Jena Necrason

Jena is a performer, choreographer/director and teaching artist. Since 1991, she has lived and worked professionally in New York City performing at Lincoln Center, Cherry Lane Theatre, Ohio Theatre, Connelly Theatre, and HERE. Regional theater: Glimmerglass Opera, KO Festival, Gorilla Theatre. She has also performed abroad at The Harold Pinter Studio in London and was invited to spend one month studying with Pina Bausch Tanztheatre Wupperthal in Germany. Credits include Hamlet, A Midsummer Night's Dream, The Merchant of Venice, The Lucky Chance, Twelfth Night, Cherry (one-woman show), and a workshop production of a musical based on Jean-Craighead George's best selling novel Julie of the Wolves. Longstanding artistic relationships include work with FAY SIMPSON'S IMPACT THEATRE and MOONWORK. Jena has performed frequently as a singer with Wenhelm Productions American Composer Series and has sung on a number of original cast recordings for new musicals in New York. Jena is a member of Actor's Equity Association and Screen Actor's Guild and has appeared in several television commercials. Most recently (January 2009), Jena performed the role of Mrs. Gibbs in The Harold Clurman Laboratory Theatre’s production of Our Town.

As a choreographer/director her work includes critically acclaimed New York productions of Richard III, Romeo and Juliet, A Midsummer Night's Dream and Julius Caesar, among others.

Jena is the Head of Movement at The Stella Adler Studio of Acting in New York City where she has been on the faculty since 1997.
At Stella Adler she teaches Movement and Physical Acting in both the Conservatory Programs and the Undergraduate Acting Program at New York University's Tisch School of the Arts. Jena also serves as the Director of The Teenage Conservatory and as the Managing Director of The Harold Clurman Center for New Works in Movement and Dance Theatre at The Stella Adler Studio. She co-developed and implemented the Summer Shakespeare Outreach Program for inner city youth at the studio. She has also taught at The National Shakespeare Conservatory. As a Movement professional Jena has done intensive training in Yoga, The Lucid Body Technique, Laban-Bartenieff and Grotowski.

Jena received a BFA in Dance Performance from the Performing Arts Conservatory at SUNY Purchase. She is a certified personal trainer and has spent years teaching group fitness classes, dance classes (for young people, gymnasts, athletes and actors) and doing body work with private clients. She also helped develop a dance program for young people and teens at Chelsea Piers in New York City.

Jena is co-founder of Vermont Shakespeare Company.

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