Our diverse faculty of coaches have trained and taught all over the world. This cosmopolitan mix of respected industry professionals ensure all HCAC workshops are of an international standard.
Kamil Haque
Kamil Haque is the founder and artistic director of Haque Centre of Acting & Creativity (HCAC). After 8 years working and coaching in Los Angeles Kamil returned to his native Singapore in 2013 to establish HCAC, Singapore’s first professional acting centre and Asia’s first centre to teach the preeminent Lee Strasberg’s method of acting.
Kamil graduated top of his class from the American Musical & Dramatic Academy (AMDA) with a BA(Hons) in Acting. He was the first student in half a century to be awarded Latin Honours for this subject. He is also the first and only Asian to be given the privilege to train and then coach at the Lee Strasberg Theatre & Film Institute. He is the only coach in Asia experienced in teaching the Lee Strasberg Method of Acting.
In 2011, Kamil was bestowed the honour of being invited to become a working observer at the world-renowned The Actor’s Studio. He was the first Singaporean ever to be part of the studio.
In addition to these accolades, Kamil was appointed as the Head Acting Instructor at East West Players, the USA’s oldest Asian American Theatre group, as well as the role of Internship Director at the Company of Angels (CoA), Los Angeles’ oldest repertory theatre company.
In addition to being an award winning actor and storyteller, Kamil has coached well over 2000 students, many of whom have appeared on stage as well as in major motion pictures, television shows and national commercials around the world. He has also produced, directed and acted in several award-winning and critically-acclaimed productions in USA, Singapore, Malaysia and Australia.
Shanice is a multiple award-winning clown and actor. Her comedy-clown show 'Mail Ordered' is the winner of 3 Canadian Awards; the Pick of the Fringe award (Vancouver), Patron's Pick Award (Toronto), and the Jester's Cap Emerging Artist Award (Calgary), and was nominated for the 'Artistic Risk' award at the Vancouver Fringe Festival. She was also a featured artist in the award-winning production 'Dance to Death' for El Festival Del Grec in Barcelona. She has worked internationally with Flamenco Dance maestro Antonio Vargas, UK Director David Glass, Spanish director Alberto Velasco, and award-winning Broadway jazz choreographer Sue SamuelsShe has trained with Philippe Gaulier and the contemporary clown theatre company, Spymonkey(UK).
In addition to her acting career, Shanice is a creative entrepreneur and the founder of Creatives Inspirit, a Singapore-based creative arts company. She has taught clown, play-based dance workshops with Clown Gym (NYC), International Schools Theatre Association (UK), Singapore Repertory Theatre, and Haque Centre of Acting & Creativity.
Fully passionate about acting, Isabelle Roy has spent much of her life as a “creative double-lifer”, working for almost 15 years at leading positions in the corporate world while taking drama classes. She first studied at “Acting International” in Paris and then under the direction of Sophie Colombet from the “Cours Florent” for two years. She continued acting in Singapore where she followed classes at La Salle with the theatre artist Pavan J Singh and performed in the production “Push Up” by Roland Schimmelpfennig at the French Alliance. She integrated into the HCAC community in July 2017 where she has been taught and directed by international directors Kamil Haque, David Glass, Giovanni Ortega, Tom Schulz and Scott Wings. She is one of the founding members of The Haque Collective and is part of The Theatre Factory ensemble. She performed on stage as a lead theatre role in “The Open Couple” by Dario Fo and Franca Rame and in the online show “Let’s not talk about…” directed by Tom Schulz. As part of the THC ensemble, she performed in “Contract” and recently in the play “Under Death” at Stamford Arts Center both directed by Kamil Haque. As a certified drama educator with Singapore Drama Educators Association, Isabelle has decided to fully dedicate herself to her passion by inculcating her knowledge for the arts in others.
Ranice is a multi-disciplinary and bilingual theatre practitioner from Singapore. Her artistic practice is rooted in primality, embodiment and surrender. She perceives the body as an open vessel, and always seeks to invite the encounter inside and beyond the self.
Ranice graduated from the National University of Singapore with a BA (Hons) in Theatre Studies, and was a recipient of the NUS CFA Performing and Visual Arts Scholarship (2015-2019). Since then, she has worked internationally as a performer and educator in the field of theatre, movement, and martial arts.
