Richard Skipper Celebrates Bill Berloni to Benefit The Theatrical Animals Fund

Richard Skipper will sit down to celebrate Bill Berloni on Monday, August 17th, 5 PM ET/2PM PT.

William "Bill" Berloni is an American Animal Behaviorist, Humanitarian and Author, known for his training of rescue animals for stage, film and television.

Bill Berloni was a 20-year-old apprentice at the Goodspeed Opera House when Martin Charnin offered him his big break: a chance to act professionally and gain his Equity Card. In return, all Bill had to do was find and train a dog to play Sandy in the original production of Annie.

What Bill didn't know was that this was a bigger challenge than it seemed. Animal performances in movies or television can be stitched together using different takes, different camera angles, even different animals. To perform in a featured role, an animal actor would have to be trained to ignore the distraction of the audience and respond to the same cues the same way night-after-night, just like his human counterparts. It had never been done before.

Bill found his dog at a local animal shelter - beginning his career-long commitment to using rescued animals. Through a combination of persistence, patience and trial-and-error, he developed his revolutionary humane training techniques - learning how to teach actors and animals alike to create a successful performance. Annie became a huge hit and Sandy became "the longest running dog on Broadway," never missing a performance in more than seven years.

Since then, Bill and his handlers have provided animals of all species and sizes, found in shelters, humane societies or rescue leagues, for Broadway, off-Broadway, national tours, regional theatres, special events, the New York City Ballet, motion pictures, television and commercials. When their careers are over, the animals return to Bill's Connecticut farm.

Bill Berloni is known for training numerous shelter animals for film and television including Charlie Wilson's War, Disney Channel Original Movie Frenemies and the Sony Pictures "Annie 2014 Film" starring Quvenzhané Wallis and Jamie Foxx..

Bill is a published author known for his book "Broadway Tail" and has been featured on many news shows including The Today Show,[ CBS Sunday Morning, CBS News and Arise Entertainment 360 TV.

From Broadway to Hollywood and beyond, William Berloni's Theatrical Animals are stars of many mediums. They are beloved by many, all over the world, but most importantly...by Dorothy and Bill Berloni. The animals, most of whom are rescued and adopted, are cared for with the highest standards of medical and emotional welfare. From dogs to donkeys, pigs to parrots, llamas to lizards, scores of Theatrical Animals have comfortably lived and been trained by Bill Berloni over the past 40 years at their farm in Connecticut. There are currently 25 dogs, 3 cats, 2 horses, 2 pigs, 2 geese, 1 donkey, 1 Macaw and 1 Dwarf bunny at the farm!

https://www.gofundme.com/f/animal-actors-fund

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