» Mr. Michael E. Nehring

Professor

College of Performing Arts

Department of Theatre

Acting and Movement

Office:

Moulton Hall 224

Phone:

714-997-6677

Email:

nehring@chapman.edu

Education

California State University, Fresno, Bachelor of Arts
University of Oregon, Master of Science in Theatre Arts

Biography

Professor Michael Nehring is an accomplished actor, director, teacher, and choreographer. Michael is a founding member of several successful theatre companies, most recently Son of Semele Ensemble in Los Angeles. For Son of Semele, he played Napoleon in the Ovation Award winning musical Animal Farm. As a founding member of Shakespeare Orange County, Michael has been seen as Iago in Othello, Touchstone in As You Like It, Horatio in Hamlet (Dramalogue Award), Don Pedro in Much Ado About Nothing, the Fool in King Lear, Autolycus in Winter's Tale, Mark Anthony in Julius Caesar, Feste in Twelfth Night, Gratiano in The Merchant of Venice, a witch in Macbeth  and as Caliban in The Tempest Michael was also a founding member of the award-winning Friends and Artists Theatre Ensemble (FATE)in Los Angeles. For FATE he appeared as the Herald in Marat-Sade (L.A. Weekly Award, Dramalogue Award), Semyon in The Suicide (Dramalogue Award), and Precious in Dolores and Her Loved Ones.Other roles include La Flech in The Miser and Pippin in Pippin at the Gem Theatre. He spent four seasons as a leading player with the Hollywood Theatre Ensemble in Pennsylvania and performed in over twenty musicals. He can be seen in the lead role of the 1998 feature film release Celestial Rhapsody, which was featured at the Berlin Film Festival.

Directing and choreography credits include If I Should Die Before I Wake, La Mirada Civic; West Side Story, San Jose Civic Light Opera; Looking Glass, Laughing Horse Repertory - Washington; Mame, the Gem Theatre; The Threepenny Opera, FATE and A Shakespearean Christmas for Shakespeare Orange County. Michael has served as an on-camera acting coach for The Disney Channel and for Sal Romeo Workshops in Los Angeles during the last fifteen years.  He was awarded Chapman University Faculty of the Year in 1990 and a Chapman University Excellence in Creative Activity Award in 2000.

Directing credits at Chapman include: The Crucible, She Loves Me, The Creation, Cloud Nine, The Grapes of Wrath, Hair, The Madwoman of Chaillot, Playboy of the Western World, The Bacchae, Animal Farm, The Fantasticks, Brigadoon, Oklahoma and Die Fledermaus.

Recent Creative, Scholarly Work and Publications

I was hired to teach a weekend intensive in Shakespearean performance entitled "Personalizing Shakespeare" for the Portland Shakespeare Project, a theatre company with a strong educational mission in Portland Oregon. The course was successfully presented in July and was sold out. Unsolicited email feedback from students included the following: "You are a gifted teacher. Every cell in your being shimmers (and shimmies) as you deliver your magic with clarity, honesty, humor, and mega doses of love." Jane Vogel "My faith in theater, the art of teaching and the need for real theatrical "company" and creative community has been utterly refreshed and indeed restored -" Peter Platt "Thank you for participating in this remarkable class and work. We are so proud and honored to have Michael join us for the summer and share his extraordinary talent with us and you." from an email sent to the class from the Portland Shakespeare Project Artistic Director Michael Mendelsohn

I was hired to perform Bottom in a 70 minute cutting of Shakespeare's MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM for the Pensacola Symphony, Pensacola Florida. This was an unusual event in that the symphony had partnered with Pensacola Shakespeare's Artistic Director Kevin Kern to produce several scenes from the play to be presented during the symphonic performance of Mendelssohn's A MIDSUMMER NIGHTS DREAM. Kern hired five professional actors from all over the country to convene in Pensacola for two days of rehearsal. We performed the piece twice on February 3 for 800 people at the matinee and for 1,500 people during the evening performance. It was thrilling to work in front of a 45 member symphonic orchestra and to hear the laughter from such a large audience.

I performed in VENUS AND ADONIS for Shakespeare Orange County in two venues during the summer. In June we flew to Prague, Czech Republic to perform the opening week of the Prague Shakespeare Festival and The Prague Fringe Festival. We rehearsed the production weekends from January to May in Orange County and performed in Prague five evenings for the international audience. The production was well received and the performances were highlighted in the review from The Prague Post, the English language newspaper: "... was performed by actors whose skill cannot be overstated". In August we went back into rehearsal to re-set the production for the Shakespeare Orange County outdoor stage. We performed the production for a two night run on 10, 11 August

I was cast, under an Actor's Equity Union contract, in the leading role of Benedick for Shakespeare Orange County's second summer production, MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING. The production began rehearsals in June and performed for three weeks from 16 August to 1 September. The production featured Chapman graduates in leading roles and current students in supporting roles. My performance was well received and well reviewed: "When you have a Benedick as delicious as Michael Nehring and a Beatrice as keen and lively as Evelyn Carol Case, its all you can do to keep up with the witty banter that flies back and forth like a shuttlecock. Nehring is a fun loving and boisterous charmer with a robust sense of humor who cannot resist baiting Case at every turn." Shakespeare in L A 22 August, 2012 "For his leads, Bradac ably taps Case, so commanding as Queen Elizabeth in last month's staging of "Richard III," and company co-founder Nehring. Case is a suitably stylish, quick-witted and tart-tongued Beatrice and Nehring a jocose, quirky, self-satisfied Benedick. Their evolution from adversaries to lovebirds is smooth and credible. Benedick's giddy ecstasy upon learning of Beatrice's "true" feelings (not) are a sight, bolstered by his squawking, vaudeville-style delivery." Orange County Register I choreographed some charleston dances for the production and was tickled to note that they were reviewed in the aforementioned Register review: " ...choreographer Nehring....The requisite happy ending is a vivid outburst of unbridled 20's dance and a fitting conclusion to a very satisfying evening".

I performed in the world premiere of WHAT THE MOON SAW at the Son of Semele Theatre in Los Angeles. The 9/11 inspired play by Stephanie Fleischman was produced to honor the ten year anniversary of the attacks on New York. I performed three roles: the driver, Alma, and the Snowman under an Actor's Equity Waiver Theatre contract 6 weeks during September and October.