Current Workshops

Creativity and Collaborative Storytelling

The brain is constantly bombarded by inputs: images, sounds, physical sensations, conversations, ideas, emotions, etc., and because it is ultimately geared towards ensuring the survival of the individual, its default response is often dominated by the familiar, the predictable, the known in the form of previous inputs, experiences and outcomes. Arguably, this is the death of art.

What I will teach you in this workshop is a way to avoid this trap, one that will allow you to consistently produce imaginative and unique works of art. I call this approach Trackwork, a creative process that combines, reconfigures and smashes together a wide-range of seemingly unrelated artistic, textual, and cultural forms. Each of the productions created will be presented in a festival at the end of the workshop.

Method and Devising

Devising is an inclusive, democratic approach to playmaking that involves the director and the actors much more closely in the creation and development of the dramatic text. Using a synthesis of text, movement techniques and compositional exercises, this workshop will combine elements of devising and collaborative storytelling with the central principles of The Method; namely, authentic, honest performances that are both emotionally and physically grounded in the truth of human reality. Each of the productions created will be presented in a festival at the end of the workshop.

Comedy and Play

The best comedic actors are the most playful actors, the ones who are unafraid to take risks, the ones who embrace the most bizarre, ridiculous and nonsensical circumstances, believe in them, and struggle mightily against them. This seminar will be a basic level exploration of comedy as it relates to the concepts of “play” and “complicity.” Through participation in a series of exercises and games, the students will get an introduction to some of the uses of short-form improvisational comedy, the idea being that Improv is beneficial to good acting in general.