2-DAY CLASSICAL ACTING WORKSHOP
THE CLASSICAL CALLBACK FOR FALL AUDITION SEASON
Saturday, October 26 & 27, 2019
12:00 PM - 6:00 PM
Location: Sheen Center for Thought & Culture
Instructors: ARIN ARBUS, HEIDI GRIFFITHS, MIRIAM SILVERMAN, ANDREW WADE and more
You nail the monologue for the Casting Director, but now you have to turn around and do it for the Director. This class is perfect for audition prep for the Fall Season or simply as a reinvigoration of your classical chops! Top voice professional ANDREW WADE will work on equipping you with the vocal tools to nail your classical monologue with famed Casting Director HEIDI GRIFFITHS. The next day you will work on technique to keep old pieces feeling new with MIRIAM SILVERMAN before presenting the monologues in a mock audition and a valuable opportunity to meet and work with a top tier NY Classical Director, ARIN ARBUS.
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Essential Question:
How do you prepare monologues in a way that shows yourself in the best light to a casting director? What aspects of an actor’s preparation are most essential when preparing for an audition? How do you engage honestly with a monologue in a high-stress environment?
Course Objectives:
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Develop a technique for preparing for auditions
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Explore how Shakespeare’s verse, text and rhetoric provide clues to how to deliver a monologue
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Learn how to create the true life of your character and their surroundings in an audition setting
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Learn how to warm up your voice and body before delivering an audition
Enduring Understandings:
Shakespeare’s verse provides clues for how to develop a truthful character efficiently. Like any tool, it requires training to use it effectively. A flexible, confident voice and body are essential for effective presentation of a character in an audition. Auditions are, by their nature, artificial environments, creating a technique allows you to be committed, brave and truthful under these trying circumstances.
Instructors:
For over a decade, ARIN ARBUS has served as the associate artistic director of Theatre for a New Audience, where she directed The Winter’s Tale, The Skin of Our Teeth (Obie), repertory productions of Strindberg’s The Father and Ibsen’s A Doll’s House, as well as King Lear, Much Ado About Nothing, The Taming of the Shrew, Macbeth, Measure for Measure and Othello. On broadway, she directed Terrence McNally’s Frankie and Johnny in the Clair de Lune with Audra McDonald and Michael Shannon. She staged Britten’s The Rape of Lucretia at Houston Grand Opera and La Traviata at Canadian Opera Company, Lyric Opera of Chicago and Houston Grand Opera. She was a Drama League Directing Fellow, a Princess Grace Award Recipient, a Samuel H. Scripps Award Recipient, and spent several years making theatre with prisoners at a medium security prison in upstate New York in association with Rehabilitation Through the Arts. In 2018, she directed an adaptation of The Tempest in a refugee camp in Greece for The Campfire Project.
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HEIDI GRIFFITHS has worked for more than twenty-five years at The Public Theater in NYC, where she has cast over 250 productions Off-Broadway and at the Delacorte Theater in Central Park, including Shakespeare, new plays and musicals. She has also cast both plays and musicals on Broadway.
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MIRIAM SILVERMAN currently teaches Acting, Voice & Speech and Text Analysis at Marymount Manhattan College, in the Graduate Acting Program at New York University, as well as the Tom Todoroff Conservatory. She has served on the faculty at Brooklyn College, HB Studio, NYCDA, PPAS, and University of Iowa. Miriam's credits include Ayad Akhtar’s play Junk on Broadway. She has performed Off-Broadway at NYC’s Public Theater, Ensemble Studio Theater, Red Bull Theater, Rattlestick Playwrights Theater, The Playwrights Realm, page73, Ripe Time, and many theaters across the US including The Goodman, Yale Repertory Theatre, The Guthrie, Arena Stage, Berkshire Theatre Festival, The Folger, Trinity Repertory Company and in numerous productions at the Shakespeare Theatre in Washington DC where Miriam is an Affiliated Artist. She has been nominated for the Drama Desk, Helen Hayes, Connecticut Critic’s Circle and Joseph Jefferson Awards for her performances.
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ANDREW WADE joined Royal Shakespeare Company in1987, as Voice Assistant to Cicely Berry and from 1990 to 2003 was Head of Voice. Since leaving RSC, Andrew has worked extensively in a freelance capacity leading workshops, master-classes and coaching productions. He is now Director of Voice & Speech, Public Theater, Adjunct Faculty at Juilliard and Director of Voice, HARRY POTTER and MATILDA USA tour. With Cicely Berry they recorded WORKING SHAKESPEARE, a series of workshops with leading American and British actors exploring practical approaches to Shakespeare's language. Andrew trained at Rose Bruford College and is a Fellow.
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Schedule:
Saturday
12:00 - 2:00: Voice Work
2:00 - 3:00: Meal Break
3:00 - 6:00: Audition work with Heidi Griffiths
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Saturday
12:00 - 2:00: Re-enlivening monologues with Miriam Silverman
2:00 - 3:00: Meal Break
3:00 - 6:00: Audition work
Preparation:
You should have a classical monologue prepared and fully memorized.
Materials:
A journal is recommended to record notes and observations. Comfortable clothing that you can move and breathe freely in and a water bottle is strongly encouraged.
Concerns? Questions?
Contact Nathan Winkelstein.
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