Julia McNeal has played lead and character roles in theatre, film, and television in New York, Los Angeles, and in the San Francisco Bay Area, where she now makes her home. She began her career in New York, where she helped found the Obie Award-winning Cucaracha Theatre and found her way into the Indie film world, working with Hal Hartley, Ted Hope, Bob Gosse, Nick Gomez, and Adrienne Shelly, among others. She played Pearl in the first film of Hartley’s Long Island Trilogy, The Unbelievable Truth. Like many New York actors, she enjoyed playing roles on Law and Order and Law and Order, SVU.  In Hollywood, Julia worked under the direction of Steve Kloves (Flesh and Bone), John Milius (Motorcycle Gang), and Chris Fields (Days and Nights Within); she is a founding member of the Echo Theater Company. She has appeared on numerous stages in the San Francisco Bay Area, most notably at the Magic Theatre (Lie of the Mind, Fred’s Diner, The Eva Trilogy, Visible From Four States, Escaped Alone), at Berkeley’s Shotgun Players (The Events), at A.C.T. in Top Girls, and in 2003, she played two roles in Visions of Kerouac at Marin Theatre Company. 

Julia is a company member of the Bay Area new-play incubator, PlayGround and teaches at Tamalpais High School’s internationally acclaimed Conservatory Theatre Ensemble program. She is trained in Meisner Technique, Linklater Voice Technique, Radiant Heart Qigong and other theatre and movement modalities which she brings to her work—in group classes, private coaching, and speaking about the 5 Ways In to Character. Julia is a graduate of Dartmouth College. She lives on Coast Miwok land in the North Bay outside San Francisco. 

{author photos by Lauren English}