For Teachers
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Specialized Workshops
The Center for Actor Training offers a variety of specialized workshops throughout the year exploring a full range of disciplines including rhetoric, wit, clown, fight, voice, movement, public speaking and more!
Playing Shakespeare: Voice, Text, Clown with Jane Nichols and Dave Demke
VOICE. CLOWN. TEXT.
A unique integration of Voice work, Clown work, and Shakespeare text.
Join Master Linklater Voice teacher Dave Demke, and Master Clown teacher Jane Nichols for a week of rigorous play, outrageous comedy, transcendent language.
Shakespeare’s poetic wisdom! The Clown’s poetic soul! It’s Shakespeare like never before!
6 days. 52 contact hours. A lifetime of inspiration.
Previous Shakespeare training or experience is not a prerequisite.
DATES: October 5 to 10, 2020
SCHEDULE: 9:30 am to 9:30 pm each day
LOCATION: Shakespeare & Company campus in Lenox, MA
TUITION: $850 USD
HOUSING: Available on campus for $25 per night
INSTRUCTORS: Jane Nichols and Dave Demke
Early Payment Discount: Pay the full tuition by August 1 and save $100! Union and alumni discounts available!
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Dropping-In Workshop
Come learn Shakespeare & Company's signature dynamic and visceral rehearsal technique for connecting to the depths of Shakespeare’s text.
The Dropping-In technique can be used to create a dynamic and visceral alternative to traditional “table work.” The process reactivates the natural imaging processes of the brain and allows the craft of memorization to become an easier, more creative and regenerative task.
Participants will learn the history of Dropping-In and gain a working knowledge of Dropping In techniques, experiencing them as both actor and facilitator. They will train to use it and to adapt it for their own rehearsal work. This workshop will be especially useful for actors or directors involved in the creation of high school, university or professional productions of Shakespeare’s plays.
DATES: August 28 to 30, 2020
SCHEDULE: Friday, 7pm-10pm; Saturday, 10am-7pm; Sunday, 10am-4pm
TUITION: $350 USD
LOCATION: Shakespeare & Company campus in Lenox, MA
HOUSING: Available on campus for $35 per night
INSTRUCTOR: Tina Packer
**Union, alumni and student discounts available**
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Freeing the Natural Voice: An Introduction to Linklater Voice
Discover the power and playfulness of your speaking voice! An introduction to the Linklater voice work or an in-depth refresher for those who have already had Linklater classes. Designed for performers, public speakers, and anyone who would like to feel more vocally confident and connected, this workshop will help you
- Free your breath
- Develop resonance
- Loosen jaw and tongue tensions
- Wake up your vocal range and articulation
- Address physical habits that inhibit your voice
Group and individual work will take place with a focus on the classic Linklater progression, group songs and text work. And you will leave the class with a vocal warm-up that you can use before auditions, rehearsals, and performances.
DATES: TBD
SCHEDULE: TBD
TUITION: $225 USD
LOCATION: Shakespeare & Company campus in Lenox, MA
INSTRUCTOR: Ariel Bock, Designated Linklater Voice Teacher
**Union, alumni and student discounts available**
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Women of Will: Following the Feminine in Shakespeare's Plays with Tina Packer
Inspired by Tina Packer’s work researching and performing Women of Will, this acting workshop explores Shakespeare’s relationship to gender by focusing on Shakespeare's female characters. For the workshop, participants will come prepared with a monologue from one of the female characters discussed in Tina’s book, Women of Will.
DATES: TBD
SCHEDULE: Friday, 6pm-10pm; Saturday, 10am-6pm; Sunday, 10am-4pm
TUITION: $400 USD
LOCATION: Shakespeare & Company campus in Lenox, MA
INSTRUCTOR: Tina Packer
**Union, alumni and student discounts available**
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Movement is the Source of Dance with Susan Dibble
Susan Dibble (Interim Director of Training, Choreographer, Dancer and Teacher) will lead a movement and dance workshop that focuses on the idea that dance and creation are on a path together to “make up a perfect whole”. E.M.Tillyard
The workshop will be an opportunity to explore how life cycles, nature, rhythm, breath and human behavior are sources for dance on a symbolic level.
Participants will learn a variety of dances choreographed by Dibble. She will offer compositional tools for making dances, and teach Elizabethan dance forms that encourage grace, poise, and the power of precision. No previous training is required.
