Check out Ed Hooks. He's a fantastic acting teacher based in Chicago. He is also a well known specialist in teaching acting to animators.

Mr. Hooks is also a respected author. His book The Audition Book (Winning Strategies for Breaking into Theater, Film and Television is a required text at the NYU Tisch School of Drama. Another book, "The Ultimate Scene and Monologue Sourcebook, is a popular and invaluable reference for professional actors and acting teachers internationally. He has written two other books, Acting for Animators, now in its fourth printing for Heinemann, and Acting Strategies for the Cyber Age, which was published in June 2001. For ten years, Hooks wrote a monthly by-line column for Callboard Magazine, published by Theatre Bay Area in San Francisco, and he now writes a monthly column for the on-line publication Casting Connection (http://www.castingconnection.com).

As an acting teacher and coach, Ed has trained thousands of actors in New York, Los Angeles and San Francisco. His past students include Heather Locklear ("Melrose Place"), Teri Hatcher ("Lois and Clark") and many other recognizable and working actors. It is difficult to watch television for a single evening without seeing several of Ed's past or current students at work on various shows or in commercials.

In addition to his regular acting classes for actors, Ed Hooks teaches acting to animators, the kinds of people who make movies like "Shrek". In this position, he has taught widely in the U.S., Europe and Asia. For an in-depth look at this side of Ed's career, go to his other web site, http://www.actingforanimators.com.