Workshops
Click here to register for workshops.| Master Class: What's Wrong with Me / Joe Bill & Mark Sutton | ||
FRIDAY 2/15, 1:00-4:00pm | ||
| A no holds barred, right to the point assessment of you as an improviser. We watch you, evaluate you and
give you specific challenges to break out of bad routines, reinforce good ones and challenge yourself. It's all about making you better.
No matter what your experience level or background... you will come away with working ideas to help advance and improve your performance. | ||
Joe Bill is one half of the Nationally Touring, Real Time Improv show, BASSPROV (along with Mark Sutton) and is one of the co-founders of Annoyance Theater, where he performed in and/or directed over 50 productions from 1987-2000. Credits include the smash hits " Co-ed Prison Sluts", "The Screw Puppies", "The Real Live Brady Bunch", "Manson: The Musical", "That Darned Antichrist" and "Donkey Improv". He taught improvisation from 1993-2001 for Annoyance. Joe has coached and performed with numerous ensembles at IO (formerly Improv Olympic) from 1985-1987 and 1995-present. Joe teaches as a Guest Artist in The Second City Conservatory. Joe has taught and directed his other signature form, "The Scramble" in Chicago, New York, Miami, Seattle, Denver, Salt Lake City and Phoenix where it has been performed by diverse Improvisers from different Improvisational Theaters all over the United States. |
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Mark Sutton is a founding member of The Annoyance Theater and has been performing, teaching, writing, and directing comedy in Chicago for the past 15 years. Mark has appeared in several independent films including Fatty Drives the Bus, Waiting For The Man, Watch, and a starring role in the upcoming comedy Penniless: One Man's Crusade. He has appeared in over 65 shows at The Annoyance Theater including "Co-Ed Prison Sluts", "Manson: The Musical", and "The Real Live Brady Bunch". Mark is a member of the faculty at both The Annoyance and The Second City. He is a former director of The Second City National Touring Company, and directed the Canadian premiere of "Co-Ed Prison Sluts" for Second City Toronto. |
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| The Future: A Workshop for Teens / Tony Lawry | ||
SATURDAY 2/16, 10:00am-12:00pm | ||
| Students will learn the basics of improv in teamwork and listening through the use of childhood games
reworked to create improv skill, then move into a mesh of medium-form improv using longer scene work and working short-form attributes
into the scenes. Character work by using the non-verbal improv to music. Finishing with the final goal of the art of conversational
improv in long form. | ||
Tony Lawry is the proud founder and director of the nation's only independant teen improv group, the underage sugar addicts. Tony has been teaching improv to teens since 2000 and has performed with Second Cit Detroit alums Keegan Michael Key (Mad TV) and Larry Joe Campbell (According to Jim). Tony was also a part of the original Detroit casts of Tony 'n' Tina's Wedding and Flannagan's wake. Tony also has many traditional theatre credits including a P.A.G.E. award for directing a non-musical. |
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| Minimum Effort, Maximum Scene / Jay Cathcart and Melissa Olson | ||
SATURDAY 2/16, 10:00am-12:00pm | ||
| Learn the power of accomplishing more by saying less. Substitute emotion for clever dialogue with exercises that can be applied easily and directly to your scene work. Give more power to your words by using less of them. Discover more story, more character, and more powerful scenes. Say less, do more, go further. | ||
Since meeting in the fall of 1997, Melissa Cathcart and Jay Olson have performed together in many productions, including the improvised one-act play, "Chairs" (CRITIC'S CHOICE - Chicago Reader, FOUR STARS - Edinburgh Guide), Gerard Byrne's multi-media art installation, In Repertory (Dublin Fringe Festival), the A&E documentary, The Laugh Track, and the independent television pilot, Stray Dogs. They've taught improvisation to children and adults with ComedySportz, Chicago Comedy Company, Brite Lites Acting Studio, Zachary Scott Theatre, Austin Theatre for Youth, McNeil and Westlake High Schools, for numerous corporate clients and at comedy and theatre festivals across North America and abroad. Melissa and Jay have trained with Academy Award winner Alan Arkin and current Mad-TV cast member Keegan-Michael Key, as well as at Chicago's Annoyance, ComedySportz, iO (formerly ImprovOlympic), Second City, and Profiles theatres. |   | |
| Musical Theatre Improv / Alex Burke | ||
SATURDAY 2/16, 10:00am-12:00pm | ||
