© 2025 Suzanne Malek
​Acting Human is a variety of online spaces for actors and improvisors to play, learn, and grow.
Using methods taught by Viola Spolin, Del Close, and Uta Hagen, and applying them to voice acting,
Tim Powers and Sam Malek have joined forces to help get actors out of their heads and into their best, most authentic performances.
Blend memory and imagination to immerse yourself in a situation of your own design. The result is unpredictable, unforgettable, inimitable, truthful performances with your whole body, heart and soul.
There is nothing performative about these performances.
In these sessions, we learn like humans do: working with theory, seeing examples, experiment, play, collaboration, repeated effort, and reflection.
Two Takes
VA Workout
Mondays
9:00-10:30pm EDT
$30 - Live on Zoom
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Produce two radically different, totally truthful takes on the same script. Leveraging script analysis and live coaching, two takes will come out differently, without you having to think one thought about word emphasis, where to pause, or what tone of voice to put on.
Acting Human
Six Wednesdays
9:00-11:00pm EDT
May 1-June 10
$500
Supercharge your acting with techniques that prompt honest, connected, authentic moments, with or without a script. This is a comprehensive deep dive into a transformative approach to acting, where actors level up in leaps in mastering the craft.
Improv Playlist: Online Theater Games
Tuesdays
9:00-10:30pm EDT
$30 - Live on Zoom
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Thinking is the enemy of perception. Get out of your head and into your space. Free your intuition, trust the process, take creative risks, and embrace the messy, spontaneous, and collaborative, human heart of acting without a script.
Who am I? Character Creation
Three two-hour sessions
Next cohort starting in May
$250
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There’s nothing more authentic than your own life experience. Learn to utilize your life story as material for character work. A place to examine our experiences and relationships to the world, exercise empathy, and find ourselves in every character.​
Where Am I?
Establishing Place
Three two-hour sessions
Next cohort starting in May
$250
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Enhance the credibility of your performance by learning to transport yourself and your audience anywhere. Recreate the relatable and build new worlds; make them real and react to them effortlessly. If you believe it, they will too.
Register today
Two Takes VA Workout
Mondays
9:00-10:30 PM EDT
Live on Zoom
Only $30 per person
Two Takes VO Workout
​Join us for a unique, hands-on workshop designed to transform your audition strategy, double your chances, and showcase your range.
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In this practical, script-focused session, you make the choices while Tim and Sam coach you on how to develop two entirely different, totally authentic takes from a single piece of copy. This essential skill turns every audition opportunity into two chances to be heard, and significantly increases your booking potential.
Stop settling for one good take — start submitting two great ones, and demonstrating your range to boot. Secure your spot now and ensure you are consistently making the kind of impression you can only make when you make two.
Improv ​Playlist:
Online Theater Game
Tuesdays
9:00-10:30 PM EDT
Live on Zoom
Only $30 per person
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Come play the theater games that have for a century shaped some of the greatest actors of our time. Learn and practice:
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Getting present in an imaginary world
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Acting truthfully
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Solving problems collaboratively
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Developing characters
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Building ensemble and community
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Listening
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Freeing your intuition
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Storytelling
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Unfiltered creativity
And laugh a lot. No experience required.
The Improv Playlist: Online Theater Games
Improv Playground:
Make a Choice
Sundays
1:00-3:00pm EDT
Live on Zoom
Only $30 per person
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Enter a world of challenge and play in this intermediate improv experience designed specifically for voice actors.
Do you ever struggle to make specific choices about your scripts?
Do you catch yourself trying to read the mind of the casting director?
Ever talk yourself out of making a choice before even trying it?
Is it a challenge to pivot from an initial choice into a completely different one?
Know it or not, these are the skills of self-directing and taking direction. They don’t come automatically but they do come with practice.
Join us in an excess of choice making, and these essential skills will become second nature. Play the short form games that hone our skills in making endowments, then improvise scenes with your fellow actors in a game of New Choice. Have fun and build the skills of self-direction and taking direction!
Choices are free! They CAN be easy come, easy go. And they are what books – what makes you stand out. So throw off your hesitations, start making choices like a boss, and realize your choice making potential, in an environment that will support and celebrate the risks you take.
The Improv Playground: Make a Choice
Acting Human
Six Wednesdays
May 1 - June 10
9:00-11:00pm EDT
Live on Zoom
$500 per person
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Ever find yourself battling uninvited guests in the booth?
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The READER showing up, just saying words at people or reading with flair?
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The Inner Critic hijacking your focus with rude and unproductive whispers mid-performance.
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The Director in Your Head taking you out of the scene, sacrificing honesty for technique.
Tim and Sam have a curriculum to help actors advance their existing skills and hush that inner critic.
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What We’re Offering: A Performance Lab
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This is NOT an intro course; it's a dedicated space for experienced and trained actors to refresh your skills and deepen your mastery using the most powerful tools in the craft. It shouldn't be so hard to act human, because you are one, and it doesn't have to be.
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This is a six-week workshop series that's intensely practical:
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The Foundation: We start with a surgical deep dive into Script Analysis, treating the text as a blueprint for action.
