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 and singer 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 has spent most summers since 2007 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. For SRT she has directed productions of 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, The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee (Winner: Broadwayworld.com “Best Director 2010” San Francisco/Bay Area), Kiss Me Kate, Tick Tick Boom and most recently Mamma Mia! in the round. She also served as Choreographer on The Mystery of Edwin Drood and Working. In the summer of 2022 she will return to direct Oscar WIlde’s The Importance of Being Earnest.
Johanna currently serves as an Adjunct Assistant Professor of Theatre Arts at Marymount Manhattan College where 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 also directed The Most Massive Woman Wins and Dr. Chekhov Makes a House Call in the Bordeau Black Box. She serves on the adjunct faculty of New York Film Academy’s Professional Conservatory for Musical Theatre (PCMT) where she also directed Urinetown! and conceived, curated and directed a musical review about female empowerment called Reclaiming Our Time. More recently, during the 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 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 NYU and Professional Programs) for which she directed 2 Industry Showcases.
In the summer of 2013 she was thrilled to return to Millbrook Playhouse in central PA to direct Always Patsy Cline for their 50th anniversary season. She spent the summers of 2000 and 2001 at Millbrook as an actor where, among other roles, she played Patsy Cline to rave reviews.
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.
From 1997-2007 She served as Co-Artistic Director of Ergo Theatre Company, a non-profit dedicated to the development and production of new work in New York City by up-and-coming playwrights, composers, actors, directors and designers. During this time she produced and often acted or directed in 7 fully mounted Equity Showcase productions, multiple developmental readings and workshops as part of the Ergonomics Series and dozens of special events.
Johanna is proud to have directed concerts, cabarets and special events at venues all over New York City including 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. She has also directed staged readings of musicals by award-winning composer/lyricist Bobby Cronin.
Johanna coaches clients privately in Brooklyn or Manhattan. She specializes in contemporary and classical monologue selection and coaching, sides preparation, musical theater audition preparation and graduate school auditions. Past student and clients have appeared on streaming, TV and Broadway or in National Tours of Book of Mormon, Jagged Little Pill, Jersey Boys, Wicked, Memphis, Lysistrata Jones, A Little Night Music, Bonnie & Clyde, Anything Goes, Sister Act, The Lion King, American Idiot, Beautiful: The Carole King Musical and Hadestown. She has also helped students gain admission to graduate acting programs at 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.