Class Descriptions
Clown
Jump into your body....Open like a little flower....Rediscover your playful spirit and the simple pleasure and ferocious generosity of performance. We will pursue the Clown together in all of its messy and hilarious beauty. Your relationship to all other forms of drama will be enriched by the openness and reckless abandon that the Clown requires. After the clowns are discovered, they can begin to make a mess together in gleeful pandemonium. Students begin to work in groups (families, duos and trios), create clown numbers, and develop solo material. No previous experience required.
Clown For All
It’s a complete disaster of fun and chaos…. Everyone's invited! Exercises will be tailored to each individual's level and built to encourage both discovery and continuing growth – encouraging the new and provoking the veterans simultaneously. We will surely illuminate something elusive and rare: the comic world (with great peals of laughter)! Admission is open to all students – both veterans and first-timers.
Mask
Through the investigation of the traditional masks of The Commedia Dell’Arte, we will discover the world of Harlequino, Smeraldina, Pantalone, and other classical archetypes. Celebrate the vulgar, the romantic and, of course, the profane. Find the lazzi. Learn to bring the mask to life. Live fully in your body. Investigate the actor/creator. Take ownership of your work.
Acting as Play
A Clown-based Scene Study class?? You got that right bucko!!
Harness the Clown’s relentless pursuit of fun in order to take big risks before feeling “ready”; get out of your brain and into your body; embrace the precarious pleasure of not needing to know what’s coming next; and most importantly, to lead with hope regardless of the inevitable disasters laid out in the text! Using a mix of clown exercises and scene work, Acting As Play will strengthen the student’s ability to listen; to play without shame; to be generous with others and themselves; and, ultimately, to fully embrace each individuals Empathic Vulnerability - the ability to fully see another, while being fully seen by another, while remaining open to the possibility of being changed.
Harness the Clown’s relentless pursuit of fun in order to take big risks before feeling “ready”; get out of your brain and into your body; embrace the precarious pleasure of not needing to know what’s coming next; and most importantly, to lead with hope regardless of the inevitable disasters laid out in the text! Using a mix of clown exercises and scene work, Acting As Play will strengthen the student’s ability to listen; to play without shame; to be generous with others and themselves; and, ultimately, to fully embrace each individuals Empathic Vulnerability - the ability to fully see another, while being fully seen by another, while remaining open to the possibility of being changed.
Shakespeare as Play
Shakespeare as Play is a physical acting and ensemble-based course combining clown and heightened text. We'll work on Shakespeare’s most explosive scenes, supported throughout by clown, ensemble games and exercises! You’ll discover how to use text work to build a personal and accessible road-map through heightened text, and support your discoveries with reckless abandon and a huge appetite for fun. Learn to unleash the theatrical potential of Shakespeare’s text through fully-activated, happy, and hungry bodies.
Play
Rediscover your impulse to play! How much fun can you find with the performer's most essential playmate, the audience? Through a series of exercises drawn from clown, le jeu, games and improvisation, you will learn to listen and respond with your whole body, develop a more playful and dynamic relationship with people, things and the space around you, and take bold risks — all in the name of your fun! Find play and game and you will not only enliven your presence onstage but also discover exciting, new possibilities for entering the world of the Clown and approaching character and text. Play is the beginning and a very good place to start this work as well as an essential place to revisit once you have begun!
