About Johanna
BIOGRAPHY
Johanna Pinzler grew up in New York with an early love for theatre and live performance that has never dwindled. After receiving her BA in Theatre and Drama at The University of Wisconsin – Madison she returned to New York where she worked as an actor, singer, director and producer for 11 years before returning to get her M.F.A. in Acting from Brooklyn College. Since completing her Masters she has worked primarily as a director, teacher and audition coach.
As a director, she spent most summers from 2007 - 2022 as a Resident Director, Artistic Associate and member of the adjunct faculty at Summer Repertory Theatre, a full rotating rep theater housed on the campus of Santa Rosa Junior College. Some of her productions for SRT included The Importance of Being Earnest, The Drowsy Chaperone, Neil Simon’s The Odd Couple and Noel Coward’s Present Laughter (in rotating rep), Little Shop of Horrors, Boeing Boeing, Avenue Q, Company, Mamma Mia! (in the round), The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee (Winner: Broadwayworld.com “Best Director 2010” San Francisco/Bay Area), Kiss Me Kate, and Tick Tick Boom.
Johanna currently serves as an Adjunct Assistant Professor of Theatre Arts at Marymount Manhattan College teaching both acting and directing. For Marymount she has directed multiple productions including the musical Urinetown! and 10 Out of 12 by Anne Washburn on the Theresa Lang Mainstage and The Laramie Project off-site at New York LiveArts. She serves on the adjunct faculty of New York Film Academy’s Professional Conservatory for Musical Theatre (PCMT) where she has directed Once Upon a Mattress, Urinetown! and conceived, curated and directed a musical review about female empowerment called Reclaiming Our Time. In the winter of 2021, during the Covid 19 pandemic, she directed a production of Godspell for PCMT outside at The Elevated Acre at 55 Water Street, For PCMT she also had the opportunity in 2016, to direct a wholly original short musical film Food Like Love (music by Bobby Cronin, book and lyrics by Christine Toy Johnson) that made the rounds receiving a few laurels from film festivals around the country. She has also served as an adjunct at Bronx Community College (CUNY), Brooklyn College and Cap 21 (with both their previous NYU and Professional Programs) for which she directed 2 Industry Showcases.
She ticked a major item off her bucket list becoming a published writer when she was asked to contribute a chapter about Marc Blitstein’s The Cradle Will Rock to the book 50 Key Stage Musicals published by Routledge in 2021.
As an actor Johanna has worked all over the United States both on tour and regionally. Some of her favorite roles include Lucy in You’re A Good Man Charlie Brown (multiple productions), Kathy in Parallel Lives: The Kathy and Mo Show, Patsy in Always Patsy Cline (multiple productions), Jo/Mae in Dirty Blonde, Miss Hannigan in Annie, Mrs. Fezziwig in A Christmas Carol (Cronin/Fullarton) and Suzette in Don’t Dress For Dinner.
Johanna is proud to have directed concerts and staged readings at venues all over New York City including The Wild Project, 54 Below, Birdland, The Duplex, Tonic, City Center, Don’t Tell Mama, The Cutting Room, The Triad, Feinstein’s at The Regency and The Metropolitan Room.
Johanna coaches clients privately in Brooklyn and Manhattan. She specializes in contemporary and classical monologue selection and coaching, sides preparation, self taping, musical theater audition preparation and graduate school auditions. Past students and clients have appeared on streaming, TV and have been on Broadway or in National Tours of Book of Mormon, The Notebook, How To Dance In Ohio, Back To The Future, Jagged Little Pill, Jersey Boys, Wicked, Memphis, Lysistrata Jones, Anything Goes, Sister Act, The Lion King, American Idiot, Beautiful: The Carole King Musical and Hadestown (as well as many off Broadway contracts). She has also helped students gain admission to graduate acting programs including The Denver Center, The Classical Conservatory at George Washington University, University of Iowa, American Conservatory Theatre, Brooklyn College, The Actors Studio Drama School at Pace University and NYU Tisch.