Resume

Full Resume

Shakespeare/Classics Text Coaching

Curtain Theatre | Mill Valley, CA

Love's Labour's Lost - Doyle Ott, Director | 2026

As You Like It - Doyle Ott, Director | 2025

A Midsummer Night's Dream | 2024

Marin Shakespeare Co. | San Raphael, CA

As You Like It | Evren Odcikin, Director | 2026

Romeo & Juliet (for students/adults) | Jon Tracy, Director | 2025

A Midsummer Night’s Dream | San Raphael, CA | 2019

Private students in professional theatre training programs | 2020-21

Spring/Fall Dance Studio & Edinburgh Fringe Fest | 2ELFth Night | Alan Coyne & Adrian Deane | Berkeley, CA & Paradise/Augustines, Scotland | 2019

Ritz Theatre Co. | Romeo & Juliet | Oakland, NJ | 2018

Delaware Shakespeare Festival | The Comedy of Errors | Wilmington, DE | 2016

White Pines Productions | Much Ado About Nothing | Abington, PA | 2016

Philadelphia Shakespeare Theatre | Main Stage, Acting Academy, School Tours | 2008-16

Text Coaching Reviews

The Comedy of Errors

“J.J. Van Name (ever-skilled in her role as Shakespearean text coach) turns in a masterful portrayal of the Abbess, a key figure in resolving the madcap conundrum.” - DCMetroTheaterArts

Critic's Pick

“Along with her superb text coaching of the cast, J.J. Van Name delivered a tone of Shakespearean dignity, eloquence, and decorum to the madcap comedy in her role of the Abbess. Although the part is small, it is pivotal, and requires a mature and knowledgeable performer to tie up all of the loose ends of the improbable narrative. She did it with aplomb, and with her usual comprehension and mastery of The Bard’s work.” - DCMetroTheaterArts

Romeo & Juliet, Ritz Theatre Company

“I give kudos to J.J. Van Name, the text coach of the Ritz' production because the actors clearly understand the text and do an amazing job highlighting the nuances of Shakespeare's words.

- BroadwayWorld.com

AS YOU LIKE IT, Marin Shakespeare Company

What IS a Text Coach, anyway? J.J. Van Name – text coach for AS YOU LIKE IT – gives us some insight:
The Text Coach works closely with the Director and Actors in rehearsals, listening and following the script intently... identifying opportunities for actors to "play" with the words...the language devices that Shakespeare embedded in his verse as clues for us...to lift, pop, stretch, pull, twist, pause those words and phrases...the similar sounds in words...alliteration, assonance (same vowel sounds in the middle of words), onomatopoeia, antithetical words, repetition of words...lifting the end of Verse words, lifting lists like ladder steps, to name just a few of the devices actors can play with. Giving these words and phrases extra 'juice' or 'lift'....the scores of different ways to say, "O!"… All these are clues that Shakespeare gives us in his playground of verse. And that's when you see characters and the stories come to life in the unique world of the production. The Text, understood in this way, helps us imagine what the characters are feeling, thinking, wanting....who they are in this world of the play.
- Director: Evren Odciken