As a key collaborator of Sourcing Within (helmed by Ang Gey Pin), Ranice was invited by the SabinARTi Cultural Association in Casaprota, Italy, to develop Dreamtalk as part of the artist-in-residency program -- subsequently staged at LabPerm e L.U.P.A in Italy and the NUS Arts Festival 2020 in Singapore. Her other performances include: That Day That Book That Fell (The Remembering Resource (II), Singapore Art Week 2022), playing the titular role for The Silly Little Girl and The Funny Old Tree (Young People’s Performing Arts Ensemble), A Mouthful of Birds (World-in-Theatre). In her ventures into dramaturgy and directing, Ranice has created work with Intercultural Theatre Institute (The Peculiar Tra La), LASALLE College of the Arts (Antigone), and Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts (Offending the Audience). She is the co-author for ‘Cultivating Vessel and Voice: Embodiment as Wellness in Performer Training’, published by the Theatre, Dance and Performance Training Journal (2022).
Beyond theatre, Ranice is a Taijiquan practitioner. She is a selected athlete for the Singapore Traditional Wushu Elite Team and has represented the country in various international competitions, while performing for local communities.
Born and raised in California, Seth has been acting professionally for 25 years.
Seth has acted in over 35 Film and Television Productions, which include Equals, Grey's Anatomy, Rawson Marshall Thurber’s screen adaptation of Pulitzer Prize-winning author Michael Chabon's debut novel The Mysteries Of Pittsburgh and Oscar-Nominated Director Sam French's Over The Line; for which Seth received the Best Lead Actor Award at the Beverly Hills Short Festival and a nomination for Best Lead Actor at the Action on Film International Film Festival.
Highlights on the stage have included leads in Marjorie Bowman’s production of Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, Danny And The Deep Blue Sea, A Few Good Men, Hamlet, Boy's Life and Suburbia.
The majority of Seth’s training was with Diana Castle, Jeff Perry (an original co-founder of the Steppenwolf Theatre Company in Chicago) and Tony Greco. He also studied with Joe Salazar, Stan Kirsch, Jeff Cohen, Carolyne Barry, Donovan Scott and was invited to train in workshops with Oliver Stone and Helen DuPont.
Monil SJ is a professional actor, comedian, writer, and instructor who started in the industry only about a year ago but has had a very steady rise, appearing in a number of films, theatre productions, and commercial works. Some notable works include being part of the movie Reunion Dinner (2022), as a main cast member in Toy Factory’s The Time Machine (2021), and commercials for Singapore Airlines (SIA), National Environment Agency (NEA), Singapore Kindness Movement, National Library Board (NLB) among others. As a writer, his work was nominated as a Top 6 script for the Meisner Institute international scene competition (2021). Monil is also an experienced emcee, hosting corporate events for BHP, National University of Singapore (NUS), and also most of his friends’ weddings. Monil has been on the Improv circuit since 2016, performing at various festivals and was also HCAC’s inaugural Comedy Improv Deathmatch (2021) grand-champion. Adaptable and ambitious, Monil is always looking for opportunities to grow and evolve as a performer and is always wanting to learn.
Holding a Diploma in Applied Drama and Psychology from Singapore Polytechnic and The Bryan-Tan HCAC Teaching and Acting Scholarship, Kaelen has been active in both the performance and teaching industry.
She has worked with numerous companies to teach a wide range of students varying in age Speech & Drama – Pre-school Level (Metropolitan YMCA, Creative Cottage), and Primary and Secondary School Drama CCA or English Literature and Drama Enrichment Programmes (How Drama, Tongue-in-Cheek, DramaArts).
Kaelen’s performance credits include Singapore Repertory Theatre’s “Lifespan Of a Fact”, “1984” and “Ghostlight”, Young & W!LD’s “Love & Information”, and KidsSTOP @ Science Centre’s “Saving Billy!”.
Cassandra Spykerman is a performer - she started singing when she could, and acting when she was 19. She's starred in various TV shows such as Kin, Distopia, Mr Ballerino and Zi Char Wars. She's also been in short films and certain advertisements. Aside from that, you've probably seen her at Timbre going crazy with SuperSonic, a cover band that she performs with. Cassandra has also done various ads too, and always looks forward to collaborate with content creators and filmmakers. To ignite emotion in people is what Cassandra aims to do with her work.
