Full biography
Dominique De Fazio is one of the world's most recognized acting teachers, as well as a film producer and director based in Los Angeles. He was a student of Lee Strasberg from 1968 to 1980. He studied in Strasberg's private classes at Carnegie Hall in New York, and subsequently in Strasberg's Master Classes and Acting Classes at the Lee Strasberg Theatre Institute, where he became a collaborator of Strasberg. In the 1970s he served as Lee Strasberg's assistant and taught at The Actors Studio in New York, conducting classes on Strasberg's behalf. Dominique De Fazio is a lifetime member of The Actors Studio and was appointed by Mr. Strasberg to be a Moderator of the Acting Sessions of The Actors Studio.
After the historic seminar given by Lee Strasberg in Bochum, Germany, in 1978, Mr. De Fazio was the first teacher to bring systematic training in the tradition called "The Method" to Germany, Italy, France and Spain.
He was a special guest teacher at Teatro San Martín in Argentina. In Europe he has taught in France (Institut Européen de l'Acteur), Spain (Centro Dramático, Madrid; Barcelona; Valencia), Italy (Rome, Milan, Bologna, Parma, Modena, Ravenna), Germany (Schaubühne, Schiller Theater, Hamburg Schauspielhaus) and Slovenia.
A New Teaching
In the late 1980s and early 1990s, De Fazio entered a period of research and productions in Germany and Italy to re-examine the basic notions of "reality," "expression," "communication" and "self" in the light of his training as a Zennist and Daoist, and created a new System of Creative Study and Research. As an acting teacher world-renowned for this system, with its roots in both Zen and Stanislavski, Mr. De Fazio was invited to lecture on it and to teach at the 1988 conference on Stanislavski in Paris, Le Siècle Stanislavski. This symposium brought together the most important figures representing the various developments of the Stanislavski tradition over the past hundred years. From the United States, Sydney Pollack, Stella Adler, Bobby Lewis, Ellen Burstyn and Dominique De Fazio came to lecture. Mr. De Fazio was asked to lecture at the Centre Georges Pompidou on his own evolution of the Stanislavski System, "Toward a Poetic Theatre." (Bouffonneries No. 18/19, Exercise(s). "Le Siècle Stanislavski," 1989. © Patrick Pezin, France.)
Three of these directors were also invited to conduct workshops during the symposium to demonstrate their evolution of Stanislavski: Stella Adler (the Group Theatre), Bobby Lewis (the Group Theatre and co-founder of The Actors Studio), and Dominique De Fazio (The Actors Studio and Studio De Fazio).
In 1995, Mr. De Fazio was one of seven directors invited to participate in the Stanislavski-Brecht International Symposium in Hannover, Germany, where all the directors conducted workshops and presented their results. A book on the symposium was subsequently published, with twenty-eight pages dedicated to De Fazio's workshop (Brecht & Stanislawski: und die Folgen, edited by Ingrid Hentschel, Klaus Hoffmann and Florian Vaßen. Henschel Verlag, Berlin, 1997). De Fazio was the only American invited to the symposium.
First called "The Poetic Theatre" by the Spanish playwright and critic Alonso de Santos, the De Fazio System of Creative Study and Research, distinct from "The Method," is today studied and practiced by professional performing artists from 25 countries.
Dominique De Fazio has taught acting, voice-over, opera, screenwriting and directing to professionals and emerging professionals in North America, Europe and South America. In addition to his program for active professionals, De Fazio teaches specialized courses in film acting, including "The Idiom of Film Acting," "Acting in a Close-Up," "Gesture and Movement in Film Acting," "How to Read a Screenplay" and "Preparing One's Work as an Actor." He has also taught academic courses such as "The Noh Theatre and Its Implications for Actors Today" and "From Stanislavski to Today: the Development of Modern Acting."
Directing and Film
Dominique De Fazio has directed plays in New York, Los Angeles, Germany and Italy. For his most recent Hollywood film, Dancing on a Dry Salt Lake (2013), which he wrote, produced and directed, he cast actors from the United States, Italy and Germany.
