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A creative summer online workshop that explores the principles of play. 

Presented by: Ilse Pfeifer –

To be held online over Zoom: 

The performer’s physical training includes physical balance, coordination, strength, flexibility, stamina, spatial awareness, ease and an implicit sense of playfulness. If you want to explore your physical practice in support of moving away from “getting it right,” then this workshop is for you. Through playful physical and vocal guided improvisations and principles, we will develop your intrinsic ability to connect with your physicality, holistically exploring the freedom and playfulness of your imagination. At the heart of this workshop is a love for holistic expressive movement, which offers freedom to the performer who embodies the physical training. You will be invited to go through a physical warm up that has at its core a deeply connected sense of play. You will develop spatial awareness, learn to stay in process, and with that, see the possibilities within your capacity to free your instrument as an actor to support the life of a play.

If you love the body’s expressive potential within yourself and others, have had previous movement training but have not had a chance to explore this for a while, and/or are deeply yearning to experience greater freedom within your embodied actor’s expressivity, come and join us.

PRESENTED BY: LAUREN SINGERMAN–

Held in person (please review in-person requirements): 

This 5-session workshop focuses on some of the most commonly used dialects in the actor’s toolbox, British Received Pronunciation (“Standard British”) and Cockney. In this workshop, you will explore the signature sounds and intonation patterns of these two accents.

Topics explored include research and rehearsal techniques, finding freedom and flexibility, and the challenge of accessing emotional life while speaking in an unfamiliar way. All actors will work on a monologue of their choosing, as well as very short scenes. Texts will be drawn from the works of playwrights including Oscar Wilde, Joe Orton, Nick Payne and Kwame Kwei-Armah.

Essential for every actor, skills underlying British accents can be applied to characters and plays from around the world, reaching far beyond the UK. Due to the expanse of the colonial British empire, Standard British exerted large influence on African, Middle Eastern and Southeast Asian accents. Therefore, even today, non-native speakers of English are exposed to and learn English not with an American accent, but with a Standard British accent — meaning, a solid foundation in Standard British will equip you with skills for performing dialects from many cultures and nationalities across the globe.