JE Talent's own Michelle Kennedy has been "guesting" on Maria Shriver's blog.  This latest column is a nice shout-out to all the "auditioners" of the world! 
http://www.mariashriver.com/blog/2011/12/love-lessons-my-quest-find-mr-right-onlinecontinues

JE's Connection to ABC's "Pan Am"

Pamela Feack, who is represented by JE, was a real-life Pan Am Stewardess during the height of their success in the 1960s. Now, she and her friends have shared their stories during their life with Pan Am, with the creators the show. If you are curious about what went on during this time, check it out Sunday's at 10pm on ABC. There have been rumors about cancellation, so be sure to watch and save it!

Check out the latest learning opportunities in the Bay Area!

With the economy as it is, everyone loves a deal – especially on classes, seminars and photo sessions that will help your career! Here are the latest specials being offered in the San Francisco market. Our JE Legal Team said we do have to note that any mentions in our postings do not quantify an endorsement by or a direct benefit to JE Talent from said individuals and/or companies - these are simply postings about the happenings in our community.

For a corporate edge:

Peter Meyers
Speak to Inspire
Peter will be opening an Academy for training and his first session is called
Speak to Inspire on October 22 and 23.
And his book AS WE SPEAK was just published in July.
http://standanddelivergroup.com/home/programs/open-enrollment/

For an acting edge:

Cliff Osmond Workshop
The workshop date: October 15/16 (Saturday and Sunday, 10:30 AM to 5 PM, both days).

http://www.cliffosmond.com/html/san_francisco.html.
www.cliffosmond.com

For the ins and outs of a loop group:

Holly Dorff’s Acting Classes
For More information on classes for Kids and Adults
hollydorff.com/classes

For more comfort on camera:

Here's a specific link to the Young Actors Program page
http://www.filmactingbayarea.com/classes_youth.html

Judy Berlin (creator of Kids on Camera)
http://www.kids-on-camera.com/

For tools to keep your instrument attuned:

Eight week Alexander/Linklater Voice class and a new three week seminar Vocal Presence which is specifically for women professionals. Check out the websites for more information!
http://www.lisaportercoaching.com
www.bodyproject.us

For other options of acting schools and classes (in alphabetical order):

Hayes Casting
www.hayescasting.com

Seydways Studio
http://www.seydways.com/

SF Acting Academy
http://www.sfactingacademy.com/

Susan & Friends
http://www.susansvoicemedia.com/

Voice One
http://www.voiceoneonline.com/

Voice Trax
http://voicetraxsf.com/

For video editing:

Ajani Perkins
Two hour lecture on how to use final cut pro at the sag foundation.
http://sagfoundation.org/userhome/eventdetails/8924

For new headshots (current deals)

Kelly Edwards Photography (back in SF on Oct 9)
www.kelseyedwardsphoto.com
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Los-Angeles-CA/Kelsey-Edwards-Photography/43806746018?ref=ts
http://twitter.com/#!/CatchKelsey
http://kelseyedwardsphoto.blogspot.com/

Another Photography opportunity/headshot special
http://www.tiffphoto.com/heads

For other photographers (in alphabetical order):

Jay Dixon
www.jaydixon.com

Kirsten Lara Getchell Photography
klgphotography.com

Chris Hardy Photography
www.chrishardyphoto.com

Lisa Keating Photography
www.lisakeatingphotography.com

Ben Krantz Studio
www.benkrantz.com

Stuart Locklear Photography
www.stuartlocklearphotography.com

Ryan Montgomery Photography
www.montgomeryphoto.net

For our standard disclaimer: JE Talent supports the community through these opportunities but does not directly benefit or endorse any of the above

We're BACK

We know things have been quiet over the summer but we’re back for Fall with a lot of great new stuff coming your way! Please keep checking out our blog here, our Twitter, Facebook and brand new LinkedIn page! Also, we are adding video components for represented users to upload content to YouTube and a Vimeo channel for our finalized projects. Also, we will be updating our website jetalent.com so please keep checking back!
Twitter- @JETalent
LinkedIN- Je Talent
Facebook page- JE Talent, LLC
YouTube- JETalentSF

Brian Degan Scott wins at The Best Actors (in a) Film Festival

Congrats to Brian Degan Scott for his win in this year's The Best Actors (in a) Film Festival!!

Here is a quick note from Brian regarding the details of that eventful night!