| This workshop focuses on how to improvise both songs and musicals. Through working on song structure, rhythm, genre, and physicality you will have the tools
to improvise a song in both short and long form improv shows as well as musicals. | ||
Alex Burke has toured and performed as a musical director for Second City Chicago, Baby Wants Candy, Improv Olympic, UCB, West Side Eclectic, and Comedy Sports. Currently he lives in LA and works as a composer. Most recently he composed the music for Frank TV, Superdeluxe webisodes and Nike commercials. He also performs with Singles bar. They are performing here at the fest. Check them out, they rock! |
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| Creating Original Characters / Troy Mink | ||
SATURDAY 2/16, 1:00-3:00pm | ||
| Learning how to create characters on the spot. Discovering ways of committing quickly to a character and
making strong character choices. Become skilled at ascertaining energy already established in scenes and know when to interject the right
kind of character choice. | ||
Troy Mink has been a professional improviser since 1993 & an Improv teacher for almost 13 years working with theater companies, conservatories, high schools & individuals in a variety of settings (from weekend workshops to 8 week courses specializing in creating & writing through original characters). He has created a number of original character driven shows including Carlotta's Late Night Wing Ding, Kentucky Ghosts, & The Haint (where he portrayed 13 characters in a small town.) He has been scouted by HBO & Comedy Central & called a "Southern Fried Genius" by Seattle's "Stranger". |
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| Physical Improv / Asaf Ronen & Karen Wight | ||
SATURDAY 2/16, 1:00-3:00pm | ||
| Using elements of clowning, mime, and improvisation learn to enhance scene work with a more nuanced
physicality. Discover new characters, different approaches to creating a relationship onstage, and new definitions as to what makes an
engaging narrative while using only your body. | ||
Asaf Ronen is the creator and Editor-in-Chief of YESand.com, a website devoted to improvisation, and is the author of Directing Improv: Show the Way By Getting Out of the Way. He has been involved in improv since 1990, starting in college and working with Theatresports, ComedySportz and directing his own longform improv troupe, Hiatus, where he helped create original formats. Asaf has taught improvisation in Canada, Great Britain, Norway and in seventeen of The United States. His directing credits include the all-girl group goga, the improvised comic book adventure show Ka-Baam!!, The Scene, of which he was a founding member, and Death in the City, a dramatic longform improv piece, at the NY Fringe Festival. Asaf has taught throughout NYC's public school system as a resident artist through LEAP and New Horizons and as part of Weist-Barron's ACTeen. In 2000, Asaf worked with Cirque du Soleil as a scout for improvisational talent. Currently, he resides in Austin, TX where he produces, performs and teaches through Coldtowne Theater. |
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Karen Eleanor Wight is a NYC-based actress, dancer, designer, and is one-half of the improv duos imp and goga. She recently co-starred in the two-person off-Broadway play The Screwtape Letters which is based on the novel by C.S. Lewis. In the production she played six distict characters-- none of which spoke a word. After great reviews and a 13 week run in NYC, the production will be moving to the National Shakespeare Theatre in D.C. in April. Recently, Karen has been seen headlining at various comedy festivals including OOB West in Santa Monica, OOB in Austin, Providence Improv Festival, the TV2 Laugh Fest in New Zealand, the Toronto Jamboree, and the Oberlin Improv Conference. Karen has studied clowning with Christopher Bayes (of Julliard, Kennedy Center, and NYU) and corporel mime with Christopher Eaves (student of Marcel Marceau). As a dancer she has extensive experience in jazz, musical theatre, and modern dance and has begun dabbling in Argentinian Tango. When not acting, performing or teaching improv, dancing about or designing costumes, Karen spends quality time with her husband and cat in Brooklyn. |
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| How to be Alone on Stage / Matt Smith | ||
SATURDAY 2/16, 1:00-3:00pm | ||
| This workshop applies to improvisers because we tend to get nervous when we're alone on stage. We try to
fill the silence with something of interest, or to create something to entice another onto the stage with us. If we practice being
alone we learn to let the inspiration come to us, on its own time. We become less hurried; desperate. We stop trying to be funny; to force.
