Business of the Week: Peachtree City Actor’s Workshop Brings Hollywood Experience Home

Meeting Jeffrey Pierce and Phillip Rhys Chaudhary for coffee at Blume Organics in Peachtree City was like getting two extra shots of leading-man energy in my day.

They are handsome. They are animated when they speak. Their voices are extraordinarily well-modulated. Spend a few minutes across a table from them, and you would believe they are successful working actors.

And they are.

Pierce and Chaudhary have spent decades working in television, film and theater, with résumés that stretch from Hollywood sets to Shakespearean stages. Now, through the newly launched Peachtree City Actor’s Workshop, they want to bring what they have learned home to Peachtree City.

“We met in acting class in L.A. in the mid ’90s, so we’ve known each other some nearly 30 years,” Chaudhary said. “I moved out here a month or so ago. The plan was to change things up. I wanted to continue my teaching. I also have always been teaching. Jeff has always had his dreams as well to teach and have a school. So we decided let’s do something together.”

Pierce’s connection to Peachtree City began through acting itself.

He came here to film the final four episodes of Lifetime’s “Drop Dead Diva,” playing the main character’s love interest. Pierce expected a job. He did not expect to find home.

“I was here for I think six weeks, and I fell in love with it,” Pierce said.

He also learned about the local schools. His daughter was four at the time, and Pierce and his wife had been considering their educational options in Los Angeles.

“It didn’t take very much to convince my wife that we should take a look,” he said. “And two months later, we were here.”

Pierce has continued working since moving to Peachtree City, with credits including “The Last of Us,” “Castle Rock” and “Bosch.” His screen résumé tells only part of his story. Early in his career, he spent years performing repertory Shakespeare, including touring and performing at universities and the Folger Shakespeare Library, while also teaching workshops in schools and universities.

Chaudhary, who is originally from England, has appeared in “24,” “Nip/Tuck” and Disney Channel’s “Zenon: Girl of the 21st Century,” in addition to working as a director.

In ordinary conversation, his English accent is warm and conversational. But when Chaudhary turns serious and fixes you with an intense stare, it is not difficult to imagine why he was cast as a villain in season two of “24.”

The two friends have been influencing each other’s careers almost since the beginning. Chaudhary credits Pierce with coaching him before an audition that led to the first acting job that allowed him to stop waiting tables.

Now they are doing that coaching together.

Peachtree City Actor’s Workshop recently completed its first eight-week courses for adults and young actors. Classes meet once a week for three hours.

“The goal of the crash course is to give them a grounding in the instrument and in all of the sort of like five basic principles of what good acting is,” Pierce said. “And then at the end of it, we shoot a monologue to show that they’re doing the best work that they’ve ever done, and headshots so that they have something practical to take into the world for agents, for casting directors, for producers to pursue.”

The “instrument,” as Pierce describes it, includes an actor’s voice, physicality and life experience. Students also work on text, character, thought and behavior before preparing the monologue they will perform and record at the end of the course.

Chaudhary said what students learn has value even if they never pursue acting professionally.

“It’s more than just acting,” Chaudhary said. “Acting itself, these are life skills. You know, these are confidence. Going in a room, looking at someone in an eye.”

The workshop has found its first home at Launch Fayette, where classes are held and Pierce and Chaudhary have access to rooms for rehearsing and recording.

Launch Fayette has also introduced them to a community of other entrepreneurs and professionals. One of those is photographer Leticia Andrade. She photographed students for the professional headshots included with the inaugural program.

“We’d be failing in our gratitude if we didn’t say Launch Fayette, for anybody out there who’s an entrepreneur, is an amazing space to come partner with the county, with other professionals, with other entrepreneurs,” Pierce said. “It is an amazing space.”

For two men accustomed to acting, directing and teaching, launching a business has required learning some very different skills.

“The administration aspect of running your own business now,” Chaudhary said. “The website, the marketing, the social media, the posting of stuff.”

They are intentionally keeping classes small enough to provide students with individual attention.

“We’re keeping a cap on the number of students in the classes, not to be exclusive, but so that we can focus and get everybody what they came for,” Pierce said.

And despite their own lengthy résumés, neither man approaches teaching as an exercise in celebrity. Their emphasis is on practical technique and doing the work.

“Talent is overrated,” Pierce said. “Effort and technique are the keys to all of it.”

The introductory eight-week program is intended to create a common foundation before students move into continuing work that can include scene study, audition technique, career planning and developing their own material. Classes are $295 per month for four sessions.

The next youth course is scheduled to begin Sept. 29, with the next adult course beginning Oct. 3.

But acting classes are only the beginning of what Pierce and Chaudhary hope to build.

Their larger vision is a professional, year-round theater company in Peachtree City, connected to local schools and the surrounding community, with professional productions of Shakespeare, American classics and other work.

“What we want is to have here a full-time, year-round professional theater company working in the heart of Peachtree City that is connected to the schools, connected to the community,” Pierce said, “that is doing Shakespeare, that is doing American classics, and doing that on the scale with the quality of talent that you get in New York.”

For Pierce, that would also mean returning to an art form that formed much of the foundation of his career.

“I have missed the theater,” Pierce said. “So the idea of bringing that back into my daily experience is worth a million million dollars.”

After decades of taking what came next — a television role here, a film or directing opportunity there, sometimes requiring a flight across the country or across the world — Pierce and Chaudhary are trying something different.

They are bringing the work to Peachtree City.

For information about classes or to contact Peachtree City Actor’s Workshop, visit PTCActorsWorkshop.com.,