Meet our Coaches and Directors
Acting 101
Every NPA student begins with a masterclass from Diana Horner, the founder who built the training system you’ll learn.
If you’ve watched Resident Alien on Netflix, Syfy, or USA, you’ve heard Andrea’s work. She’s the voice of Bridget, the half-human baby alien who became one of the show’s most popular characters. Audiences loved Bridget so much that the producers wrote more alien babies into the story.
Bridget is one role in a career built over more than 15 years as a working actor in Los Angeles. Andrea has performed in two national tours of musicals. She has starred in a vertical drama, one of the fastest-growing formats in entertainment right now. She has done commercials, appeared in dozens of independent films, and recorded voice work for Chucky (Syfy) and Tiny Beautiful Things (Hulu). She also writes: she has written two feature films.
That range is what she teaches. Andrea trains actors in a technique that is healthy, dependable, and repeatable, so a performer can deliver on a Tuesday self-tape, at a callback, and on set, not only on a good day. Her favorite part of coaching is the lightbulb moment, when a student stops imitating what they think acting looks like and finds their own voice.
Savannah Lee Nassif
This year, Savannah played Tuesday Campbell in Paramount’s Scary Movie, as Anna Faris’s daughter, opposite Regina Hall and the Wayans brothers. Her career started where most of our students start: in a youth theater class in Houston, at age 11.
Her first professional credit was a small role on Nickelodeon’s School of Rock. More guest work followed on Disney’s Bizaardvark. After several rounds of auditions, she was cast as Buttercup, a series-regular role, for two seasons of Nickelodeon’s Knight Squad. She then landed Carrie Wilson in Kenny Ortega’s Netflix musical series Julie and the Phantoms, an audition where she had to act the scenes and sing. Feature film roles in The Secret Lives of Cheerleaders and A Cowgirl’s Song came after that.
Savannah has worked at every level of the business: small guest spots, a series-regular role, and a studio film. So she coaches the part most training skips: how to walk into an audition prepared, adjust on the spot when you’re redirected, and handle yourself on set so you get hired again. She is also a trained singer and dancer, which makes her especially useful for performers who want to work across comedy, musicals, and on-camera roles.
Cat Hammons
Cat Hammons has spent more than 30 years acting, writing, and producing. Her television career includes some of the most-watched shows of the last two decades: Yellowstone, The Big Bang Theory, How to Get Away with Murder, Scandal, CSI, ER, and Ghost Whisperer. She has appeared in holiday TV movies such as Netflix’s Falling for Christmas and Holly & Ivy, and in independent films including For When You Get Lost and By His Hand.
Most of those TV credits are co-star roles. That’s the first rung of the professional ladder, where a new actor gets a few lines and one shot to get them right. Cat has booked that role again and again on network sets. She knows exactly what casting directors are looking for in those rooms, and she teaches it.
She also works on the other side of the camera. She has a screenplay credit on Valentine’s Town, she has produced more than a dozen short films, and she creates fiction podcasts. Cat has coached students of every age and experience level, and several of them have gone on to build working acting careers of their own.
Britt George
All Acting 101 courses are taught by working professionals: actors from Yellowstone, Resident Alien, and Scary Movie, plus the founder who built the system after 30 years as a talent agent. They’ve been on both sides of the audition table, and they teach what actually works.
Andrea Geones
When Britt George auditioned for Tyler Perry’s Too Close to Home on TLC, the script described almost nothing about his character. There was only dialogue. Britt built the character himself, and he was told that his interpretation was the reason he got the role.
Choices like that, made by a trained actor who has done his homework, are what Britt has been booking on for more than 25 years. His television work includes True Blood, Dexter, Boston Legal, Outer Banks, Dragnet, and a leading role on the History Channel’s Cryptid: The Swamp Beast. On film, he has appeared in the horror feature Malum, the drama If Walls Could Talk, and A Waltons Thanksgiving, opposite Bellamy Young and Teddy Sears.
Britt also works behind the camera. He has produced films since 2009 and wrote, directed, and produced episodes of the series Burning Hollywood. That’s why his coaching goes beyond the scene itself. He teaches actors how editing, lenses, and camera framing shape a performance, and why actors who produce their own work build careers instead of waiting to be discovered.
Showcase
Cara Sullivan, CSA
Most actors walk into an audition believing the person behind the table is there to judge them. Kara Sullivan has spent more than 20 years as that person, and she’ll tell you the opposite: casting directors are hoping you’re the one. A strong actor makes their job easier, and they’re rooting for you from the moment you walk in.
Kara founded Kara Sullivan Casting in Los Angeles in 2003 and also runs an office in New York. She has cast feature films with Harry Hamlin, Frank Stallone, Dina Meyer, and Michael Paré. She has also cast national commercials for brands including Lowe’s, Kellogg’s, and Hallmark, and the web series Romancing the Joan with Joan Rivers. Her films have been honored at the Student Academy Awards, the Tribeca Film Festival, and the Essence Film Festival.
She is also a teacher. Kara is a casting advisor for USC’s School of Cinematic Arts, one of the top film schools in the world. She has served as casting professor for USC’s international directing master class, and she has taught actors through the SAG-AFTRA Foundation.
At NPA, Kara teaches students what casting directors notice in the first thirty seconds: preparation, professionalism, real connection to the material, and the choices that make an actor memorable after the room is empty.
Casting Director · [Her NPA role]
Emmett Marsh
We trust this leader to synchronize production, logistics, and support functions, cultivating dependable processes that uphold our service commitments.
Head of Operations
Lead EngineerEleanor Parks
We depend on this engineer to transform conceptual requirements into robust technical solutions that integrate seamlessly with existing infrastructures.
Client Services ManagerKarl Holland
We empower this manager to maintain proactive client dialogue, demonstrating our accountability while anticipating emerging needs with tailored solutions.