Clowning will help you battle your fears and identify and combat your inhibitions as an actor; we’ll target the masks, walls, and defenses we all put up thanks to years of relentless socialization, and we’ll try to lower them, lay them down, set them aside. Clowning is based in the pursuit of the Clown in all of us: you as the “little one”, the child, who played with abandon and wasn’t yet socialized, the actor with a desire to uncover the messy, the beautiful, the violent, the passionate, the mysterious, the vulnerable, and the funny with an intense curiosity. There’s no politeness, no judgment, no apologizing.
Clown I is The Beginning. We’ll move through a series of large and small group, partner, and solo exercises, designed to build upon each other, get scarier and scarier, and lead you closer and closer to the discovery of your Little One/Clown. Extra special attention will be given to forging a cohesive ensemble–crucial for the Clown work to happen. The concept of complicite will be introduced–the perfect balance of cooperation and competition.
In Clown II, if you can believe it, s*&% gets even more real. We continue moving through group, partner, and solo exercises that have, by this point, become utterly terrifying, and at the same time, euphorically transformational for you as an actor/artist. You’ll arrive at the joyous, triumphant rediscovery of your Little One, and you’ll pledge that going forward, you’ll be letting him/her/them take the wheel. We’ll start to introduce more craft—you’ll start to create a bit of your own (stupid, silly) original work. And then–what all this ludicrousness has been leading up to–you’ll be handed a red nose–and we’ll meet your Clown.
Your Clown has a nose and a name, yes, but don’t you get cocky, now! We’ve still got some final solo exercises to experience–some say they’re the wildest ones yet. In Clown III you’ll work with and without a nose, continuing to expand as both an actor and a Clown. We work even more with craft, continuing to generate original material, as the Clown loves to do. By the end, we’ll piece things we’ve made into a glorious puzzle—and do an informal sharing of our work with those people we live to please–AN AUDIENCE!
You’re on an enormous high from the roar of the crowd–and all you want to do is SHOW AGAIN—AND BIGGER. In Clown IV, that’s just what we’ll do. Clown IV is a full on devising process—the ensemble of Veteran Clowns working together in beautiful harmony to create a gorgeous stupid outrageous shocking hilarious daring magical gut-wrenching awesome Final Show. Your Clown will continue to inform what kind of material YOU want to devise—it’s all about what YOU LIKE (duh–as always)—what makes you curious? What questions do you want to ask the audience? How do you understand the world, and how do you want others to understand it? We’ll combine the Clown work with other improvisatory character-building processes, as well as the “Moment Work” devising process of the Tectonic Theater Project. We’ll create work you may be inspired to take beyond the class. Above all, Clown IV will be a celebration of your Clown Journey—how far you’ve come, and where you’ll go next.
Prerequisites:
For Clown I: An Open Heart
For Clown II: Clown I
For Clown III: Clown II
For Clown IV: Clown III (you get the idea…)
