I want you to have much more ease, power, and joy.
I love to empower people
empower
I have coached a wide variety of folks - scientists, entrepreneurs, executives, activists, lawyers, doctors, students, brides, grooms, artists, a mountain climber, and even a top dog trainer. My clients have been on The Today Show, Dr. Oz, and regularly appear on the cooking shows America's Test Kitchen and Cook's Country.
From hospitals to architecture firms, Converse to iRobot, MIT to HubSpot, I've led public speaking workshops in a vast array of industries. Participants learn together and gain practical skills that help them feel more confident and able to articulate their messaging with clarity and charisma.
I wrote Your Guide to Public Speaking - Build Your Confidence, Find Your Voice, Inspire Your Audience so I could share all I've learned so far as a coach and performer. You can grab a copy where books are sold - including Amazon and Barnes and Noble.
I got my start on the East Coast, where I founded Boston Public Speaking. And when I became bicoastal, I launched San Diego Public Speaking.
My very talented husband, Art, and I run San Diego Acting Classes together and have a blast. When Boston was our base, we taught acting at our studio - Boston Acting Classes - for two decades. I've also taught acting at the Film/TV Department at Boston University, the New York Film Academy, and at The Huntington Theatre Company.
I received my MFA at the Actors Studio Drama School and I've acted in films, plays, and commercials. I've played everything from frosty doctors, to a sassy waitress, to a farmer's wife with one too many skeletons
in the closet, to a cute bunny.
In addition to founding Boston Public Speaking & San Diego Public Speaking, I'm also a co-founder and teacher at
San Diego Acting Classes.
I have a background in performance
Let’s create an experience for you where you’re actually looking forward to what you’re going to share. Your message is clear, you know that you won’t come off sounding like an ai generated version of you. You’re excited to use your message to help your audience.
(Notice I didn’t say “you are obsessed and stressed about what your audience will think of you morning, noon, and night.”)
My background in acting (as an actor, acting coach, and acting professor) and writing, informs all I do when I coach or lead workshops. This includes my experience with stage fright (scroll down to read more about that adventure).
I see it time and again that when folks invest in coaching to work on a project, not only do they get their message on point (and learn what to do with their hands). They also develop a whole new level of confidence that impacts their life in and outside of work. YES!!!
Let’s create an experience for your audience that makes them want to take action.
WHAT?! This terrible feeling of butterflies punching me in the stomach was robbing me of my joy.
I also realized that the process of managing performance anxiety was its own skill set, separate from the acting training I had received.
Determined to face this STRESS head-on, I read all I could and experimented with various strategies, many of which were immensely helpful.
I am excited to share what I have learned with you, so you won't hate butterflies and will not allow fear to limit you.
So, I get it. I've been there!
After suffering in agony for much of the run of the play, I finally had to admit to myself that despite the fact that I had years of training and performing under my belt, I had STAGE FRIGHT.
LET'S CREATE
TOGETHER
Hey there!
I’m wearing long white gloves, pearls, a fitted canary yellow skirt suit, and a quaint hat. (Think 1950s Big Gal Friday Energy.)
I’m playing fast-talking reporter Lois Lane who will stop at nothing to get Superman to marry me.
And my stomach HURTS.
My tummy isn’t hurting because every single one of my clever plans to nab Superman’s heart fails…or because I’m running up against deadline at The Daily Planet.
And it’s not food poisoning.
SUPERMAN CAN'T
SAVE ME FROM THIS
SUPERMAN
a story of nerves
I’m waiting backstage for Wonder Woman to finish talking about defeating the 3rd Reich.
Am I prepared? YES.
I have rehearsed day and night to make sure I know the many lines and stage blocking (movement) of my 15 minute monologue.
How about the casting - is this part a good fit for me? Check.
It matches my sense of humor, there are tons of laughs, wit, physical comedy -it’s a fantastic fit!
Am I getting positive feedback from critics, audiences, friends, and family. Checkity-check-check-check.
That all sounds good, so...
I have stage fright. And I am not a fan.
Why is this happening?!
I’m in grad school at the Actors Studio MFA Program.
(Remember that TV show Inside the Actors Studio ? Yep! I was there. In the early years of that show, you can see me sitting in the audience with other students. I'm hungry to learn from the supremely talented actors being interviewed. And very hungry for my supremely affordable falafel dinner.)
THAT'S WHEN THE PERFORMANCE ANXIETY STARTS TO KICK IN.
And I keep thinking that if I get more and more acting training, my confidence will go up and my nerves will calm down.
Nope.
Then I thought once I started working as an actor it would get better.
NOPE.
what is HAPPENING?
REWIND. It’s years earlier, West Village, NYC.
And finally, standing backstage in my white pumps, terrified I would forget my lines, I had to admit to myself that I had stage fright. I had stage fright DESPITE the fact that I had years of training and performing under my belt. I needed help.
I realized that the process of managing performance anxiety was its own skill set, completely separate from the acting training I had received.
After that play, I let go of my mission to get Superman to propose*.
My husband - Art - actually played Superman and Clark Kent in that show. Cute, right?
This terrible feeling of butterflies punching me in the stomach was robbing me of my joy.
back to lois lane.
*Sidenote-
I WAS ON A NEW MSSION. I would get rid of this stage fright. END OF STORY.
I became aware of my perfectionism and the subtle and not so subtle ways I was putting pressure on myself. I researched, I read, and got practical strategies from professional actors for handling nerves.
Beginning of new story.
I got to work, uncovering what these stressful nerves were all about. I started to see what was happening for me internally.
And at the same time, I was teaching acting at Boston University’s film school and with Superman (my husband) at our own studio (Boston Acting Classes).
What I learned about managing nerves was 24 carat magic. I wove it into how I taught the craft. And... it helped me get my joy back. (This calls for a mic drop - but mics can be expensive. Let's boldly drop something else.)
I started to learn a new way of working on my craft, with less white knuckling, more flow, more spontaneity, and more trust.
This email was from a woman in my community who needed help with a big upcoming presentation at the bank where she worked. She knew I was an acting coach, could I help?
I SAID YES. AND THAT SIMPLE YES CHANGED EVERYTHING.
While coaching her, I realized that all I knew about creating performances that are electric, alive, and memorable, could be applied to public speaking. All that I was learning about managing nerves and mindset would be invaluable to folks who were terrified - or had small, medium, or large butterflies - about public speaking.
And all those day jobs I’d had over the years - at a top NYC law firm, a tech start-up, a tech corporation, an artistic non-profit, a cubical reconfiguration company I kid you NOT! - all that I learned from these different work cultures - gave me terrific context for working with clients from many different industries.
I had also started offering public speaking coaching because...
of an email that popped into my inbox the previous year.
That yes changed everything.
Boston Public Speaking is born!
I fall in love with the West (Sedona! California!) and start visualizing becoming bicoastal.
I get a book deal to write Your Guide to Public Speaking!
San Diego Public Speaking is born! (Hello bi-coastal life!)
Your Guide to Public Speaking is published!
You know what happens. (AND Zoom & Teams become part of the fabric of the working world.)
Bi-coastal me makes San Diego my base, traveling EAST regularly to lead workshops for companies large and small..
San Diego Acting Classes is born (launched by Superman and me)!
This website - amandahennessey.com - is born!
TIMELINE
Here;s what unfolded...
2015 - 16
2021
2024
2025
2020
2019
2019
2018
2014
These are the highlights of those years. The slings and arrows of life were also present. (I lost my parents and other family members.) Life is a complex adventure of ebb and flow, am-I-right?
Through it all, it's important to remember your own strength and humanity. You truly never know where life may bring you.
PS - Let's be honest.
