LECTURE DEMONSTRATION
Starting from a physical base, company members demonstrate how body postures, actions, and gestures serve to illuminate character. We look at classic character archetypes from the commedia dell’arte and from various cultures, and the clown, who optimize honesty, vulnerability and spontaneity—all essential to the serious actor. Other physical skills are demonstrated and integrated into a theatrical context: mime, object manipulation, acrobatics, slapstick, and mask work.

WORKSHOPS
From the European laboratory theatre, the Greek drama, the silent screen, the vaudeville, and specific dance and martial art forms from around the world, we have brought the most intriguing styles and vocabularies together to create an excellent series of exercises for the actors’ use. Focus will be spent on developing a theatrical warm-up, ensemble acting techniques, focus and neutrality, using the spine, clarity of gesture, and creating characters, Also included in the study are the skills of mime, slapstick, tumbling, stage combat, physical comedy, partner work, improvisation, characterization, object manipulation, and the use of props.

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