In our continuing efforts to improve and expand the UCB Training Center, we’re investing in an academic oversight team to create more brainpower at the top. To that end, I’m thrilled to announce that we’ve recently hired three Academic Directors who will help lead the UCB Training Center nationally as part of their one year term.
The new Academic Directors are Sarah Claspell, Lou Gonzalez, and Marina Templesman. This team, in concert with all of our teachers, will begin sketching out the future of the UCB Training Center, including improving the core curriculum, ongoing teacher training, developing more electives and skills based training, monthly panels, and more!
Sarah Claspell lives in Los Angeles and has been teaching improv at UCB since 2016. She has acted on tv shows such as Brooklyn Nine-Nine and Jimmy Kimmel Live, and written/produced for many live shows at UCB Theater as well as the tv show Drunk History, and also the internet. She performs regularly with variety show Asian AF, improv teams Voltron, Cardinal Redbird, The Bozos, and Elefante, and various shows doing improv, sketch, and characters. Sarah also teaches, performs, and helps run WGIS. She has performed at SF Sketchfest, Edinburgh Fringe Festival, Edinburgh International Improv Festival, and taught and performed improv all over the world. Sarah also co-hosted a podcast about the very good musical Rent.
Lou Gonzalez (all the pronouns) is a comedian/activist/nonbinary fashion fairy based and born in NYC. Having taught and performed improv comedy for 12 years, Lou created platforms for diverse performers in New York and abroad with class experiences and shows that celebrated marginalized voices. His teaching has taken him to various comedy theaters and training centers around the globe celebrating diverse voices. They were even featured on NPR saying “Taking Classes with Lou felt like more than just taking classes” . So she’s that gurl. He’s been on tv/film a few times (Black Bear, The Other Two, Teenage Bounty Hunters) if thats also your thing. He also is a cinematographer and director whose work you can see on IFC and a bunch of other comedy websites that don’t exist anymore. Still looking for beyonce tickets if you got.
Marina Tempelsman is a New York-based writer. Her work has been featured by Comedy Central, The New Yorker, College Humor, Fusion, Funny or Die, Calm, Wondery, Radiotopia, and many other places. She was a resident playwright at The Flea Theater and Ars Nova (CAMP), and a sketch teacher at The UCB. She is also half of the comedy duo Marina & Nicco, whose play Room 4 was a New York Times critic’s pick. Their pilot, Smüchr, won Best Comedy at The New York Television Festival in 2018, and their four-episode audio drama series The Off Season about the #MeToo movement was included in The Guardian’s list of Best Home Entertainment and Refinery29’s list of Best Podcasts of 2018. They are currently in pre-production for their first feature film. www.marinaandnicco.com
