workshops 06

July 10-15
SOMETHING OUT OF NOTHING: Designing from Non-Traditional and Found Materials
with Justin Townsend and Shannon Scrofano
Theatre can develop from visual, as well as from textual or performative beginnings. Learn to develop a vocabulary for making visually striking theatre that combines materials, performers, and actions. Create work using an "inside out" approach that links image and action from its inception. In this work, the economy of means that is often necessary from a budget point of view becomes a liberating factor. Using inexpensive, non-traditional and found materials, the workshop will culminate with an actual design and installation for a live performance - the Ko Festival's 15th Anniversary Gala: THE KO KABARET. Open to all theater makers.

July 17-19
RE-IMAGINING OUTREACH:
Community Engagement Programming
with Michael Rohd
Sojourn Theatre's Michael Rohd, author of Theatre for Community Conflict and Dialogue: The Hope Is Vital Training Manual, offers a three-day workshop mixing case studies of best practices with active exploration of values, goals, and strategies for looking at theater and civic engagement. How do healthy partnerships and collaborations develop? What's the difference between audience development and civic engagement? What types of processes support and nurture ethical, mutually beneficial projects that reach beyond your walls and intersect with populations that may not traditionally be served by your programming? The work will focus on project planning, partner-building, and arts-based civic dialogue practice.
DISCOUNT AVAILABLE FOR TCG & NET MEMBER THEATRES!

July 24-29
ACTOR ON THE ROAD:
Encountering the Legacy of Grotowski’s Polish Theatre Lab
with Kim Mancuso & Kermit Dunkelberg of Pilgrim Theatre
A six-day intensive, practical workshop for performers, directors and other theatre makers. Open to all levels of experience.

Explore Pilgrim Theatre's unique approach to performance creation developed through years of work with members of the Polish Laboratory Theatre, (Zbigniew Cynkutis, Zygmunt Molik, Rena Mirecka, Jerzy Grotowski) and others on the continuum of experimental theatre practice. Work will include
physical training (presence, impulse, expressivity);
vocal training, resonators, group sound, approaching text as partner);
and generating provocative performance material.

You, the actor, are the source. We will utilize body, voice, imagination, experience, sense memory and association to seek new forms of creative expression and go beyond our perceived limits. The process will culminate in a brief final presentation.

July 31-August 5
MASK PLAY: A Lecoq Intensive
with Jennie Gilrain, E'cole Lecoq Graduate/Touchstone Ensemble Associate &
Mark McKenna, E'cole Lecoq Graduate/Artistic Director of Touchstone Theatre
"Whatever its dramatic style, all theatre profits from the experience an actor gains through mask performance"
- Jaques Lecoq
A six day, Lecoq-based intensive on discovering the levels and structures of mask play. A mask demands that the actor support it, fill it, be led by it. Pre-conceived ideas will not play. Working with a variety of masks and styles, participants will hone performance skills such as presence, sensory awareness, spontaneity, clarity of gesture, and the ability to motivate, full-bodied physical action. This journey into mask play will also address mask-making and each student will leave the workshop with an individual maquette - a base for customized masks. This rigorous master class is meant for the experienced actor but also suitable for any serious student who wishes to explore his or her expressive and creative ability.

Workshops cost $350. Early bird registration discount available,
and for members of the Network of Ensemble Theatres, and Actor's Equity.
Optional room and board are available on the Amherst College campus
for an additional fee. (See registration form.)

Workshops will be held from 10 am - 4 pm in Studio II of Webster Hal
on the Amherst College campus in Amherst, MA.