South Asian Theatre with Universal Appeal

EnActe School of Drama is the educational arm of the renowned Bay Area theatre company EnActe Arts, Inc., an organization dedicated to global storytelling and diverse voices. The School of Drama has students of all ages, catering to its clientele with drama-based holistic education suitable for children, youth, adults, and even industry professionals. The primary philosophy of the School of Drama is that the skills provided by film and theatre arts are applicable, practical, and integral to the development of any career in any field. We have been successful in a constantly changing climate (even through challenges such as COVID-19), because what drama teaches most is self-thought, adaptability, resourcefulness and all attributes of social competence including presentation, perception and persuasion. We teach more than drama; we teach a new way of thinking to radically shift the way we think about the correlation between art and technology.

Currently the Enacte School of Drama only offers classes through our partnered school programs. We hope to launch further offerings mid 2023. If you are apart of a school and would like to bring Enacte School of Drama to your campus, contact us. We will update when we have further offerings available.

2024 Course Descriptions and Offerings

Our School Partners

Connect with Us! 
If you are interested in becoming a school partner

EnActe School of Drama Team

Shalini Datta

Director of Education

Shalini Datta (she/her)

Operations and Curriculum Liaison EnActe School of Drama

Xander (he/him) 

Communications Manager / Video Editor at EnActe School of Drama

Joel Moore (He/Him/His)

EnActe's Teachers

Brian Carmack (he/him/his)

Bianca Chesnut (she/her)

Stefan Fisher (he/him)

Nancy Frank (she/her)

Genene Griffiths Ortiz (she/her) 

Michaela Stewart (she/her) 

Dilip-R

Dilip Ratnam (he/him)

Atika Shah (she/her)

Shalini Datta

Shalini is super excited to be joining the team of EnActe School of Drama as an Instructor. Shalini holds a BA in English Honors from a reputated University in India. Shalini has experience in working as an actor in regional film industry and on television in India.Shalini has won many awards on regional and national level in the field of performing arts. Shalini has also lend her voice for drama on radio. Shalini is also a trained Dancer and Stage artist.Shalini’s most recent experience in performing arts is teaching improv theatre in a summer school as an enrichment program.

Xander

Xander (he/him) is an actor, playwright, and teacher. He has recently received his M.A. at UC Santa Cruz in playwriting where he adapted the Bertolt Brecht play Mother Courage and her Children to modern day Mexico. . He wears many hats at EnActe as he is also an Operations and Curriculum Liaison dealing with scheduling and curriculum development. Pioneering the new Improv class to be part of the EnActe curriculum. 

esodops@enacte.org

Joel Moore

Joel Moore (He/Him/His) is a newly minted professional theatrical artist specializing in directing and education. He received his Master’s degree in Theater from UCSC after directing a production of The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime using the radical and new framework of Neurodivergent Theatre. He also has a passion for teaching and introducing the joys of theater to students. He has been in many productions over the years, as an actor, director, and crew. But he is excited to be a teacher at EnActe and looks forward to helping fulfill the mission of ESOD.

Brian Carmack

Brian is thrilled to be joining the team of EnActe School of Drama! He holds both a BA and MA in theatre arts from the University of California at Santa Cruz. After an extensive professional career centering around musical theatre, including the Broadway cast of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Starlight Express, both the Vienna and Zürich companies of CATS, and the national tour of Chicago, the musical, he returned to school to earn his degrees so that he would have the opportunity to one day influence and nurture, up-and-coming talent. Currently, Brian teaches and directs acting and actor’s workshop at Gavilan College in Gilroy, as well as directs for Live Oak high school in Morgan Hill.

Bianca Chesnut

Bianca is so grateful to be joining this fall as an Instructor with EnActe School of Drama! Bianca recently received her BFA in Drama from NYU Tisch School of the Arts and has also trained at the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art and Carnegie Mellon University, studying Classical Acting and Musical Theatre, respectively. Bianca’s most recent credit is Helena with the San Francisco Shakespeare Festival’s touring production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream, and works as a Teaching Artist with SF Shakes.

Stefan Fisher

Stefan is the drama teacher at Saint Lawrence Elementary and Middle School and directs the middle school production at Woodside Priory. For twenty-one years, Stefan was an actor, director, playwright, and instructor with California Theatre Center, where he appeared in over a hundred productions and directed student actors in numerous Conservatory productions, many of which he wrote. He earned a Bachelor’s Degree in Dramatic Art from University of California, Davis and a Teaching Credential from Sacramento State University. Between UCD and CSUS he traveled with and performed in various circuses.

Genene Griffiths Ortiz

Genene is an instructor with the EnActe School of Drama. Genene has an AA in English from Evergreen Valley College and majored in English for Education at San Jose State. As a child. Genene played a wide array of characters in dozens of short films written and directed by her sci-fi / horror author father, Gerry. Genene is a writer, artist, painter also influenced by her great grandfather, English animator, Sid Griffiths. Genene is a mother of three, a trained makeup artist, a beauty consultant, and a licensed life agent for the State of California.

Michaela Stewart

Michaela is honored to be teaching with EnActe’s School of Drama! She is a member of the San Francisco Shakespeare Festival’s Education Workgroup and has also served as a Teaching Artist and Camp Manager there for over a decade. She has also taught, directed, and performed for many years with Los Altos Youth Theatre and Los Altos Stage Company. She holds a BFA in Film Production from Chapman University’s Dodge College of Film and Media Arts and also attended the Second City Film School in Chicago.

Dilip Ratnam

Dilip is thrilled to be a part of EnActe’s School of Drama. Balancing his passion along with his technology career, he has been part of numerous South Asian Bay Area productions for the last decade, both acting and directing. Professionally, he built his career leading world-class teams to drive continuous improvements for both product and service delivery.  He has a Master’s degree in Computer Engineering from Bombay University in India and holds a Masters in Business Administration from California State University, East Bay in the USA.