In 2019, Cassandra took a Grade 6 Speech And Drama course with Trinity College as she wanted to embark her journey as a teacher. She's then started working with pre-schoolers from aged 4 - 6 and has been enjoying it tremendously. She's also finished a course in Drama Pedagogy : Essential Teaching & Learning Approaches with Singapore Drama Educators Association to add on to the tools that she already has. She hopes to inspire children, adolescents and eventually, adults, with Drama.
Shrey is a professional Actor, Host and Filmmaker. He has a BA in Theatre and a BA in Cinema & Media Studies from the University of Southern California (USC), where he graduated Magna Cum Laude and was named a Renaissance Scholar. He was also awarded the Ruth & Albert McKinlay Award for Best Actor. During his time at USC, Shrey trained under many prominent practitioners in Hollywood. For Acting on Camera, this included Kate Burton (Grey’s Anatomy; Scandal), daughter of the Richard Burton (Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?) and Joseph Hacker (S.W.A.T; Charlie’s Angels), whose acting pedagogy comes from the having studied with Stella Adler, Peggy Feury, and Lee Strasberg. John DeMita, voice actor on the hit anime series Naruto, trained Shrey in Voice Acting for Animation. Shrey was also trained in the Stanislavski’s system, Maria Knebel’s Active Analysis, and Acting Theory by internationally acclaimed Stanislavski researcher and educator Dr. Sharon Carnicke.Shrey’s actor training in Singapore includes Buds Youth Theatre, Singapore Repertory Theatre’s Young Company and Haque Centre of Acting & Creativity. He hosted numerous high-profile live and TV events including the SG50 NDP Concert at the Marina Bay Floating Platform, the National Day Reception at the Istana for then president Dr. Tony Tan and the 28th Southeast Asian Games. At 19, Shrey was one of the youngest contestants on The 5 Search. Out of 700 hopefuls, Shrey placed 2nd overall. Shrey has produced, written, and directed over 7 short films. His film, My Home, Singapore? clinched over 10 official selections in film festivals worldwide. It was featured at the renowned Asian World Film Festival in 2017 and was named a semi-finalist at the Best of India Short Film Festival in Los Angeles in 2018. At the latter, it secured a broadcasting deal with Shorts TV for the South Asian region.Shrey has acted in films such as Lizard on The Wall (2017) by Cannes-acclaimed director K. Rajagopal, and TV shows such as Fine Tune (2016), which was nominated for Best Comedy Program at the 22nd Asian TV Awards. Shrey has also starred in various web series, such as My Lockdown Wedding (2021) – that also appeared as a telemovie on Channel 5 – and Long Story Short (2020), that has over 10,000 views on NSFTV’s Instagram channel. Shrey will also be starring in upcoming Channel 5 period drama, This Land is Mine (2021).Shrey has prior experience as a trainer and facilitator for several theatre-led corporate training workshops organized by the Haque Centre for Acting & Creativity and Dramatic Difference. His clients have included banks such as OCBC and DBS, companies such as Bloomberg as well as brands such as Auchentoshan.Shrey was also the Ambassador for the inaugural Singapore Monologue Slam as well as SRT’s Youth Initiative with Bloomberg Philanthropies.
Kimberley Kiew is a bilingual film, theatre and commercial actress. She has appeared in several commercials for Sony, Fitbit, UOB and Ministry of Communications and Information.
Kim is a firm believer of following one’s heart, stepping out fearlessly, and embracing the difficulties in one’s path. She believes that no one should ever stop learning about themselves and she encourages this in her yoga teaching as well as while teaching at HCAC.
Kim is also a member of The Haque Collective (THC) which is the alumni theatre company of HCAC.
Some of her theatre and TV credits include The Land is Mine (Mediacorp), Spectacle (Method Productions), Contract (THC), Hurstville: The Heir (The Underground), Journeying Mercies (MCBC)
Darren, a bilingual performer, graduated from NAFA’s Theatre course. He was also part of the pioneer batch of Creative Edge, a division of I Theatre, which produced People and Under the Dragon Moon as their graduating performances.
