Biography
Toni Attell's background as an Emmy nominated actor. Her credits includes a variety of work in television and movies as well as experience working with some of the greatest masters of the performance arts field, internationally. Some of these include Jean Louis Barroult. Marcel Marceau and Mamako Yoenyama for mime, Carlos Mazzonne for Comedia del Arte, Bill Ball, David Dukes, Paul Shanar, David Alexander, Nina Foch and Harvey Lembeck for improvisation, comedy and acting.
Toni performed with the American Conservatory Theater in San Francisco, Theater West in Los Angeles and toured over 350 colleges in the United States as a mime-comedienne teaching master classes in movement and acting. She also created and performed five one-woman shows, started the Comedy Store Players in Los Angeles. She choreographed and taught the clowns at Ringling Bros and Barnum & Bailey Circus and also choreographed a variety of music videos including Kim Carnes Betty Davis Eyes
Toni taught and helped create a summer program for actors and writers at the Los Angeles Theater Center. She recently toured Japan and China performing her new one woman shows as well as teaching acting. She started a stand-up comedy group comprised of children called "The Comedy Pups." that was featured on National Television. She has taught acting for twenty-five years to children, teens, adults and seniors Attell just recently performed her new comedy-mime act for Robin Williams Birthday party at The Throckmorton Theatre in Northern California.
She believes that in order to teach, you must still have the command of performance, so the students feel that classes are academic and reality based teachings.
As a comedian and mime, she was the opening act for Jay Leno, Steve Martin and Robin Williams and won best comic coming out of the U.S by US magazine. Attell hosted her own radio show on KRLA Smart-Talk radio called "The Romantic Intuitive." Toni is currently acting, lecturing and performing.
Attell taught at USC School of Cinema, teaching acting to writers and directors and also taught at Chapman's Dodge School of Film, teaching, Acting for Non-Actors. She has also taught many workshops for UCLA Extension including Acting: The Fundamentals, Acting II, Acting for Commercials, Acting for Non-Actors, Voice and Movement and Improvisation. As well as classes in, The Psychology of Acting, Comedy/Improv I, II, and III, Acting for Directors, Acting for the Lens, and The Business of Acting. She has written two books: A work book called, Just Kidding, Stand-Up Comedy for Kids of All Ages. And this second book with Carl Gottlieb, who is famous as the screenwriter of Jaws, The Jerk, Dr. Detroit and is VP of The Writers Guild. "The Little Blue Book for Filmmakers: A Primer for Directors, Writers, Actors and Producers", that is a workbook, published by Hal Leonard, Limelight publishing.
