I am hoping to get suggestions for intensive acting classes for my 12 year old DD. We live in Northern New Jersey. Specifically, classes that run during vacation times for a week or classes that may run for a full weekend. We cannot commit right now to every weekend or even to a weekly class on a regular basis. Any ideas?

My oldest has been out of the biz for the last year, but she did a few of these "weekend long classes." Now my youngest is bugging me to act, so here we are again. Anyway, they are never cheep and its hard to know what they learned. She did one with Diane Hardin (dianehardinacting.com) and didn't really get much out of it...the "Make your scenes like improvs and vice versa" motif wore off real fast. But now Hardin is doing a lot of one-day worskops with Bob Marx (bobmarks.com), who is wonderful, so I don't know. She also did one with People garden director Paul Armento (paularmento.com) in Montclair, which was fabulous. Parents got to watch the last past, and it wasn't just the usual fluff, he really goes deep into stuff with the kids, and she used his methods and terms for years. She even booked a few jobs in the months that followed. Only problem is that he doesn't offer them that often, though I did get a recent email that hes working in Tenafly, NJ, which is not as convenient for me as Montclari, but better than NYC. I think there was something this month, so check it out.