Wellness
Wellness
At MTCA, we believe deeply that Wellness is an essential part of a great audition. Wellness can mean many things to different people, but to us it means helping students to walk into audition rooms with a healthy mind, body, and voice. You need to be physically, vocally, and psychologically healthy to have your best audition.
Erika Strasburg specializes in wellness relating to managing stress, anxiety and physical well-being. Erika’s aim is to help her students manage tough emotions and demanding schedules during this high-pressure time. Her students learn the necessary tools to feel balanced in mind and body. This can mean guidance surrounding nutrition, sleep, social media usage, managing their schedules, trying emotional situations and everything needed to avoid burnout and overwhelm.
Christina Rouner is an ADHD/Executive Functioning Coach who can help students wherever they are on the spectrum of neurodivergence as it relates to ADHD (diagnosed and not). So many of the life skills she helps with are truly essential to all. She helps with Time-Management, Task Initiation, Stress Management, Performance Anxiety, and Emotional Regulation.
Both Erika and Christina can help when it comes to anxiety and stress management. Both are trained as performers (at Carnegie Mellon and Juilliard, respectively), and can help with performance anxiety and wellness as it relates specifically to the performer.
Ellen Lettrich, alongside being MTCA’s Founder, is an expert in Vocal Health for the performer. She can help students navigating vocal injuries along their diagnostic and rehabilitation journeys, help them to avoid re-injury, and can serve as a bridge to find their way back to healthy singing that they can do in their Vocal Technique lessons.
Meet Our Wellness Coaches
Erika Strasburg
Wellness Coach
BFA in Acting from Carnegie Mellon
Institute for Integrative Nutrition
She/Her
Erika is a proud graduate of Carnegie Mellon’s School of Drama and the Institute for Integrative Nutrition in NYC. She has performed in theaters all over the country, and deeply understands the physical, emotional and mental requirements of the entertainment industry. She has merged her experience as an actor with her passion for health and wellness, and is a Board Certified Health & Wellness Coach to performers of all ages. She is also a certified adolescent mental health coach and a DBT (Dialectical Behavioral Therapy) Skills Coach. Erika works specifically with the MTCA students to better understand performance anxiety, energy and nutrition, healthy communities, and the busy life of an auditioning student. By establishing a safe and supportive space, Erika helps her students develop a deeper understanding of the habits and choices that will improve their energy, balance and quality of life. She guides her students to find their own empowered voice, and to feel calm and strong in mind and body- now and in the exciting chapters to come. She has clients on Broadway, in film & TV, and in various schools around the country. She’s here to help every MTCA student live and perform at their best!
Christina Rouner
Wellness Coach/ADHD Specialist
MFA in Acting, The Juilliard School
BA in Medieval History, Yale University
AEA, SAG-AFTRA
She/Her
Christina is a certified ADHD and Executive Function Coach who also has many years of experience as a working actor. She received her B.A. in Medieval History at Yale University, studied philosophy and theater at the Sorbonne in Paris and graduated from the Drama Division at The Juilliard School.
As a coach, Christina first began exploring the connection between artistic temperament and neurodiversity while raising her two neurodivergent, highly creative children. Since then her mission has been to empower young people navigating stress, anxiety, and neurodiversity. Her goal is to enable them to move forward with their artistic goals, manage their day to day challenges and embrace their uniqueness as a strength and a gift. She understands that each student needs a program of support tailored specifically to them. She counsels them through issues like distractedness, fatigue, or tension so that they can bring their optimal selves into the audition space. Through mentoring, curated tools, and coaching, she helps students to overcome internal barriers, uncover strategies, and build lives where their creativity and confidence can thrive.
As an actor, she has extensive experience in film and television as well as many years of working steadily on stage. Her film credits include Mapplethorpe, Ned Rifle, I Dream Too Much, Taking Chance, Fur and The Skeptic, among others. On television she’s been seen on Your Friends and Neighbors, Succession, Blue Bloods, Law and Order, Billions, Law and Order SVU, Power, The Good Wife, Elementary, Sex and the City, and many more. In her extensive stage work she’s been seen on Broadway, Off-Broadway and in many regional theater productions. Among her favorite New York projects are Dance Nation, This Is the Color Described By the Time, Coram Boy, Eternal, House for Sale, The Duchess of Malfi and Three Tall Women. She’s done extensive work in regional theaters such as The McCarter, Yale Repertory, Long Wharf Theater, The Old Globe Theater, The Guthrie, La Jolla Playhouse, Westport Country Playhouse, Baltimore Center Stage and New York Stage and Film, among many others.
She lives in Park Slope, Brooklyn, is married to actor/software engineer Matthew Greer, and has two children ages twenty-two and nineteen.
Ellen Lettrich
Vocal Health Coach
MTCA Founder
MS, CCC-SLP in Speech Pathology, Duquesne University in Pittsburgh
She/Her
Ellen Lettrich is the Founder of MTCA and the Founder and current Executive Director of The Fund for College Auditions, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit that supports low-income students from underrepresented groups throughout their college audition process. Ellen has been a theatre educator focusing on the college audition process since 1999. She is also a licensed speech pathologist who specializes in voice and in this role has been Assistant Vocal Coach for Matilda on Broadway and Vocal Coach for Hand to God both on Broadway and off. She loves her continued work with MTCA as a voice analyst and resident Coaching Team Grandma.
