Jean-Louis Rodrigue was born on May 23, 1951 in Casablanca, Morocco and was raised in Milano, Italy. At eight years old, he became inspired to be an actor when he attended one of the first performances of Ferruccio Soleri in “Arlecchino, Servant of Two Masters” at Piccolo Teatro di Milano. He began his formal acting training in 1967 with Herbert Berghof at the HB Studio and Sonia Moore at the American Center for Stanislavski Theater Art in New York. In 1970, William Ball awarded Rodrigue a full scholarship to study in the Advanced Training Program at the American Conservatory Theater in San Francisco. During his training at ACT, he discovered the Alexander Technique, and stayed three more years to train as an Alexander teacher with Frank Ottiwell and Giora Pinkas at the American Center for the Alexander Technique, San Francisco. In post-formal training, Rodrigue studied extensively with master Alexander Technique teachers Marjorie Barstow, Walter Carrington, Patrick McDonald, and Dilys Carrington. Rodrigue is also a certified teacher of Jessica Wolf’s The Art of Breathing.
Teaching career
Rodrigue founded Alexander Techworks in 1980, offering private instruction, training, coaching, group classes, and intensive workshops in Los Angeles, New York, Berlin, Toronto, Melbourne, and many other cities. He and Kristof Konrad own and operate the business together and are internationally known as two of the most sought after acting coaches and performance experts, collectively teaching the Alexander Technique in theater, film, television, and beyond for the past 38 years. From 1998 to 2005, Rodrigue was part of the faculty of Verbier Festival. He teaches workshops at Larry Moss' Studio. And he has taught masterclasses at the Howard Fine Acting Studios in Los Angeles and Australia. He founded the Alexander Technique program at the Los Angeles Philharmonic, where he taught for six years. He has worked with circus artists of Cirque du Soleil’s Ka at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas. He had reportedly been brought in by the FBI to teach stress management and respiratory control for undercover spies infiltrating Middle Eastern terrorist cells.
Film and television
Rodrigue has coached hundreds of actors in developing their character’s physicality and movement. His most notable work includes: I, Tonya, Vice, Mary Queen of Scots, Love and Mercy, J. Edgar, W., Passion Fish, The Time Machine, Seabiscuit, and The Normal Heart. He collaborated with director Ang Lee and screenwriter David Magee in the development of the tiger movement for the Academy Award-winning Life of Pi, and he choreographed the period movement for The Affair of the Necklace starring Hilary Swank. Since 2009, Rodrigue has conducted several workshops, within the Berlinale Talent Campus program. He was involved in the development of a new hands-on training programs for emerging actors, the Talent Actors Stage, for which 15-20 international actors are selected annually.
Theatre
Rodrigue has coached at several Los Angeles locations throughout his career. At the Geffen Playhouse, Rodrigue was the movement coach on Nine Parts of Desire in 2005 and on Long Day's Journey into Night, starring Alfred Molina, in 2017. He was awarded a fellowship grant from the Montalvo Arts Center to develop and direct a play adaptation of Bernhard Schlink’s best selling novel, The Reader. He coached Chris Pine in The Lieutenant of Inishmore at the Mark Taper Forum. He also worked with Gulu Monteiro on The Bacchae at the Getty Villa. He has collaborated with Larry Moss on Daisy White’s Sugar, Pamela Gien’s Obie award-winning play The Syringa Tree at Playhouse 91 in N.Y. and Bo Eason’s Runt of the Litter at the 37 Arts Theater, N.Y. He has coached with Rita Maffei and Larry Moss in an Italian production of Pamela Gien’s The Syringa Tree at the Teatro Stabile di Innovazione in Udine and at Il Piccolo Teatro di Milano, Italy. For her performance, Maffei won the Gold Medal from the President of the Italian Republic.
Alexander Technique
Rodrigue maintains an impressive international profile as one of the leading experts in the field of the Alexander Technique and is sought after by significant performance artists and institutions in the U.S. and abroad. By using awareness techniques to improve posture and develop a healthy method of movement, he assists his students in their use of the self, creating a natural presence, and preventing injury and pain.
Animal Studies
Rodrigue integrates animal behavior and movement into his research and work. He is known for helping actors develop characters through animal movement studies. His primary areas of research are animal movement, behavior, morphology, nature perception, and human/animal connections. This interest was sparked by two influences: Leonardo DaVinci and Carlo Mazzone-Clementi. While in Milano in 1957, Rodrigue's father introduced him to the scientific and artistic work of Leonardo DaVinci. They would often go to the National Museum of Science and Technology where the largest collection of models of DaVinci’s inventions are kept as part of the permanent collection. They also would visit the Veneranda Biblioteca Ambrosiana, the largest archive of Da Vinci’s drawings of animals. Later in his life while studying at the American Conservatory Theatre in San Francisco, Jean-Louis studied with Carlo Mazzone-Clementi who introduced him to the application of animal behavior and movement to character development, and opened up a way of working that has distinguished Rodrigue’s contribution to acting in the film and theater industry.
Select awards and recognition
He was awarded a fellowship grant in 2008 from the Montalvo Arts Center to develop and direct a play adaptation of Bernhard Schlink’s novel, The Reader.
