Acting Shakespeare's Text
Saturdays, 2:00-3:50pm
Movement & Ensemble
Saturdays, 12:00-1:50pm
Movement & Ensemble
Saturdays, 12:00-1:50pm
Autumn Session 1:
October 26, November 2, 9, 16
Autumn Session 2:
November 23, 30, December 14, 21
Tuition fee per 4-week session: 90,000KRW
(See discounts on our main Shakespeare Academy page)
Description:
A series of movement and ensemble-building techniques designed to hone actors' instincts onstage. Come and learn actor training techniques that we used in Seoul Shakespeare Company's King Lear earlier this year!
Course Objectives:
-develop spatial awareness, body awareness, and physical and mental openness,
-develop greater ability to connect with and react to others,
-hone moment to moment physical impulses,
-break away from the idea of performing, stripping down performance to the pure self in the moment
Please wear clothes you can move freely in. We will be working barefoot.
Instructor's Note:
In the summer of 2018, I had the privilege of training in Prague Shakespeare Company's Summer Shakespeare Intensive, working with a variety of great teachers, directors, and actors, and had the transformative experience of being cast in The Two Gentlemen of Verona, directed by world-renowned Shakespeare expert Ben Crystal. The performance itself was largely improvisational, following the practice in Shakespeare's time of using cue scripts and performing largely unrehearsed, and we used our three weeks of rehearsal time to focus on a specific process of ensemble-building through movement. I recently utilized some of these techniques in directing Seoul Shakespeare Company's King Lear, as well as in coaching the short play Trumpus Rex and teaching acting classes last autumn.
These techniques can have wide-ranging positive effects, both on stage and in regular life. They foster connection between people, help with eye contact, can help reduce anxiety, enhance spatial awareness, and open actors up to moment-to-moment reaction. While these techniques can have a quick and immediate effect even in the context of a short workshop, they are particularly effective when working regularly with a group of people over time, and can eventually be applied to rehearsing scenes.
In the first session of this class, we will progress through these techniques in an introductory way. In the second session, if enough Session 1 students continue into Session 2, we will build on these techniques, while new students are still welcome. If there is enough interest to continue this class in the future, with a regular group of actors, we may be able to start applying the techniques to scene work. I am looking forward to sharing and making discoveries together!
-Lauren
RETURN TO THE MAIN SHAKESPEARE ACADEMY PAGE FOR GENERAL INFORMATION ABOUT ALL CLASSES
(Location, how to register, discounts for multiple classes, etc.)
Co-hosted by Speech of Fire
and Seoul Shakespeare Company
Rehearsing Shakespearean Monologues & Scenes
Saturdays, 4:00-6:50pm
Gugak: Movement & Voice
Wednesdays, 7:00-8:50pm
ABOUT THE INSTRUCTOR:
Lauren Ash-Morgan recently directed, designed, and produced Seoul Shakespeare Company's production of King Lear and is the outgoing Artistic Director of SSC, serving as Artistic Director in 2014-2019 and actor/board member since 2011. She is now Founding Co-Artistic Director of the new theatre company Speech of Fire, together with New Zealand actor/director/playwright Michael Downey. At Seoul Shakespeare Company, Lauren and Michael have helped to train actors through workshops and rehearsal techniques since 2016, and in the last year they have incorporated additional techniques learned in Prague Shakespeare Company's 2018 Summer Shakespeare Intensive, where they studied with a variety of master teachers in Shakespeare, voice, movement and ensemble work, clown, original practices, original pronunciation, audition technique, First Folio, etc. For Seoul Shakespeare Company, Lauren has previously taught the classes “Movement and Ensemble Work,” “Acting Shakespeare’s Text,” “Exploring Gugak in Theatre Training,” and “Preparing to Perform: Strategies for Approaching Shakespeare's Text,” and has coached many actors in SSC's “Shakesperiments” workshops, which she first created in 2014.
Lauren's acting credits include Prague Shakespeare Company's The Two Gentlemen of Verona directed by Ben Crystal at the Estates Theatre (Silvia/Ensemble); Seoul Shakespeare Company’s The Merchant of Venice (Portia), Garage (Susan), The Winter’s Tale (Paulina/Time), Much Ado About Nothing (Beatrice), Titus Andronicus (Tamora), A Midsummer Night’s Dream (Oberon), Hamlet (Gertrude), The Tempest (Alonsa), Macbeth (Lady Macbeth), Shakespeare's Love and Despair (Lady Macbeth, Trinculo, Gertrude, Tamora, Desdemona) and Shakespeare's Gore and Madness (Portia, Queen Margaret, Gertrude), as well as Probationary Theatre Company’s Popcorn (Farrah), Betrayal (Emma), and Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (Martha), Eurasia Shakespeare Theatre Company’s Richard III (Queen Elizabeth) at the National Theater of Korea, and the independent feature film Amiss. She holds a Bachelor of Music in Music Education (Voice) from Ithaca College and an M.A. in Ethnomusicology, specializing in Korean traditional music and dance, and has studied and performed pansori, Korean traditional dance, and gayageum, in various capacities, since 2005, regularly using these techniques in theatre performance.
“We know what we are, but know not what we may be”
--Ophelia
Hamlet, Act 4 Scene 5
“A person who has achieved control over psychic energy and has invested it in consciously chosen goals cannot help but grow into a more complex being. By stretching skills, by reaching toward higher challenges, such a person becomes an increasingly extraordinary individual.”
― Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience
“...success, like happiness, cannot be pursued; it must ensue...as the unintended side-effect of one's personal dedication to a course greater than oneself.”
― Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience
“When we choose a goal and invest ourselves in it to the limits of concentration, whatever we do will be enjoyable. And once we have tasted this joy, we will redouble our efforts to taste it again. This is the way the self grows.”
― Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience
"When praise is lavished upon the famous,
the people contend and compete with one another.
When exotic goods are traded and treasured,
the compulsion to steal is felt.
When desires are constantly stimulated,
people become disturbed and confused.
Therefore, the wise person sets an example
by emptying her mind, opening her heart,
relaxing her ambitions, relinquishing her
desires, cultivating her character.
Having conquered her own cunning and cravings,
she can't be manipulated by anyone.
Do by not-doing.
Act with non-action.
Allow order to arise of itself.
― The Tao Te Ching of Lao Tzu, translated by Brian Browne Walker
(Thank you, Ben.)
Learn about Csikszentmihalyi and other influences here:
https://www.speechoffire.org/presence-connection-flow-happiness