​Theatre Skills Workshops

A Collaboration of Advice To The Players & Snapdragon Theatre Guild

• Summary: three days of theatre skills workshops in Sandwich, led by local theatre experts
• Where? Arts Center at 12 Main, Sandwich, NH
• When? 9am – 3pm (two sessions, with lunch break), July 5th-7th 2017
  
• How Much? $30/session, $50/day, or $120 for all three days
• For whom? Young folk, ages 8 to 14
• How many? Each session is capped at 12 attendees.
  

​

​Workshop Descriptions

The Actor as Theatre Maker
Teacher: Emma Dassori

Learn how to create theatre on your feet! Experience the art of ensemble storytelling, in which actors become playwrights, adapting an existing text for the stage. Through a series of exercises and games, we will embrace the process of exploration, creating a piece that reflects who we are and what we think. Theatre companies all over the world employ this creative theatre-making technique; here is your chance to see for yourself what it is like!

Develop your voice!
Teacher: Richard Posner

Your voice is one of the actor’s most rich and powerful instruments, an orchestra in itself ! With your voice you give the audience all those wonderful lines, and transmit the character, feelings and much of the meaning of a play. Words are just the beginning – your instrument can take on so much more – song, the sounds of nature and living things, machines, the cries of the uncanny and the hidden unseen. You also can work with others as a group, a chorus, a mighty troupe! Explore and develop this wonderful human gift you have, that waits to be unleashed in the world of theatre!

Stage Combat
Teacher: Jessie Chapman

Learn the basics of stage combat through Shakespeare inspired brawls and battles. This class will cover unarmed basic stage combat moves as well as air-rapier and air-broadsword sequences. Imagination and the macabre are combined with realistic lessons on safety and partner work for a class that is sure to tire and delight young actors. This class approaches stage combat through a Shakespearean lens relaying on the insults, plot twists, and wars of the Bard for inspiration and framing exercises.

Simple Rod Puppets For Fun
Teacher: Will Cabell

Participants will be making a very simple rod puppet that can be used in a variety of ways. We’ll choose a child’s shirt, dress or footed pajama to be the body and costume, then decorate to create a wacky or wise character. To manipulate, the puppet can be held, or hung around the neck. The puppeteers own hands can become the puppet’s hands or a rod can be used. After decorating, we will learn ways of manipulating and create small scenarios to perform.

Find your Clown
Teacher: Jessie Chapman

Everyone has an inner-clown that lives under the surface of their personality – this class is about discovering and accepting the clown in all of us. This course combines non-verbal skills and improvisation with theatrical exercises designed to bring actors to the red-zone – that hyper-active state where our clowns start to come into focus. Actors will learn humor through simplicity and specificity while dealing with the delightful challenges that arise in the world of clown. Motley and red noses will be provided.

Ensemble Movement for Telling Stories
Teacher: Andrew Codispoti

Every actor should include expressive movement in their personal toolbox. And in groups, movement can create powerful effects & help to tell stories that may seem too large for the stage. Film (and big-budget theatre in other times & places) have special effects: in the rural theatre, we often have only our own bodies & voices. Learn to use our bodies & our movement across the stage to tell powerful stories together as a group.
​