What are these workshops about?
A story is what draws an audience in, engages them, excites, moves and changes them. Our job as performers is to ensure that story is told with honesty, passion and inspiration – Putting the audience central to the work.
As part of a wider R&D project (see below) I am running a series of workshops over the next few months that explore the skills involved in telling stories. Taking different methods of playing to, and working with audiences, and playing with non-naturalistic performance methods I want to look at the skills and techniques involved and how we can adapt them and apply them to our everyday work as actors.
8th March 2015 – Playing with the story
This day will explore how to make a story yours, original and fresh.
Using devising and improvisation we will deconstruct a story (in this case an established play). We will work freely with the story relying totally on the imagination of those in the room to physically sketch it out, play with it and explore how it might be reassembled to make something completely new. Without analyses or thinking we will work instinctively to find a fresh angle on an old story.
You will learn a set of transferable skills that help you to think more broadly about stories, how they can be told and the variations open to you as performers. It will encourage you to find your original voice.
22nd March – Clowning/Physical play
The clown is a character who directly ‘speaks’ to an audience, in fact, it is a character who cannot exist without an audience and who knows only too well how essential they are.
The clown reaches out to an audience and draws them in, they seek approval and attention in order to tell their story. This workshop looks at the techniques used and sees how they may be adapted to text based work.
The clown is somewhere between you and something else.
You will explore what it is about you that makes the audience laugh, creating hilarious moments from nothing and making an impact.
We will focus on being more relaxed and playful on stage, engaging your audience and being spontaneous in the space.
This session is not about becoming a clown but learning about how the clown engage the audiences and transferring it to your work as an actor.
This workshop is led by Liz Landon an experienced teacher and trained in clown at Ecole Philippe Gaulier.
£10 per workshop – Use the drop-down box below to make a payment. Please leave your email address so I can contact you with full details. (There is additional 50p charge to cover the online booking cost).
If you have any questions please contact Chris on email@example.com
The sessions will take place at Arch 468, Unit 4, 209a Coldharbour Lane, SW9 8RU. It is right next to (almost under) Loughborough Junction station.
Time: 10am -5.30pm
NB Places are limited so it is on a first come first served basis.
The Wider R&D Project
I want to see theatre that is totally absorbing, intellectually and emotionally, to be taken through an argument, an idea, a theory, an experience and to come out altered in some way. These can be small turns or realisations or monumental changes and can be come from the most intimate of pieces in a village hall to a theatrical spectacle, they can be serious or farce, intense or trivial.
What makes these moments? What makes these productions hit home? It can be various but the quality and the intention of the performers themselves, actively sharing the story with audience, has to play a large part in that experience. It is the giving of the story and the focus on its intentions that make the work powerful.
Using the rarely performed John Ford play, Perkin Warbeck – A Strange Truth, I will be exploring, with a group of actors from a variety of performing disciplines, how to present this challenging piece and make its themes of idealism and integrity affect, move and change an audience. We will strip the piece back and discover how to tell this story in its simplest, most animated and engaging way using the skills and talents of performers alone.
The project is being advised by the Arts Council prior to re-applying for funding and the above workshops are part of the foundation work to discover some of the skills and techniques that will aid this process. It is being done in association with The Cockpit Theatre, London.