"As you may know... I won Best Actor in a Feature Length Comedy! The awards ceremony took place at Studio300Theatre at 442 Post Street in SF last Saturday, May 28th. The awards ceremony was hosted by Diane Merlino and my award was presented by Sarah Kliban (a special honor for me). This is the first annual BAFF Awards ceremony but I heard, they had over 500 entries (not bad for a first time event). There were actors who came from across the country (NYC, Mass. LA) to receive their awards (of course many were from right here in the Bay Area).


They said that they will be putting up the results, photo's of the event, etc., on their website soon ... but you can get more info on the awards at www.thebestactors.com. I'm so proud and honored to get this recognition and I know that I couldn't have done it without you all. I'm so happy that you guys were a part of this project and that you were there for us to help cast it and give us general support and encouragement."

Velina Brown is the host of "Kiss the Cook & The Farmer Too." Check out the info on the show and their event Saturday June 4th

invites you to a farm-to-table evening to benefit...

Kiss the Cook & The Farmer Too
A Public Television Series About Great Food & Sustainable Agriculture

Saturday, June 4, 2011
7:00 - 10:00 pm

Hillside Gardens, Mill Valley, California

• Local & Seasonal Food and Drink
• Live Music by The Creole Belles
• Sneak Preview of the Series Pilot Organic Roots
• Prizes of goods and services from local farms and sustainable businesses



Kiss the Cook & The Farmer Too, from veteran filmmaker Tom Weidlinger, is a 13-part series on cooking and farming that combines the art and sensuousness of good food with eating as a conscious agricultural act. We are what we eat. The way we produce, prepare, and consume food affects both our personal health and the health of our environment and communities. Each program is a window on the blossoming landscape of organic, local, and sustainable food production.

Topics range from the new generation of urban farmers to a history of cheese, from the wild farm movement to sustainable fisheries. Standing behind the project is our National Board of Advisors: prominent sustainability writers, activists, organic farmers, ranchers, vintners, policy makers, educators, and restaurateurs.

Forward this invite link to your friends: cookandfarmer.com/invite.html. “Like” us or write on the wall at Facebook: Kiss the Cook and the Farmer Too. Tweet about and follow cookandfarmer.

THE EVENING
Our sumptuous dinner is followed by a screening of Organic Roots, the half-hour pilot episode of Kiss The Cook & The Farmer Too. The pilot features Chef Malcolm Jessop preparing a meal from ingredients provided by Bay Area organic farms.

Pasture raised pork from Riverdog, fresh produce from Full Belly, and free-range eggs from Soul Food are included in the evening’s meal. Organic and bio-dynamic wines are generously contributed by Mendocinos’ Frey Vineyards, California’s pioneer organic wine producer since 1980.

The farmers co-starring include: Dennis Dierks, Paradise Valley Produce, Jesse Kuhn, Marin Roots Farm, Dru Rivers, Full Belly Farm, Tim Meuller, Riverdog Farm, and Alexis Koefoed, Soul Food Farm. The supporting cast of Organic Roots includes Riverdog’s Tamworth pigs, Soul Food Farm’s free range heritage chickens, and Arnica the cow. Many of the farmers featured in the film will be guests of honor at this benefit.

THE MUSIC
Enjoy the raw sounding violin, furious accordion and rhythms that make your feet move from the band, The Creole Belles, whose music comes straight from the dance halls of southwest Louisiana.

ABOUT OUR HOST
We are extremely grateful to Savory Thymes for hosting this benefit evening.

CONTRIBUTING SPONSORS
Many thanks to the Ecological Farming Association for their endorsement of Kiss The Cook & The Farmer Too and sharing this announcement with their membership. Thanks also to Riverdog and Soul Food Farm for contributing pork and eggs and to Frey and Bonterra Vineyards for contributing wine for the evening's meal, and to the contributing sponsors who have generously donated gifts of goods and services for our silent auction and raffle. For more information on each sponsors click on the sponsor’s name or logo to go to their website. Learn about the prizes they have donated on our website prizes page.

DIRECTIONS, PARKING and SHUTTLE
From 6:45 - 7:45 pm, a shuttle will run from the parking lot of the Mill Valley Middle School to Hillside Gardens. Savory Thymes kindly requests that ALL guests take the shuttle. Parking at the event location is prohibited. Shuttle is located at:

Mill Valley Middle School
425 Sycamore Avenue
Mill Valley, CA 94941

OUR FUNDING GOAL
All proceeds from tickets and donations go directly to support the television series. Our goal is to raise $35,000 in seed money for series development. Ticket price and all donations are fully tax deductible though our fiscal sponsor, Community Works West. If you are unable to attend but would like to make a donation to support this project, please click on the PayPal Donate button below. or send a check to: Community Works West, 1535 Juanita Way, Berkeley, CA 94702

If you attend, please consider making an additional contribution at the end of the evening. As a “thank you” for an additional donation of over $200 you will receive Agrarian Landscapes. The 144-page book is full of great photographs and historical insight from the Dutch peat lowlands to the Montana prairie, from the Iberian Peninsula to the Hawaiian Islands, including interviews with local farmers, politicians and conservationists.
—a gift from Renewing the Countryside.

