Bruce Nelson: Actor. Teacher.

NEXT:  SHIPWRECKED! at Everyman Theatre

My name is Bruce Nelson and I have been an actor and teacher in the Baltimore/DC area for the past 25 years.  I am a 1988 graduate of Towson University where I received a BA in Theatre.  As a student at Towson, I was presented with the Theatre Humanitarian Award and in 2001 was recognized as an Honored Theatre Alumnus.  Immediately following college I toured with the National Players for three years and then with the Children's Theatre Association of Baltimore.  In 1993 I helped found the Baltimore-based Improv group The Flying Tongues that enjoyed entertaining local audiences for several years ending with a tour to Arizona, California and Wisconsin.  At Howard Community College I taught acting and Improvisation for several years establishing the Yo’ Mama’s Cookin’ student Improv troupe and in 2002 I was made Outstanding Adjunct Faculty Member in HCC's Theatre Department.  Currently I teach Improvisation at Stevenson University outside of Baltimore, Improv-Empowerment with Project Access at Howard Community College and Basic Acting at Everyman Theatre.  Privately I offer acting coaching in my home and over the phone I Life Coach performers looking for guidance and support in their careers.  In 2008, along with two former students from my adult Improv classes, I helped found Catapult, an Improv group that draws upon social concerns as the basis for a more structured, longer form of improvised storytelling.

As an actor and Company Member at Everyman Theatre, favorite roles have included: Our Town, The Mystery of Irma Vep, I Am My Own Wife, ‘Art’, The Turn of the Screw, The School for Scandal, The Cripple of Inishmaan, The Drawer Boy, The Pavilion (Baltimore City Paper, Best Actor), As Bees in Honey Drown, The Crucible, Hedda Gabler and Watch on the Rhine.  At Rep Stage in Columbia I have been seen in Hysteria, Bach at Leipzig, Stones in his Pockets, Santaland Diaries, Neville’s Island, Kimberly Akimbo, The Lonesome West, Travels with My Aunt, The Violet Hour, The Dazzle, and Faith Healer. I have been nominated 5 times for the Helen Hayes award of Washington, DC and won twice for my roles in The Dazzle and The Violet Hour.  I am also a member of the Acting Company at Woolly Mammoth Theatre in Washington, DC where I was recognized as an Outstanding Emerging Artist in 2000.  Favorite productions there included: Wonder of the World, Big Love, Dead Monkey, Dead Man’s Cell Phone, After Ashley, Wonder of the World and Fuddy Meers.  I have also enjoyed work at the Folger Theatre, Olney Theatre Center, Center Stage, Signature Theatre, Washington Shakespeare Company, The Shakespeare Theatre and Baltimore Shakespeare Festival.  For three years I toured with Olney Theatre Center’s touring branch The National Players in Much Ado About Nothing, Animal Farm, Midsummer, Nicholas Nickleby, The Taming of the Shrew and The Elephant Man.  From 1998 to 2007 I was a professional book narrator for the blind at the Library of Congress and in 2002 received the Torgi Literary Award for my recording of As Nature Made Him by John Colapinto.

In the corporate arena I offer teambuilding and facilitation workshops and have worked with: Cho Benn Holbeck Architects, IMRE Financial Services, Howard Community College Entrepreneur Program, PW Feats Event Planning, Community Conferencing Center Family Mediation, Friends of the Family Support Network, Howard Community College Presidential Team, Library Staff and SGA, Broadridge Services, Korean Resource Center, Human Genome Sciences, Improv workshop, Ryland Homes,  Grimm and Parker, XL Health, ING Financial and Stevenson University Leadership.

After nine months at the Tai Sophia Institute in Laurel, MD studying Applied Healing Arts (Cultivating active listening, letting go of assumptions and expectations, honoring the individual, using language to nurture and facilitate collaboration), I determined that Life Coaching would be an important addition to my private teaching. For a year I worked with MentorCoach, completing their Foundations Course.  For those of you who don't know,  Life Coaching helps clients determine, set and achieve personal goals.  It uses multiple methods throughout this process and provides important focus, accountability and momentum to individuals.  Life Coaching priciples inform my various teaching endeavors and as an outgrowth, I have developed a series of communication and teambuilding skills workshops using Improv as a fun foundation and brought these teachings to the business arena.

What sets my consultation apart is that I offer a highly personalized approach to the client rather than an impersonal listing of canned “universal rules” about what it means to present well. Skills I developed while acting, teaching Improvisation, in the wellness field and in Life Coaching, combine to make me an exquisitely intuitive, sensitive and nurturing consultant.  I come to your place of business and during our sessions I provide invaluable objective feedback about your “presentation behavior” in a light-hearted and non-threatening way.  By the end of a 90 minute, private, one-on-one session (session lengths are flexible and usually end at the hour or a little after) my hope is that the client leaves with a greater confidence, a new perspective on powerful presenting and a deeper awareness of how they present themselves in life.  Follow-up sessions and group sessions are scheduled on an as needed basis.  Your privacy is of the utmost importance to me so please know that what is discussed in our sessions is kept confidential. 

My approach is this:  In my opinion, rarely is there a “bad” presenter…only a potential that has not been realized.  I am not interested in re-making the individual but merely tweaking details that they already bring to the table and drawing out those hidden characteristics that will make them a more powerful speaker.  It is believed that shortly after the presenter starts speaking we stop listening, especially if the presentation is laden with too much detail (so many presentations err on the side of including every fact and figure, overwhelming the listener).  We have already made some snap judgments and not about the information being presented but the person.  We begin to wonder if they are likeable and could we spend the next six months working closely with them if they were to be hired?  This dynamic suggests that the person presenting is sometimes more important that the information.  Anecdotal research maintains that mistakes on the job are more easily forgiven if the person making the mistake is likeable.  I am reminded of a client who presented a project to a local business.  The presentation was impressive but the presenter charmed the powers-that-be with her friendly, easy-going and open personality.  She was regarded as someone “who really listened” to what the client wanted.  When minor errors in the project were made (as they always are) they were easily forgiven as the principal was such a pleasure to work with.

Consultation with me can aid in coaxing out your own friendly, easy-going and open behaviors. As part of the consultation, I focus on the seemingly trivial behaviors:  A quick sideways glance, an unconscious shifting of the feet or an air of disconnectedness and together with the client determine the “why” of these nervous vocal and physical actions.  This work is like acupuncture: The needle goes in; there is a brief shudder and then a realization.  The client hopefully has a new perspective on what they do and some distance to decide how to adjust. When clients are asked to reflect on what they know or feel about improving their presentation skills, they respond in the following way: That it is something they should improve but they do not have the time, interest, or money.  Improving this skill is seen as frivolous or they are in a field where how they present is not important, besides, presenting well is about the bells and whistles of the Power Point, not the person.  Often, clients feel that presenting well does not come easily or because they are shy, feel that they are not the “presenting kind”. Still other clients fear forgetting their material and being perceived as ignorant and unprepared, that their skills are worse than they really are.  If any of the above applies to you, I look forward to working with you and dispelling some of these presentation myths. My process is decidedly creative.  I am an artist at heart and my training as an actor over the years has included a rigorous delving into the various intentions of a stage character.  My work is to continually unlock and excavate what makes a character believable and why an audience should listen to their story.  I apply this process to my presentation skills consultation…why should an audience believe your story?  The unifying theme in my work is connecting:  What gets you closer to you.  In preparation for our meeting, the client brings with them the necessary materials for a mock run of a presentation for me to evaluate.