Deena Freeman runs a Los Angeles acting studio for kids and teens, teaching both working child actors and complete beginners. She has spent 40 years acting professionally and more than 20 years coaching young performers, and her studio offers in-person Sunday classes, weekly Zoom sessions, and private one-on-one audition coaching.
If you’re a parent trying to figure out whether her classes are the right fit for your child, here’s everything you need to know: her background, how she teaches, what each class actually covers, what other parents say, and how her studio compares to other options in LA.
Deena Freeman’s Acting Background
Before she started teaching, Deena Freeman built a long career in front of the camera. She was a regular on the ABC sitcom Too Close for Comfort, playing April, the niece of the show’s lead character. She also appeared as Bea Arthur’s daughter in an episode of The Golden Girls, and had roles in Newhart, Intelligence, Togetherness, and Little America.
Beyond scripted TV, Freeman built a substantial career in commercials, work recognized by the Screen Actors Guild, which honored her on national television for her body of commercial work.
This matters for parents evaluating an acting coach because it’s the difference between someone who studied acting academically and someone who has actually sat in casting rooms, taken direction on set, and adjusted a performance in real time when a director asked for something different. When she tells a student how to handle a note during an audition, it comes from having lived through hundreds of those moments herself.
Her Teaching Method
Freeman’s classes are built around the Uta Hagen technique, a well-established approach to acting that focuses on truthful, moment-to-moment behavior rather than performed or presentational acting. She combines this foundation with methods she developed over four decades of her own on-camera work.
A typical class follows a consistent structure:
- Improvisation and warm-up exercises — these loosen up the group and get students out of their heads before scene work begins.
- Scene and monologue work — students perform with partners while Freeman watches closely.
- Notes and feedback — she gives direct, specific feedback, then has students run the scene again, sometimes multiple times, until the work sharpens.
The goal isn’t just performance polish. It’s teaching kids to break down a script, understand a character’s motivation, and trust their own instincts under pressure — skills that carry over into auditions, school plays, and public speaking generally.
Classes Offered
Freeman’s studio runs several formats depending on age, location, and schedule:
- In-person classes, held on Sundays at her Los Angeles studio, focused on scene study, improvisation, and audition preparation.
- Zoom classes, taught once a week for tweens and teens after school. Students enrolled in Zoom classes can attend additional Zoom sessions at no extra cost — useful for kids who want more reps without more driving.
- A dedicated class for kids ages 8–10, separate from the tween/teen groups.
- Private one-on-one coaching, aimed specifically at audition prep. Freeman has noted this individual coaching often makes the difference between booking a role and not, since it moves faster than group instruction and targets exactly what a specific audition requires.
- Specialty workshops, including additional improvisation sessions taught by guest instructors, script analysis, and sessions on “the business of acting” aimed at both students and their parents. The studio also brings in industry professionals for occasional visits.
Who These Classes Are Best For
Not every acting class is built for every kid, and Freeman’s studio serves a fairly wide range of students:
- Working child actors who need to stay audition-ready and sharpen skills between bookings.
- Beginners who are curious about acting but have no experience, and want a structured way to find out if they enjoy it.
- Kids building general confidence, who may never pursue acting professionally but benefit from learning to perform, speak, and take direction in front of others.
Because the Zoom classes and the age-specific groups run separately, the studio doesn’t force young beginners into the same room as working teen actors preparing for network auditions.
What Parents and Students Say
Reviews of the studio consistently point to the same two things: Freeman’s ability to build genuine confidence in kids, and the quality of the technical foundation she gives them. One parent described how their daughter’s work in Freeman’s class gave her the confidence to audition for school plays, something she hadn’t been willing to try before. Another described Freeman as combining real professionalism with a clear passion for the students’ development, calling it something that shows up directly in the results.
The studio holds a strong, consistent rating on Yelp across dozens of reviews, which is a meaningful trust signal in a field where a lot of acting coaches are difficult to vet from outside.
How Deena Freeman Compares to Other LA Acting Studios
Los Angeles has no shortage of youth acting programs, from large studios like The Young Actor’s Studio to smaller, coach-led programs. A few things separate Freeman’s approach:
- Working-actress-led instruction. Many programs are run by teachers with theater training but limited on-camera credits. Freeman’s coaching is grounded in decades of actual television and commercial work.
- Small, personalized groups. Rather than large cohort classes, students get individual notes and repeated run-throughs of their scenes.
- A named technique. The Uta Hagen method gives the instruction a clear, established framework rather than an improvised curriculum.
- Flexible formats. Between in-person Sunday classes, weekly Zoom sessions, and private coaching, families can pick what actually fits their schedule instead of committing to one rigid format.
The trade-off is scale: this is a smaller, more personal studio rather than a large institution with dozens of instructors, which suits families looking for individual attention more than families looking for a big theater-camp environment.
Frequently Asked Questions
How old do kids need to be to start? The studio runs a class specifically for kids ages 8–10, along with separate tween and teen groups, so children as young as 8 can enroll. Parents interested in younger kids should contact the studio directly to confirm current age groupings.
Are Zoom classes as effective as in-person classes? Zoom classes cover the same core skills — scene work, improvisation, and script analysis — and students can attend extra Zoom sessions at no additional cost. Many families use Zoom specifically to avoid driving to LA traffic while still getting weekly practice.
Does Deena Freeman help with audition prep specifically? Yes. Beyond the weekly group classes, the studio offers private one-on-one coaching focused specifically on preparing for individual auditions, which tends to move faster and more precisely than group instruction.
Is this studio only for kids already working as actors? No. The studio explicitly serves both working child actors and complete beginners, along with kids whose parents mainly want them to build confidence rather than pursue acting as a career.
How do I enroll or ask about pricing? Contact the studio directly by phone or email for current pricing and open class spots, since schedules and availability change by season.
The Bottom Line
Deena Freeman’s studio stands out mainly because of who’s teaching it: a working actress with 40 years of on-camera experience and two decades spent coaching kids and teens specifically. Whether your child is chasing bookings or just wants to get more comfortable speaking in front of people, the combination of a structured technique, small-group attention, and flexible in-person or Zoom formats makes it worth a closer look.
Conclusion
Choosing an acting coach for your child comes down to a few things: does the instructor have real industry experience, do they teach a consistent method rather than winging it, and will your child actually get individual attention instead of getting lost in a big group. Deena Freeman’s studio checks all three boxes — four decades as a working actress, a defined technique in the Uta Hagen tradition, and small classes with direct, repeated feedback on every scene.
Whether your child is an 8-year-old just discovering a love of pretend play or a working teen actor prepping for a network audition, there’s a class format here built for that stage. The best way to find out if it’s the right fit is simple: call or email the studio directly, ask about current openings, and sit in on a class if they allow it.
