Sammy Busby offers acting classes at Hilltop Music and Acting Studio for
adults and teens. He is calling his enterprise SHB Acting Studio, using
his initials and making a nod to his training at New York City’s HB
Studio with Uta Hagan, whose book A Challenge for the Actor will be the
text for the classes. The classes will culminate in a “scene night” with
extracts from plays, complete with an after-party. The workshop will lay
the groundwork for a mini outdoor theater festival at the end of summer.
“I want to give people, regardless of their level of acting experience,
the opportunity to study the techniques of Uta Hagan. For anybody who
has the dream of acting, even if it's a dream they have hidden, to make
it real. It’s all positive reinforcement here.” He recalls emotional
moments in his own training that he does not want his students to
experience themselves. Busby has often been cast as a “heavy” in films
and TV, but is gentle in real life, and the techniques he uses keep real
life and acting in perspective.
Busby is a huge Tennessee Wiliams fan, and one of his goals is bringing
the playwright’s work to audiences. “My favorite play of all times is A
Streetcar Named Desire, it’s an absolute masterpiece.” Busby decided
that the best way to share Williams’ work would be to teach his plays,
get people to act in his plays, and produce them. “Happily, as soon as I
began putting this out there, Mary Morse of Spirit Mountain Retreat
contacted me and said, ‘I have this wonderful outdoor space and I want
to start doing plays.’“ An annual festival is in the works, starting
this August, with plans for a major play and two one-acts.
This quick move from private dream to shared project is “one of the
great things about living in a small town. Not only is it easy to find
people to help you, but there are also countless people who are so
excited to help with set construction, lighting, sound, it's a walk in
the park compared to doing it in New York City.”
Busby is originally from “the southernmost tip of Alabama, Mobile.” His
father acted in community theater there, and Sammy found himself acting
in high school. He won an acting scholarship to Birmingham-Southern
College. He tried for a few years to be a rock star, and in 1990 left
the deep south for Washington DC, where he worked with the animal rights
organization, PETA. Eventually, he joined the thousands of struggling
actors in New York City to follow his dream. He stayed eight years, took
any role he could, and studied with Uta Hagan at HB Studio in the West
Village, and George Loros at the Lee Strasberg Institute.
Eventually, he realized that he could learn to act in New York, but to
really work he would need to go to LA. On the West Coast, he began
getting cast immediately. He has been there for over 20 years and
continues to be cast in roles in film and on television, often as a
gun-toting or bad guy. He is still auditioning.
Like or follow SHB Acting Studio on Facebook. Contact Sammy Busby at
(323) 810-9150. Hilltop Music and Acting Studio is in the Collective,
54440 North Circle Dr. Classes for adults are Mondays, 6:30 to 8:30
p.m., and classes for teens are Tuesdays from 6:30-8 p.m.