A brief overview of Mary Thoma’s experience
Award-winning Actress, Director, Coach and Instructor Mary Thoma has been teaching acting and “Reclaiming Your Creativity” to young people and adults for over 25 years. With credits in theater, film, television and radio, she is a versatile actress, commercial talent, director and a proud member of the Screen Actor’s Guild. In addition to her professional acting and commercial talent work, she is in her ninth year at Southfield Middle School teaching drama and directing the Middle School Musicals, most recently Honk!, Jr. and Seussical, Jr. Her most recent stage work included the role of Becca Corbitt in the SLT production of Rabbit Hole and Chris Gorman in Rumors. Her latest films include Jeffrey Goodman’s The Last Lullaby with Tom Sizemore and Dan Jackson’s Open Gate with Tyler Hoechlin.
Her acting studio, THE ART AND SOUL OF ACTING, is the sister studio of Larry Silverberg’s The True Acting Institute and the only studio with this distinction in the state of Louisiana.
She is the founder of three theater companies: The Sign Company( now in it’s 26th year) for hearing and hearing-impaired performers, co-founded with David Hylan and Jeffrey Rivers; the award-winning This Is Who I Am © Summer Institute for marginalized youth ; and is a proud co-founder of The Shreveport Little Theatre Academy where she created the Academy process and served as it’s first Academy Director and Director of Education before opening her own studio.
Thoma has developed drama curriculum for Southfield School, the LA Division of the Arts, The Shreveport Regional Arts Council and SLTAcademy which meets or exceeds the National Standards for Theater Education. She has developed other creative programming including: The Girls’ Getaway Creativity Day Camps, S.P.E.A.K. for young women and Acting Fundamentals for Young People. For several years she served as an Roster Artist Instructor in Theatre for the Louisiana Division of the Arts, training teachers across the state how to integrate theater arts into the curriculum and teaching drama residencies. She also leads Actor Support Groups using a process she developed especially for actors based on successful support group models.
Thoma was one of only five hearing applicants selected internationally for the prestigious National Theater of the Deaf Professional Theater School and has trained with The Broadway Teaching Lab and a variety of professional acting instructors and directors. She is the recipient of both acting and directing awards including the Providential Award for Best Director for THIS IS WHO I AM and SB Magazine’s Best Actress Award for her portrayal of Annie Sullivan in The Miracle Worker. She holds a theater degree from Centenary College.
She makes her home in Shreveport, LA with her husband Ron, daughters Megan and Shelby, two crafty cats named Toby and Socks and a feisty Yorkshire terrier named Bali.
