chong, and many others.. As one of a handful of teacher students trained by the original members of Michael Chekhov's Theater School his knowledge of the technique coupled with his gifts have brought him to be recognized as one of the foremost teachers of this technique in the world. He has been invited to teach Master classes at The International School for Film and Television in Munich, Helsinki University, as well as master classes and workshops in Denmark, Amsterdam, Madrid, Berlin, Zurich, London, Riga, and Irkutsk Siberia. For the past 18 years he has been teaching Chekhov Technique in the MFA and BFA Acting programs at Mason Gross School of the Arts, Rutgers University.