Today we’d like to introduce you to Robert Mello.
Robert, let’s start with your story. We’d love to hear how you got started and how the journey has been so far.
About 24 years ago I gave up an incredibly lucrative career as a dancer. Okay, it wasn’t really lucrative. I was pretty poor. Because of poor romantic decision – I had ended up in Chicago. Single. I am pretty sure the women who dumped me’s best friend felt bad for me.
She told me to take improv classes and I ended up at what was then called the ImprovOlympic studying and performing with a lot of truly amazing folks – grab the broom, I am about to drop some names – Amy Poehler, Adam McKay, Neil Flynn, Tina Fey and all sorts of other brilliant people.
I wasn’t in love with performing improv – though I loved teaching and directing it – and a friend suggested that if I wanted to do some “real” acting – I needed to study with a woman named Kathy Scambiatterra. She was brilliant and amazing and truly inspired a love for this beautiful technique.
At some point, I told her I loved to teach, and at some point, she gave me a job teaching. Somewhere in there, a lightbulb went off and I realized that if there was anything I was meant to do – it was probably to teach and inspire, and since then, in various incarnations – I have been teaching.
I kept acting along the way, and family illness took me back to L.A. and eventually a detour to work for Sean Hayes’ production company. I had this wonderful experience for three or four years working as a development executive on shows like “Hot In Cleveland” and “Grimm”. I met all kinds of famous folks, I learned so so much about writing, casting and making TV. I had a couple bucks in my pocket and I literally thought that was going to be my new direction for the first year or so I did it. But I kept coming back to teaching. Sometimes once a week, sometimes twice a week.
Half the time I hardly cared if people paid. I just loved it that much. When my contract wasn’t renewed, I came out to Atlanta a few times to meet with money folks for an independent film I was trying to get made. My friend, Gail Tassell – a talent manager – was setting up these meetings for me here. She told me there were no acting classes of my theoretical caliber out here.
I had always dreamed of having an acting studio – but for real, not just the part-time stuff. So, with an embarrassingly low bank account, I loaded up what I could fit in my RAV4, drove across country and set up shop.
Overall, has it been relatively smooth? If not, what were some of the struggles along the way?
The biggest obstacle was that Atlanta was very much an “overgrown small town” – as it was described to me when I arrived.
Nobody trusted me, nobody – despite a pretty proven track record of actors already working professionally that I had trained – was signing up. Thankfully, the folks at a studio called YourAct hired me for a couple rounds of classes and basically gave me some help. Along with Gail Tassell. Plus, I think other than one other person – no one was teaching technique. It was all on-camera audition classes.
There was no one teaching acting the way it is taught in L.A., Chicago and NYC. So there was an element of convincing some folks that you had to actually STUDY and learn how to act – through exercises and such. People just wanted to be handed a script and I don’t work that way. This is a technique and we go step by step, skill by skill. It’s more like learning an instrument.
Plus, I had a potty mouth. Well, I still do. And I was very demanding – and I think that threw people off. I expect you to show up on time, turn your dang phone off and get to work. I think that was an obstacle that turned into a strength…
Alright – so let’s talk business. Tell us about The Robert Mello Studio – what should we know?
I am the owner of The Robert Mello Studio. A professional acting studio whose main emphasis is on a Meisner based technique. We also have classes in other acting approaches – Adler, Strasberg etc.
I have also built out a small black box theater specifically to help emerging theater companies have a place to grow and start at a very low cost. I believe in the power of theater, and Atlanta needs more of it! The problem is there are no affordable “storefront” theaters as we used to call them in Chicago.
I think one thing we are known for is that we are serious about what we do here. I don’t hire actors who are in between jobs to teach here. I only hire actors who also love to teach and have a real passion for it. And I think I am the only teacher here who is a teacher first, actor second. Oh, I still book acting jobs – but, it’s just not my priority.
We consider ourselves artists. We think acting is demanding and a lot of hard work – and we are not afraid to ask for a lot from our actors. We are not here to make you comfortable. We are here to train you and see that you grow. That requires discomfort.
We are probably the only acting studio in town that also encourages folks to do theatre – the same way the training programs in the UK know it is vital to an actor’s training. We also recognize that it is just as important and can really change lives via storytelling the way TV/Film can.
And we are known because our actors work. They literally land jobs in just about everything that shoots here. I am proud of that. I have students recurring on major network shows, Netflix etc. They are in the major movies as well.
Any shoutouts? Who else deserves credit in this story – who has played a meaningful role?
Well, Gail Tassell. I just wouldn’t have come here if it wasn’t for her.
And those first few classes of students that stuck it out and really helped spread the word. I owe them so much. Really, every student since then I am indebted to.
I have also had some wonderful teachers as both a dancer and an actor. Dennon and Sayhber Rawles were my dance mentors who taught me a profound appreciation for technique and purity of style. Lee Theodore – who was in the original Anybody in “West Side Story” was also a dance teacher who made a tremendous impact on me as a teacher and artist. She was tough as nails and demanding – but she was always on your side somehow.
And of course my first real acting teacher – Kathy. She is just brilliant.
And my landlord Ryan Wiedmayer at Wiedmayer and Company. He really is one of the good guys in real estate. He has been so supportive of the black box build out, very arts conscious when it comes to renting, flexible and even comes to the shows!
Contact Info:
- Address: 4048 Flowers Rd Doraville, GA 30360
- Website: www.therobertmellostudio.com
- Email: info@therobertmellostudio.com
- Instagram: the_robert_mello_studio
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/actingclasses/
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