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Paul Russell (Entertainment professional & author)

Paul Russell is an American casting director, theater director, and author of ACTING: Make It Your Business - How to Achieve Success and Avoid Mistakes as a Working Actor:. Russell's career in entertainment began as an actor.

Born Paul Russell Neyenesch his journey in the arts began in the 7th Grade when a chorus teacher, Michael DeMaio, put the shy adolescent of Johnsonburg, NJ into North Warren Regional High School's first musical Brigadoon. Moving to South Jersey to Marlton, NJ where he began his freshman year at Cherokee High School Neyenesch made his community theater debut as Will Parker in Rodgers & Hammerstein's Oklahoma with Pineland Players of Medford, NJ. One of Neyenesch's first endeavors as an actor-director-producer was at age 17 when he founded New Jersey's first all-adolescent, self-producing theater company Stage Right Productions. He continued performing in community theater with Pineland Players, Log Cabin Playhouse of Medford Lakes, NJ and worked as a production assistant with the semi-profesional company of Center Stage in Mount Holly, NJ.

After graduating in 1983 from Cherokee HIgh School Neyenesch worked as a marketing intern for the Walnut Street Theatre Company in Philadelphia. He then moved to the Pocono Mountains where in 1984 he made his professional debut as an actor at Shawnee Playhouse, a summer stock company along the banks of the Delaware River. Finishing his contract in the Fall of '84 Neyenesch returned to working at the Walnut Street Theatre in the marketing department while simulatanouesly directing his first musical, Once Upon A Mattress, at age 19 for Log Cabin Playhouse. The follwoing spring of 1985 Neyenesch returned to working with Shawnee Playhouse briefly before moving to New York City. Within weeks of arriving to New York Neyenesch was hired to perform in The Pirates of Penzance, and Show Boat for the Fort Salem Theater of Salem, NY. In the fall of 1985 Neyenesch worked as an actor touring between Bucks County Playhouse and Pocono Playhouse performing in Gypsy and Evita.

In 1986 Neyenesch dropped his legal last name replacing it with his middle name thus adopting his present professional name, Paul Russell. From 1986 to 1992 Russell continued working as an actor predominantly in regional theater, and with small walk-on screen roles. In the early 1990s he began casting for Fort Salem Theater.

In 1994 Russell joined the casting office of Jay Binder Casting first as an intern, and then quickly advancing to casting assistant working on projects for Broadway, Off-Broadway, Television, and regional theater. Simultanouesly he was the casting director for the Colonial Theater's Westerly Shakespeare Festival of Westerly, RI. In 1996 he joined casting director Mary Colquhoun as her casting assistant on the HBO film Mistrial directed by Heywood Gould starring Blair Underwood, and Bill Pullman. While working with Colquhoun, Russell as an indpendent casting director gained more clients including the Nebraska Shakespeare Festival, The Lark of New York City, and Madison Repertory Company. Russell continued working with Colquhoun on her next film Picture Perfect for 20th Century Fox starring Jennifer Aniston, Jay Mohr, Kevin Bacon, and Olympia Dukakis. Still casting independently Russell joined once more in 1997 working with Colquhoun this time on the film The Seige directed by Edward Zwick, and staring Denzel Washington. Colquhoun stepped aside her duties for health issues. Her friend and casting colleague Mary Goldberg took over with Russell remaining. Between film projects with Colquhoun, and handling his own clients, Russell worked on the casting--un-credited--for Cosby with Aisha Coley. Coley, unlike Russell, had never before cast for a televesion series. Her erratic behaviour led to Russell departing to focus on his expanding client base.

Between 1994 to 2019 Russell, as an indpendent casting director under the guise of Paul Russell Casting cast the indie-feature Following Bliss (2005) starring Ellen Bethea, Sean Patrick Reilly, and Julian Rozzell Jr.. The original New York Productions of Woody Guthrie's American Song (nominated for a Drama Desk Award for Outstading Musical Review), Pera Palas by Sinan Ünel starring Lou Libertore, Evan Pappas, and John Spencer (of L.A. Law and The West Wing fame) replacing Turkish actor Ali Poyrazoglu, and Lee Blessing's COBB produced by Kevin Spacey (Special Drama Desk Award for Outstading Ensemble Cast). Additional original production for which Russell cast also include Rich Orloff's Oy!, Fables in Slang - A Ragtime Review directed by Nick Corley, and staring Nancy Anderson, The Good Doctor staring Andre de Shields, Lee Wilkof and Jane Connell each title for The Melting Pot Theatre, String Fever starring Cynthia Nixon, Lloyd Suh's Masha, No Home for the Ensemble Studio Theatre, Murder in Mind for UBU Rep, and numerous workshops and readings including Annie Reiner's The New Living Room starring Jerry Stiller, Lanie Kazan, and Ileana Douglas. Regional theater clients included Barter Theatre, Asolo Rep., San Jose Repertory, American Heartland Theater, Barksdale Theatre, Two River Theatre, Nebraska Shakespeare Festival, Colonial Theatre, Florida Stage, Riverside Theatre Company, Casa Manana. For Barter Productions he cast the national tours of Million Dollar Quartet, The Diary of Anne Frank, Keep On The Sunnyside, Civil War Voices, Of Mice and Men, and Forever Plaid.

In addition to his directing Once Upon A Matress, Russell directed the first, post-Broadway, U.S. production of MAMMA MIA!, and the first, post-Broadway production of John Guare's A Free Man of Color. Also for the Barter Russell directed The Scarlet Pimpernel, Oliver, Bat Boy - The Musical, and Footloose. Russell also directed and earlier staging of Footloose for Plays-In-The-Park, Rocky Horror for Studio Players, and a staged reading preimer of The Almost True and Truly Remarkable Adventures of Israel Potter for 12 Miles West Theatre Company.

In 2008, Watson-Guptill, an imprint of Penguin Random House published Russell's non-fiction debut ACTING: Make It Your Business - How to Avoid Mistakes and Acheive Success as a Working Actor.

Paul Russell teaches master classes at universities including: Elon, Wright State University, Illinois Weslyan University, Rutgers University, Emory & Henry College, and Louisiana State University. Russell taught the business of acting for NYC-Tisch's acting program at The Atlantic Theatre Company.