In the land of the imagination this is the difference between a craftsman and an artist: a craftsman knows where everything in that land is. An artist too knows where everything in that land is, but still gets lost there.

In the graduate acting program Richard teaches personalization (which focuses on expanding the actor's expressive range), scene study, acting for the camera and professional preparation. In the undergraduate program, Richard teaches acting for the camera.

In the Spring of 2009, Richard will be the Showcase Director for the graduating MFA actors as he was in 2008.

Professor Brestoff holds an M.F.A. in Acting from New York University's School of the Arts and is a Phi Beta Kappa graduate of UC Berkeley's Dramatic Art Department. His teachers include Peter Kass, Olympia Dukakis, Joseph Chaikin and Kristin Linklater. Upon graduation from NYU, Richard worked for Joseph Papp's New York Shakespeare Festival, appearing on Broadway in Michael Rudman's production of Hamlet starring Sam Waterston.

Richard has acted in more than a dozen feature films and over thirty network television shows including, My Favorite Year, The Entity and CBS' The Fugitive. In 1991 Richard appeared on the EMMY ballot for his guest-starring performance on the CBS television series, thirtysomething. In addition, Richard has acted off-broadway, in regional theater and on radio.

He has written four books on acting: The Camera Smart Actor, The Great Acting Teachers and Their Methods, Acting Under the Circumstances; Variations on a Theme of Stanislavski and most recently, The Actor's Wheel of Connection.

His professional affiliations include the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists, Actors Equity Association and the Screen Actors Guild. He is also a voting member of the Performers Branch of the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences (EMMYS). In 2008 he served for the 7th time as a Blue Ribbon Panel Judge for the Primetime EMMY Awards.

Richard appears as an on-camera expert commentator and analyst for a 2008 documentary entitled, Great American Masters of American Acting Training: Lee Strasberg and Stella Adler.

Also, in 2008 Richard was selected for inclusion in the publication, Who's Who in America.

In 2007 Richard played the father in the Tony and Pulitzer prize winning play, Proof at the Long Beach Playhouse. About the performance one reviewer wrote, "Brestoff's Robert gets better and better until a heartbreaking second act climax results in audible gasps."

In 2006 he appeared as Leonardo DaVinci in Robert Cohen's play, Machiavelli at the Hayworth Theater in Los Angeles.

In 2005 Richard acted in Bryan Reynolds' play Woof, Daddy which toured three cities in Poland. The magazine Warsaw Today, wrote of his performance, "As the father, Richard Brestoff was magnificent, like a Shakespearean anti-hero simultaneously loved and despised, he pushed the audience off the edges of their seats." Also in 2005 Richard was the recipient of the Claire Trevor School of the Arts Dean's award for Excellence in Teaching.

Curriculum Vitae
Books available at Amazon.com
Film and TV credits available at IMDb.com