The Young Men of JE Talent in Pixar's new short, "Play by Play"

Congrats to Charlie Bright, Jeremy Leary and Mattias Christensen for their work on Pixar's "Play by Play" !!

The short film has been nominated for a Golden Gate Award and will be shown at the San Francisco Film Festival this Sunday, May 1st at 11:00 a.m. at the Sundance Kabuki Cinemas.

For more information please go to the SF Film Festival website.

Great work guys!!

PlaybyPlay Shortfilm Trailer from Carlos Baena on Vimeo.

New Clone Wars episode tonight!

Just a reminder to tune in to Cartoon Network at 8:30PM PST tonight to hear Stephen Stanton's portrayal of Tarkin. To read more about his experience voicing the role originated by Peter Cushing, visit starwars.com.

John Kovacevich in new Ford commerical

Check out John Kovacevich in the the newest Ford commercial.
Congrats John!

Ford Edge Commercial from John Kovacevich on Vimeo.

Freddie Olmos in 2011 San Jose Earthquakes Commercial!!

JE Talent Ballin' Up LeBron

Did you watch the All Star Game last weekend?
If you did, you probably saw JE'ers Matt Jones and Nican Robinson guarding the NBA All Star in the latest Sprint commercial.
Congrats guys!

News on Stephen Stanton!

In the next week Stephen will probably break the million visitor mark to his website since he launched his site in 2002.

You will also hear Stephen's voice on Clone Wars as the voice of "Tarkin". Here's what James Arnold Taylor had to say about the completion of the episode:

"Well now that the episode is outta the bag, I must tell you all to check out the amazing Stephen Stanton who is the voice of Tarkin! Stephen has been on the show as many other characters, but I'm sure most of his attention will be from Tarkin. Please check out his website and his many spot on voices! www.stephenstanton.com

Be sure to check out his website and keep in touch by "liking" him on Facebook!

Check out this clip of "Tarkin" http://insidetv.ew.com/2011/02/17/star-wars-clone-wars-grand-moff-tarkin-exclusive-video/

Congrats Stephen!

"What We're Up Against" Review in SF Chronicle

What We're Up Against: Comedy. By Theresa Rebeck. Directed by Loretta Greco. Through March 6. Magic Theatre, Building D, Fort Mason Center, S.F. One hour, 50 minutes. $20-$60. (415) 441-8822. www.magictheatre.org.

Forget the glass ceiling. The walls and even the drafting tables are made of glass at the misogynistic architectural firm in Theresa Rebeck's "What We're Up Against." But the doorless offices of Skip Mercier's slick set symbolize an old boy's ethic that runs deeper than sexism. At this office, the most important product is jockeying for position.

That can be a potent theatrical gambit, particularly as expressed in the clipped, obscenity-laden and comically semi-articulate forays in Rebeck's more Mamet-ian dialogue. It's also something of a limitation in the entertaining, at times provocative but unfulfilling Magic Theatre world premiere that opened Wednesday.

Perhaps that shouldn't be a surprise, given the high level of anticipation generated by a new play by Rebeck, whose "Mauritius" electrified Magic audiences two years ago. "What" is a full-length play based on an eight-minute scene she wrote many years ago. Despite some terrific dialogue, well-honed performances and the expertly orchestrated stagings of Artistic Director Loretta Greco, it still seems limited by its origins.

That one-act, now the opening scene, bristles with promise. It's a crisp, pregnant gripe-fest between Warren David Keith's slightly sodden, outraged Stu, the firm's manager, and Rod Gnapp's focused Ben, who's heading up their biggest commission, a lucrative shopping mall expansion.

Stu is livid about the "perfidy" of the new woman, Eliza, who deceived him into praising one of her designs by passing it off as a male colleague's work. Ben, who has no use for women in the office, is too keen an opportunist not to realize that Eliza may have solved the problem that's holding up the whole project.

Rebeck expands those first ideas enticingly in her first act. Her Eliza is as obnoxious as she is sympathetic, depicted by Sarah Nealis as a seething bundle of furious frustration and extreme youthful arrogance. We already know that her rants about sexism are justified. Her colleagues quickly establish that her faith in her superiority is no less accurate.

