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Photo courtesy of Charles Tentindo.<\/em><\/p>\n Charles Tentindo was living a life that most people can only dream of. He was traveling across the country to direct several videos, he had just won an award for directing a documentary, he had designed an instrument<\/a> that had made it on the cover of Keyboard Magazine, he was in a relationship and most importantly, he was teaching acting classes, an activity he holds close to his heart.<\/p>\n After two weeks of enduring both a persistent low-grade fever and a cough in August of 2010, he went to his doctor to get checked out. Days later, his doctor called to say something was off with his labs, and Tentindo needed to come back in. Within 48 hours he was diagnosed with Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia (ALL) and given a 30 percent chance to live. He was then sent by an ambulance from Long Beach Memorial to The City of Hope to prepare him for a bone marrow transplant. While no one in Tentindo\u2019s family was a match, he was lucky enough to find a matched donor in New York. A stranger saved his life.<\/p>\n \u201cI will tell you it is hell, it is a hellish experience. It\u2019s scary. Every day is filled with not knowing whether you\u2019re going to make it or not,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Four months spent at The City of Hope helped him transition back to his normal living environment, which included short visits back home. Tentindo said it was hard to leave the hospital \u201cbubble,\u201d a place where he felt so protected for so long. He attributes much of his recovery to the support of his family, friends and loved ones.<\/p>\n \u201cWe are experts as human beings at pretending that we’re going to live forever,\u201d said Tentindo. \u201cSo when you are looking at your potential demise in the face, like the grim reaper, when you look at him, and they\u2019re calling, you really go through something that is inexplicable. It felt like I was falling from the top of a 30-story building and I didn’t know how I was going to land. It was just a perpetual fall.\u201d<\/p>\n Those who know him say Tentindo\u2019s battle with ALL changed an already sensitive individual into an even more empathetic, observant and passionate teacher.<\/p>\n \u201cI’m more appreciative of each moment that I’m here; I realize that every day is a gift,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n He describes his experience as a brutal wake-up call to the fact that life is short, and that you may as well do what you\u2019re passionate about while you still can, and do it as well as you can.<\/p>\n \u201cThe biggest thing is taking in each moment, everything is hyper real now, from watching how customers interact with, say, workers at a restaurant, to the interactions that happen between patients at the City of Hope[\u2026]” Tentindo said. “Now when I see someone suffering I can immediately connect with how that feels and I will be empathetic and find a way that I can help that person, in my way.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s helped my teaching,\u201d he continued. \u201cBeing a more sensitive teacher helps with the intuitiveness of how you\u2019re working with the students. I\u2019ve been hammered in acting classes and it\u2019s not a fun place to be because you\u2019re open and vulnerable and someone is telling you something negative about what\u2019s going on. So I handle the work there in a very empathetic, yet strong way, to inspire them and push them.\u201d<\/p>\n As far as his teaching philosophy goes, Tentindo says his style is a culmination of everything he learned from his former teachers as well as all he has learned from the greats, including Stella Adler and Sanford Meisner.<\/p>\n \u201cI prefer you not to act in my class, I prefer you to be, because it\u2019s interesting to watch a human being just living in the moment. It may seem simple, but it\u2019s a much more difficult thing to do when the camera is rolling and there\u2019s 30 people looking straight at you.\u201d<\/p>\n