DATES: TBD
SCHEDULE: Friday, 6pm-9pm; Saturday, 10am-9:30pm; Sunday, 10am-1pm
TUITION: $350 USD
LOCATION: Shakespeare & Company campus in Lenox, MA
HOUSING: Available on campus for $35 per night
INSTRUCTOR: Susan Dibble
**Union, alumni and student discounts available**
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Shakespeare from the Whole Self
Join us for a transformative weekend of text, body, voice and awareness. Experience the synergy of three potent methods offered together for the first time anywhere: Shakespeare & Company’s text work, Linklater Voice and The Feldenkrais Method.
Come discover how the liberating power of awareness can awaken your confidence and ignite your creativity as an actor. In a supportive environment, you’ll free your voice, discover new physical presence and exchange limiting habits for useful new options.
This workshop is designed to serve anyone interested in exploring the integration of voice and body in the acting of Shakespeare, including:
- Those who crave an in-depth exploration of Shakespeare coupled with a renewing weekend of voice, body and awareness.
- Those who love Shakespeare & Company training and would like to add a new tool (The Feldenkrais Method) to their toolkit
- Those new to Shakespeare, interested in an introduction that begins with awareness and voice.
Both instructors are among the few people worldwide certified in both Linklater Voice & The Feldenkrais Method, and are long-time Company Members and Faculty with Shakespeare & Co.
DATES: TBD
TUITION: $400 USD
SCHEDULE: Friday, 5pm-10pm; Saturday, 9:30am-9:30pm; Sunday, 9:30am-3:30pm
LOCATION: Shakespeare & Company, 70 Kemble Street, Lenox, Massachusetts
HOUSING: Available on campus for $35 per night
INSTRUCTORS: Corinna May and Gwendolyn Schwinke
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Audition Intensive
The audition process can be very intimidating, but it is a necessary part of casting and all actors must learn to navigate it. During this workshop, you will discover ways to walk in and out of auditions with self-care by exploring the following:
- What story are you telling yourself and the room when you walk in and walk out?
- What are you communicating?
- What information are you unconsciously or consciously transmitting about yourself as an artist and a human?
- Is there any way to shift that experience?
Through a series of written and performed exercise, we will look at what audition pieces we choose, what clothes we wear, how we handle being seen, and what masks we wear. We will do research on what makes you “you”, and we will see if it’s possible to distill that and present it in the odd strange frame of the audition process.
Andrew has been developing and teaching this exciting workshop for several years. Look forward to uncovering some difficult truths with lots of laughter, playfulness and enlightenment!
DATES: TBD
SCHEDULE: Friday, 7pm-10pm; Saturday, 10am-10pm; Sunday, 10am-5pm
TUITION: $350 USD
LOCATION: Shakespeare & Company campus in Lenox, MA
HOUSING: Available on campus for $35 per night
INSTRUCTOR: Andrew Borthwick-Leslie
**Union, alumni and student discounts available**
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Public Speaking Workshop
LET YOUR VOICE BE HEARD!
Learn to speak in front of any size audience and move them with your words.
- Free your natural voice
- Understand the basics of speech construction
- Tap into your truth
- Connect with and understand your audience
- Focus your message
- Persuade an audience of the validity of your message
- Inspire your audience to act
This workshop is designed to meet the needs of activists, students, community organizers, business people, educators, politicians, and concerned citizens who seek to improve their skills and confidence in connecting to an audience and delivering their message. It will include an introduction to Shakespeare & Company’s training methods and to Shakespeare’s text. Each participant will have the opportunity to refine and practice their own unique message on a subject of their choice. This is a time of urgency to empower people to let their voice be heard and to move others to action!
DATES: TBD
SCHEDULE: Friday, 6pm-10pm; Saturday, 10am-6pm; Sunday, 10am-2pm
TUITION: $150 USD
LOCATION: Shakespeare & Company campus in Lenox, MA
HOUSING: Available on campus for $35 per night
INSTRUCTORS: Tina Packer and Samuel "Mooly" Dinnar
From the Alumni
Maura Matarese
I attend at least one workshop at Shakespeare & Company each year as it always allows me an opportunity to grow as actor, to continue to free my actor’s instrument, to meet exciting new artists from around the world, and to spend time in an environment I love, with a faculty whom I deeply respect. more
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Shakespeare & Company is a professional live theatre company in the heart of the Berkshires, presenting a vibrant summer performance season featuring the works of Shakespeare in repertory with classic and contemporary plays. The Company offers one of the most extensive actor training programs by a regional theatre in the country, and is also home to an award-winning and nationally recognized theatre-in-education program.