Janice (Pamela Gaye Walker), the one other woman at the firm, is a go-along-to-get-along placeholder of no discernable merit. Weber (an insidiously eager James Wagner), the "golden boy" new hire who gets favorable treatment, is defined in bright monologues of art-speak babble as smoke screens for his lack of ideas.

Everyone but Eliza is obsessed with office politics and getting credit. Only Ben, who emerges as Eliza's equally prickly complement, seems as concerned with the actual work - or even to understand what's involved. When his explosive temper finally erupts, Gnapp's brilliantly modulated performance turns the blistering rant into a showstopper.

Where "What" is most enticing is not so much in its depiction of sexism - which is a given - as in Rebeck's sharp portraits of the ways people key off a word to manipulate or betray their workmates. Much of this dialogue shares the keen ear of classic David Mamet (even to the use of his con man's "tell"), but Rebeck doesn't succeed as well in making her workplace emblematic of larger social forces.

She seems to want to depict a corporate culture that stifles all creativity. But as well as "What" riffs off that first scene, it doesn't add much to it.

Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2011/02/10/DD9F1HK1NS.DTL#ixzz1DydMm3Ue

Wonderful Write Up on Craig Marker and His Career in Bay Area Theatre

On the soccer field at Dublin High School, Craig Marker experienced a defining moment. A teammate casually mentioned auditioning for "Antigone" (which he mispronounced), and Marker suddenly knew he should audition too.

His only previous experience in the theater was as part of the backstage crew, but when he was cast as a chorus member in the Greek tragedy, he had what he calls "one of the most incredible experiences I've ever had."

Now 30, Marker is a success story in the world of Bay Area theater. Fresh from the acting program at California State University Hayward (now Cal State East Bay), he nabbed his first professional gig at Berkeley's Aurora Theatre Company and has worked steadily since. He's covered all points on the local compass, from Berkeley Repertory Theatre to American Conservatory Theater to San Jose Repertory Theatre.

The boyishly handsome Marker spent much of last year at Marin Theatre Company. In the spring, he appeared in "Equivocation" and in the fall in "9 Circles," both written by Bill Cain.

During the audition for "Equivocation," Cain remembers Marker doing a monologue from "Twelfth Night" and asking the actor to take it again, only this time to make it about "outrageous, over-the-top ecstasy."

"He started with ecstasy and soared up from there," Cain says. "And as he got to the end, still building, he jumped off the stage, ran shouting through the auditorium and ran out of the theater. In ecstasy."

The audition for "9 Circles" was quite different. Marker was asked to do a cold reading for the part of a troubled 18-year-old soldier just back from Iraq.

"He played hard and fast," Cain says. "He hammered his way through the twists and turns of the 20-minute scene. By the time he got to the key moment, Craig was sitting on the floor of the theater, sobbing out the truth behind the toughness. Agony and ecstasy. What more could you want from an actor?"

Marker is back at Marin Theatre Company in Chekhov's "The Seagull." He's playing Trigorin, a famous writer wrestling with success, and the actor remembers clearly the first time he felt successful. He and his wife, Jeanette, were in their first apartment and had just spent what was for them an extraordinary amount of money for a couch.

"You know what? This couch is mine," Marker recalls declaring proudly. "I'm making enough money to be here right now. If I can follow my passion and pay my bills on time, that's success to me."

Marker cites two inspirations while in college: Professors Ric Prindle and the late Edgardo de la Cruz.

Prindle isn't at all surprised that Marker has made such a mark on local stages. "He's an exceptional person not only in terms of acting but also in terms of personality," the retired professor says. "He's got a great reputation as someone wonderful to work with, and it doesn't hurt that he's strikingly handsome."

After "The Seagull," Marker's dance card is full. Next up is "Wirehead" at SF Playhouse, followed by "Love in American Times," the new Philip Kan Gotanda play, at San Jose Repertory Theatre. This summer he'll be back with the San Francisco Shakespeare Festival touring parks in "Cymbeline."

When young actors make a splash in the Bay Area, they tend to shove off for New York or Los Angeles in a hurry. Marker, his wife, and Ava, their 3-year-old daughter, are happy to stay in Hayward.

"People tell me I should go to New York or L.A.," Marker says. "But I also had people tell me I shouldn't get married. I don't like listening to people who don't listen to me. I'm my dad's son. I'm Norwegian stubborn. I always wanted to have a family, so I've made the choice to stay here. The fear for me, to be honest, is that if we uproot and move, I'd be starting over. I'm successful here. I'd rather crawl up in my cubby hole and be comfy here."

Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2011/02/02/DDUA1HFAIG.DTL#ixzz1DJj0HW3O