Jennifer Lanier / Many Horses Productions

Jennifer relates to all ages, socio-economic backgrounds, as well as to minorities, being several herself. She has performed and taught for universities, schools, faculty groups and even a prison. Her theatre based master classes include acting, improvisation, creating gender switching roles, and how to prepare for auditions. Other keynote presentations and workshops include "Getting Your Life Back No Matter Who Wants It: Personal Achievement in the Face of Personal Adversity", "Instant Acting: Taking Improv Skills into Interviews, Presentations, and Meeting the Parents", and commencement/convocation addresses. With a Bachelor of Fine Arts from the prestigious North Carolina School of the Arts, she continues to work with NCSA as a guest artist and coach. Jennifer was inducted into the Order of the Golden Fleece Honorary Society at the University of North Carolina. She is a member of the Screen Actor’s Guild and the Actor’s Equity Association.

Always a child at heart, Jennifer performs for children as young as 3 years of age, using African American and American Indian folk tales to educate them in cooperation, honesty, tolerance & acceptance as well as sequencing, analysis, and teamwork. She conducts workshops and performs for elementary, middle school, and high school students around personal achievement, diversity, and acting. Jennifer works with educators on using drama as an "in" to other parts of the curriculum. Her work has made an impact even at the North Carolina Correctional Institution for Women where she directed a show based on inmates' writings. Jennifer has worked with a variety of companies including the United Stage; Smithsonian Institution's Discovery Theater; Bank of America, RJ Reynolds, and First Union corporations; and the A+ Schools Summer Institutes in North Carolina as a founding fellow.

Jennifer's skills have translated into emceeing events, writing & performing spontaneous songs created with information provided by the audience on the spot, getting a crowd of hundreds to play games together and bringing out the "inner actor" in audience members by bringing them into the story. She has been seen in theatres across the country as well as in films and television. You may even have seen her on late night TV as a spokesperson for the Christian Children's Fund.