Award Winning Actor, Director, Teaching Artist, Coach
Rendon Ramsey is an award-winning actor, director, coach, and teaching artist. He has been acting professionally since 1992 and teaching acting since 2002. He served on the Theatre faculty of the nationally ranked Idyllwild Arts Academy from 2006 to 2021 and continued as an online instructor in 2022. His teaching focused on Acting Shakespeare and the classical texts, Acting for the Camera, and Audition Preparation. A highly successful private audition coach, Rendon has helped students gain acceptance to some of the top theatre programs in the U.S. and abroad, including N.Y.U. Tisch, USC, UCLA, Juilliard, Carnegie Melon, AMDA, Cal Arts, the Royal Conservatory of Scotland, the Liverpool Institute for Performing Arts, and the Institute of the Arts Barcelona, among others. In addition, Rendon has coached many performers to prepare for film and television auditions with major production companies including Netflix and Amazon.
Rendon is also an accomplished stage director; some of his favorite productions include Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night, Moliere’s The Learned Ladies, Beckett’s Play, Albee’s The Sandbox, and his tribute to Stephen Sondheim which was conceived by collaborator Jeffrey Huard, combining several of Sondheim’s classic and lesser- known musical numbers with devised work generated by the ensemble.
Rendon and collaborator Abbie Bosworth developed the very popular devised theatre workshop “Two-Headed Monster: Writing and Performing for the Stage.” This workshop guides a group through the entire conceiving, writing and rehearsing process, culminating in a fully produced performance. “Two-Headed Monster” is an experience that bonds people together in a way that few workshops have the capacity to do. It can be developed for any age group of any size, and can be adapted for one, two, or three- week sessions.
In 2021 Rendon and his family moved from Los Angeles to his hometown of Seattle. Rendon immediately joined Seattle Shakespeare Company as a Teaching Artist, and was honored to teach and direct at the Perry-Mansfield Performing Arts School and Camp in Steamboat Springs, CO the following summer.
Rendon holds an MFA in Acting (California Institute of the Arts), an AA in Acting (American Academy of Dramatic Arts), and a BA in Speech Communication (University of Washington); he is a member of AEA and SAG-AFTRA, and was recently honored to gain national recognition as a Teaching Artist in Marquis’ Who’s Who in America.
In addition to his actor training focus, Rendon is deeply passionate and committed to the craft of Oral Communication. He taught Public Speaking at Mount Saint Mary’s University, Los Angeles from 2009-2021. His class, Introduction to Communication, was one of its most popular courses. Rendon’s BA in Speech Communication from the University of Washington, combined with his 30 years of actor training and experience, uniquely enable him to be a top Public Speaking Coach. Rendon loves to help students write and deliver their best presentations; teaching them how to carefully compose and revise text; to choose the perfect visual aids; and to discover and develop their natural gifts of expression through in-depth voice, speech, and body language coaching.
With years of experience helping students to overcome stage fright and effectively deliver their message, Rendon thrives on empowering speakers to exceed their loftiest presenting goals.
Rendon Ramsey makes his home in Seattle, WA and is a loving husband and very proud father. In addition to his work as an Actor, Director, Teaching Artist, and Coach, Rendon is an avid snow skier, daily walker, reader, and meditation practitioner. He has a wide, eclectic, and varied taste in the arts of every genre and form, and is a life-long learner.
Rendon strives to live in the moment with honesty and love, and believes that the best of life can be experienced through his personal mantra, “Stay Open.”