Natsuko Ohama is a professor of theatre practice at the USC School of Dramatic Arts. Trained under legendary voice teacher Kristin Linklater, she is a Master teacher of the Linklater approach to voice as well as a Louis Colainni designated speech teacher. Ohama is a founding member and permanent faculty member of Shakespeare and Company Lenox, Mass. She is a senior artist at Pan Asian Rep New York and was the director of training at the National Arts Center of Canada. She also on the Board of Trustees for the Kristin Linklater Center in Orkney, Scotland.

She has taught at numerous institutions all over North America, including the NYU Experimental Theater Wing, Cal Arts, Columbia University, the Sundance Institute, New Actors Workshop, the Wooster Group Summer Institute in New York and the Stratford Festival. Internationally, she recently taught in Shanghai, China; Zurich Switzerland, Stromboli, Italy; Istanbul, Turkey; and Orkney, Scotland. She also has an extensive workshop and private teaching practice in New York and Los Angeles.

As a Drama Desk-nominated actress, she has portrayed the roles of Juliet, Lady Macbeth, Hamlet and Prospero (Los Angeles Women’s Shakespeare Company), and has been featured in the action film Speed and in the cult series Forever Knight and American Playhouse on PBS. She has been seen on screen in Pirates of the Caribbean 2 and on stage as Imelda Marcos in the Kirk Douglas Theatre’s production of Dogeaters. Polonius in the LAWSC production of Hamlet at the Odyssey Theatre and Winnie in Samuel Beckett’s Happy Days at The Theatre @ Boston Court in Pasadena. She was also in Oregon Shakespeare Festival Acting Company 2018 (Snow in Midsummer and Black Swan Lab) and this year at the Public Theatre in New York in Out of Time and will be seen in the upcoming film Little Brother directed by Sheridan O’Donnell.

Ohama’s play Geisha of the Gilded Age-Miyuki Morgan was staged at the Ventford Theater in Lenox, Mass and performed by her at CSU Summer Arts Fresno. Her credits for directing include The Press and FACE for Visions and Voices at USC and Macbeth 3 at the HERE Theatre in New York, starring Lisa Wolpe. She is the recipient of the Playwright’s Arena Outstanding Contribution to Los Angeles Theatre Award and appears in the recent publication Voice and Speech Training in the New Millennium (Conversations with Master Teachers) by Nancy Saklad. Ms. Ohama is also involved in the 300 for 300 project for young women in Louisville, KY. She heads the voice progression for the MFA acting program at USC. For more information, visit www.natsukoohama.com.