And once we get how nice it can be, alone up there, we begin to allow others time on stage without jumping in to "save" them, or to "get
in on it". Instead we learn to calmly raise their stakes. Space opens. Tension is cultivated. | ||
Matt Smith is an improviser, solo performance artist, film actor, benefit auctioneer and communications process facilitator and trainer. After founding and playing with numerous improv groups in the 80's, Matt founded Stark/Raving Theatre with Edward Sampson in 1988. S/R/T wrote and produced 5 plays. Matt's monologues are: My Last Year with the Nuns, Helium, My Boat to Bainbridge, and Beyond Kindness. His screen credits include Outsourced, Spiderman, Sleepless in Seattle, Whiteface, Northern Exposure, Bill Nye the Science Guy, and Almost Live! |
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| From Stage to Page / Mark Sutton | ||
SATURDAY 2/16, 10:00am-12:00pm | ||
| This workshop will focus on creating sustainable characters and set material that is born from
improvisation. Using methods of both The Second City and The Annoyance for generating material, students will discover how the processes
work and how they lead to great results in show creation. You'll learn how to get from a wonderful improv moment to a full-fledged scripted
scene in no time and how to create deep and multidimensional characters that can be played in longer improv scenarios like Bassprov. | ||
Mark Sutton is a founding member of The Annoyance Theater and has been performing, teaching, writing, and directing comedy in Chicago for the past 15 years. Mark has appeared in several independent films including Fatty Drives the Bus, Waiting For The Man, Watch, and a starring role in the upcoming comedy Penniless: One Man's Crusade. He has appeared in over 65 shows at The Annoyance Theater including "Co-Ed Prison Sluts", "Manson: The Musical", and "The Real Live Brady Bunch". Mark is a member of the faculty at both The Annoyance and The Second City. He is a former director of The Second City National Touring Company, and directed the Canadian premiere of "Co-Ed Prison Sluts" for Second City Toronto. |
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| Get out of your Scenic Rut! (or, Get your Fears out of your Ears!) / Joe Bill | ||
SATURDAY 2/16, 1:00-3:00pm | ||
| Are you as consistent as you'd like to be in playing a sucessful Improv Scene? Are you tired of making
the same old moves out of habit, and feeling uninspired by the choices that you're making in a scene? Have you asked yourself,
"Why can't I just have fun in a scene?" in the last month or two...or six? If you answered yes to any of the above questions,
then THIS IS THE CLASS FOR YOU!!! I will help you identify habits, both large and small, that might be keeping you in a scenic rut, and
then help you find the fearlessness to shake loose the true creativity in your brain and bring it to you scenework. Recommended for
intermediate to advanced Improvisers. | ||
Joe Bill is one half of the Nationally Touring, Real Time Improv show, BASSPROV (along with Mark Sutton) and is one of the co-founders of Annoyance Theater, where he performed in and/or directed over 50 productions from 1987-2000. Credits include the smash hits " Co-ed Prison Sluts", "The Screw Puppies", "The Real Live Brady Bunch", "Manson: The Musical", "That Darned Antichrist" and "Donkey Improv". He taught improvisation from 1993-2001 for Annoyance. Joe has coached and performed with numerous ensembles at IO (formerly Improv Olympic) from 1985-1987 and 1995-present. Joe teaches as a Guest Artist in The Second City Conservatory. Joe has taught and directed his other signature form, "The Scramble" in Chicago, New York, Miami, Seattle, Denver, Salt Lake City and Phoenix where it has been performed by diverse Improvisers from different Improvisational Theaters all over the United States. |
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Click here to register for workshops.
5510 University Way NE Seattle, WA 98105 206.781.3879 |
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1428 Post Alley Seattle, WA 98101 206.587.2414 |