Some of his notable works include Citizen Dog by The Finger Players, Art Studio by Nine Years Theatre, and Lao Jiu the Musical by The Theatre Practice. Other credits include Prism of Truth by GroundZ-0, Samsui Women by The Finger Players, Liao Zhai Rocks! by The Theatre Practice, Toy Factory’s December Rains and Kumarajiva, Hop & Honkand Aesop’s Fables by I Theatre.
Darren was part of The Practice Lab from 2014 to 2016. He was an apprentice under The Finger Players, and currently also a member of Emergency Shelter, the artist training and research programme of Emergency Stairs.
Lao Jiu the musical and Samsui Women were nominated for Best Ensemble and Best Production for the Young respectively in the Straits Times Life Theatre Awards 2018. Art Studio was awarded Best Ensemble Award in the Straits Times Life Theatre Awards 2018.
As a screen actor, he was given opportunities to play a multitude of different characters across TV, films and commercials, allowing him to showcase his abilities and versatility as an actor. Some of his leading roles include Tan Chin Shiong in <Still Standing> by Kristen Tan and Tan Wei Ting, Leedon Ang in an episode of <Avenue 14> as the Orang Minyak by Monochromatic.
As an acting teacher, Darren is a MOE approved coach and he has experience teaching speech and drama classes/CCA in schools ranging from Primary to Junior College level. He is also able provide private coaching to all levels of experience. Since 2017, Darren has been teaching Acting 101, an introduction to acting short course at Lasalle College of the Arts.
Krissy has been a professional actress since 2010 and has experience performing in Canada, the UK and Singapore. She is best known for her work on Mediacorp’s long running drama “Tanglin” where she was nominated for Best Supporting Actress at the Asian Television Awards in 2017. She has a Bachelor of Fine Arts from The University of British Columbia specialising in Theatre (Performance). She moved back to Singapore in 2012 and began her acting career here with SRT’s Shakespeare in the Park. Since then she has self-produced 3 shows under Phenix Arts and Wag the Dog, performed in multiple shows with theatre companies around the island and in 2016 she made the switch to TV. Krissy is currently appearing on “Kin” and “Slow Dancing”.
Krissy first began teaching with HCAC in 2015 where she taught the “Intimate Shakespeare Series”, workshops focusing on performing Shakespearean text in a small studio space. She is looking forward to getting back to teaching after a brief hiatus.
Hansel Tan is an actor and educator based in NYC, and has enjoyed a 15-year international career on stage and onscreen. He got his start in Singapore, performing locally with companies such as Singapore Repertory Theatre, and W!LD RICE, before pursuing his training in the USA. Since then, Hansel has performed in venues such as the Lincoln Center Avery Fisher Hall, The Public Theatre, Playwrights Horizons, Symphony Space, Signature Theatre, LaMaMa, 54 Below, and The Green Room 42 with companies such as The Public, The Flea, Ma-Yi, Pan Asian Rep, Prospect Theatre, Tectonic Theatre, and at festivals with the National Alliance for Musical Theatre (NAMT) and the New York Musical Theatre Festival (NYMF).
Regionally and internationally, he has performed and premiered work at Pioneer Theatre Company, TheatreWorks Silicon Valley, Eugene O’Neill Theatre Center, North Shore Music Theater, Flat Rock Playhouse, The Village Theatre, Austin City Limits Music Festival, Indiana State Fair, Pacific National Exhibition (Canada), Sharjah Water Festival (UAE), Aichi World Exposition (Japan), and Figurteatret i Nordland (Norway). On screen, you might have seen him in Complete Unknown (Amazon), In Game: The Webseries (Man Powered Films), The Blacklist: Redemption (NBC), and Madam Secretary (CBS). As an educator, Hansel has taught audition masterclasses in Brazil, and On-Camera technique at Yale-NUS. He is a recipient of the Singapore NAC Overseas Bursary, The Wesleyan Lipsky Choral Prize, “Best Actor” winner at Theatre Now New York’s inaugural “Sound Bytes” festival, “Best Principal Male Actor” finalist for the 2017 Theatre Bay Area Awards, and “Best Actor” finalist for the 2017 Broadway World Regional Awards. He is a proud member of Actor’s Equity and SAG-AFTRA.