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The Approach: Every session builds on that analysis using specific, inspiring methods from giants like Stanislavski, Uta Hagen, and Viola Spolin (and Tim, too) to ignite honest emotion and spontaneous action.
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The Goal: Get your Headphones Off. Game On. Connect and reconnect with the joy and risk of being a truly present actor.
The Payoff: Credit, Evidence, and Ensemble
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The series culminates in a unique Ensemble Performance where we collaboratively create something new using the tools we’ve mastered.
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This performance will be professionally produced by Voice Craft Studio.​ You’ll earn an IMDB credit.​ You will walk away with undeniable, current evidence of your growth and abilities—a perfect, high-level counterpoint to your classic demo. Hear an example of the kind of work we create in this class, below.
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ACTING HUMAN runs for six Wednesdays, starting April 1.
Ready to stop narrating and start living the story? Join us and act human.​
Acting Human
Testimonials
This class broke down script analysis even more. It was more than the usual "What is this script about?" How to add in imagination and memory to inspire performance. To feel it rather than think about it.
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Well, if you want to understand what an actor is, then this is it in its basic form.
MICHELE M
Every voice actor that has mental blocks would benefit greatly from your curriculum, no question. Add in a great blend of new and familiar people, all with great reinforcement and feedback to make you better. ...it’s different in you ask frequently how a read made us feel, and that dynamic conversation is very much in the moment and immediately applicable. Thank you for what you’re doing for us. And thank you to everyone’s time as fellow voice actors as well. You are so loved and appreciated.
DAVE K
I’ve coached one on one, I’ve taken webinars, I’ve read books. Nothing matches the classroom experience though and Acting Human was revelatory for me. I love the coaching and webinars too but being in a small group and not only doing the work yourself but seeing the others learn and apply and work through the steps is so incredibly valuable. There were concepts I knew already on an intellectual level but during Acting Human I finally understood them and was able to truly apply them. I was immediately able to apply these new understandings in my auditions without thinking about it, they had become part of me as an actor and that was priceless. I can’t wait to re-enter Acting Human for more training.
CAMERON P
Acting Human is a supportive, low-pressure space to explore acting in a way that feels fun and accessible. Sam guides with clarity and encouragement, making it easy to take risks and try new things. The exercises and character work are directly applicable to all genres of voiceover, giving me practical tools to bring more authenticity and connection to every script.
ARIELLE B
New to voice acting and voice over? …experiencing some challenges finding your “authencity” while addressing acting and the script? I am and it’s OK! My challenge? Simply, it’s expanding my understanding of and developing my acting abilities. I need to bring more breadth and depth to my analysis and resulting auditions, with a more thorough examination of who I am as I’m acting the character or the storyteller in/of the script, and casting my role in relationship to who I’m acting to and in reaction to a moment prior to my “scene.”
Where am I finding an opportunity to learn more about this and have both a mentor and accountability group to engage with; a space where it’s all about support, encouragement, and growing…together? I’m proud to be a “charter” member of Acting Human! It’s new, we’re new, it’s all new but it’s exactly what I need for that examination of how to analyze a script and bring it forward with a “deep dive” into various techniques of acting…and in a manner that is simultaneously accessible and challenging.
Our mentor is Suzanne Malek (a human voice over). BRAVA! to “Sam”, as she is caring, creative, incredibly intuitive and instinctive in her assessment of our needs, and able to impart thoughts, ideas, strategies, and encouragement to each of us, as individuals as well as a collective! Acting Human will have you listen, think, improvise, and ACT! …but with the grace and permission to stumble, experience breakthroughs, gain comfort and confidence… all with Sam’s guidance and the collaborative spirit of your peers and friends!
I encourage you to explore this opportunity…give it time to resonate and organically grow within you.
Be patient…curious…flexible…and not afraid to make choices, lots of choices! Sam will most certainly embrace and champion your every effort!
JAY J
Monthly memberships
Weekly Workout
$100 / month
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Weekly Two Takes Workouts
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Save $20!
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PLUS:
+$100 off Acting Human, Who Am I, or Where Am I courses
Play Pass
$200 / month
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Three improv workshops weekly: Playlist, Playground, TimProv
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Save over $150!
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PLUS:
+$100 off Acting Human, Who Am I, or Where Am I courses
Power Pass
$250 / month
​Weekly Two Takes, Playlist, Playground, TimProv, to your hearts desire. That's 16 opportunities a month to accelerate your progress and sharpen your skills.
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Save over $200!
PLUS:
+$200 off Acting Human
+$100 off Who Am I, Where Am I
Why us?
Along with being an in-demand voice actor known for his authenticity and a sought-after coach, Tim is a seasoned improvisor, having performed with The Groundlings and Upright Citizens Brigade. Tim also founded TimProv, an improv workshop for voice actors, that has transformed the practice and careers of voice actors across the country.
Sam is an improvisor and improv coach at BATS Theater, as well as having a vast background in education and curriculum & school design. In addition to her work as a voice actor in commercials, video games, audio dramas, film and radio, she also acts in immersive theater productions in San Francisco. Sam started improv at TimProv and then worked with Tim as her voice acting coach and demo producer.