Alan Dysert
Founder and Artistic Director of Film School Nashville and The Actor's School
Steve Horswill-Johnson
Millions of people in the United States and many other countries know Alan as Sean Cudahy from the ABC soap opera, All My Children. Alan’s five-year portrayal of that devious yet humorous cad landed Alan on the cover of People magazine and made him a regular guest on such shows as Regis and Kathy Lee, Sally Jesse Raphael, The Merv Griffin Show, and a co-host of The Mike Douglas Show. Alan has also been seen nationwide on prime-time television, in film, and in national commercials. His commercial credits include Toyota, Chrysler, Atari, and others.
As a film producer, Alan has executive produced five feature films for Hemisphere Entertainment Films: The Ghost Club, which has had a successful run at all Hollywood Video and Blockbuster stores across the country; and the suspense thriller, One of Them. Alan also served as executive producer on The Grift , Academy of Terror, Becoming Jesse Tate – and was an associate producer on Undercover Kids.
Alan produced and hosted the six-part series, Behind the Scenes at All My Children. He wrote, produced and directed multimedia shows for Ronnie Milsap at The Ronnie Milsap Theater in Myrtle Beach and wrote production numbers for Lee Greenwood at The Lee Greenwood Theater in Sevierville.
Alan appeared in two feature films last year: The MGM film, Two Weeks, with Sally Field and The Fallen with John Savage, Billy Burke, William McNamara and Jeremy London.
Alan has taught over 3,000 actors in Nashville, Chicago, Memphis, Miami and other cities. He has worked with and taught many of the biggest names in the country music world including: Miley Cyrus ( HANNAH MONTANA), Dierks Bentlley, Jo Dee Messina, Brady Seals, Ronnie Milsap, Lee Greenwood, Michael Peterson and many others.
Alan earned his Bachelor of Science degree in TV, Film and Radio from the The University of Illinois.
Holly Allen is a freelance Casting Director in Chicago and Nashville. She has worked for Film House, a large and very busy production company in Nashville, Tennessee for the past 13 years as their in-house Casting Director. She also runs sessions for PR Casting in Chicago who casts for the TV series, Chicago Fire, as well as numerous commercials, industrials, and films. She auditions and casts hundreds of actors every year for a variety of projects for clients all over the country. She is currently casting for another series of SAG Military Commercials for Film House during the month of November in Nashville.
Most of the actors in Nashville who become eligible for the Screen Actors Guild (SAG), do so from working with Film House on one of these military commercials. She continues to search for and cast new talent all the time to use in these spots as well as for all the other commercials, industrials, and films she casts.
Holly began teaching in graduate school where she received her Master of Fine Arts degree in Acting and hasn't stopped teaching since. She has taught at universities, colleges, independent acting schools in addition to private lessons for over 17 years. She has been doing workshops for The Actor’s School for many years now and loves teaching!
Joe Loesch is an award winning audio and video producer/director. He has been producing quality video for over twenty years. Born in St. Louis, Joe moved to Los Angeles when he was twelve. He studied acting at the Pasadena Playhouse under the direction of the late Agnes Morehead of Bewitched fame. Joe was nominated 'Spoken Word' Producer of the Year by AFIM Indy Awards. He has won multiple Silver Microphone and Crystal Jade awards. He won the Early Childhood News Directors Choice award. His "Abraham Lincoln Logues" book with audio was voted as a top ten children's book by Chicago Parent Magazine and is now available at Ford's Theatre, Washington, DC. Starring in dozens of TV commercials, Joe has endorsed Sun Sweet Prunes with Barbara Mandrell, Kentucky Fried Chicken, Toyota, on-camera spokesman for Philips Magnavox. Joe currently owns and operates, Creative License, Inc, an audio, video and print production company in Nashville, TN.
Joe produced award winning videos for Sony/ATV Music, Kiley Jo, The Road Crew, The Foster Kings, Terry Lynn, The Son’s of the Father and more. He won the Communicator Award for his movie trailer for Patrick Stuart’s, “Eleventh Hour”. Joe produced many sales and safety training videos for Tractor Supply, ADT, MCI, Waste Management and Starwood Hotels and Resorts Worldwide. He shoots and edits on high quality digital video equipment. All editing is done in-house using Final Cut Pro and DigiDesign’s ProTools.
Holly Allen
Joe Loesch
Steve has more than twenty years experience as a television/film producer, radio broadcaster, and communications executive in Los Angeles and here in Nashville. He currently is an executive producer at the international headquarters of The United Methodist Church. Prior to arriving in Nashville, Steve earned his Bachelor of Science undergraduate degree in Film Production from San Diego State University and attended the graduate program at the prestigious University of Southern California (USC) School of Cinematic Arts. While attending film school he wrote and produced programs for San Diego public television (KCET), worked on "Simon & Simon" television series and was a radio broadcaster in the San Diego and Los Angeles markets. He has worked on several feature films, including "Pontiac Moon" and "That Thing You Do".
Recently, he was co-producer, writer, and acted in "Becoming Jesse Tate", a feature filmed in the Nashville area. Steve has produced over 30 short films. Steve was producer of The United Methodist Church's first $20 million dollar national television advertising campaign for 8 years and produced over 15 national commercials. For producing, writing, and directing Steve has received two national Telly Awards, six Axiem Awards for Absolute Excellence in Electronic Media and numerous “Addy” Gold Awards for advertising.
INSTRUCTORS