cLOWN * mASK * MOVEMENT * aCTor Training
Teaching Philosophy
I have strived to be a disciplined and skilled actor for the last 30 years. It is my life’s ambition to help ignite that desire in my students. I want to give back what all the great teachers in my life have given me, the ability to understand what it is to be an actor and concrete ways in which to achieve that. This starts by having a safe and supportive classroom space in which to practice the craft of acting. How do we as educators instill discipline in actors? I believe fun is a big part of it, showing the students that it is ok to have fun. I also try to help them to discover a different type of fun that they may or may not be used to, like the fun of creating a character or the fun of devising their own work. At a time in the student’s development when they are supposed to grow up, get educated, and get a job, it is my job to remind them that what we do in the theatre is to PLAY!
The pedagogical areas that I emphasize in all my classes are the power of pretending, imagination, the expansion of the physical gesture, and the redefinition of the student’s relationship with failure. The power of pretending is the ability to pretend again as a child would. We must pretend as if our very lives depend on it, just like we did when we were young, when we truly believed that “THE FLOOR IS LAVA!”. Most of us have played this game in our youth where we would jump on our desks to avoid the “lava”. But the actor must invest in the image by truly seeing the lava pouring from the volcano. What color is it? Can you feel the heat from where you are standing? Does it burn just to be next to it? Imagination is the cornerstone of the acting technique of Michael Chekhov. This psycho-physical acting technique uses the actor’s physicality to explore the depths of their imagination. It is easy to act a part in a play with no stakes, but through the power of pretending and by being fully grounded in “the image”, the student will engage with their work in a much deeper way.
The student’s journey into expanding the physical gesture begins with finding “Truth and Size”. This is having the ability to act in a large physical fashion yet being truthfully connected to the text of a scene. This is a useful tool in the actors toolbelt for navigating many theatrical forms. We will start this journey in to “Size” with the study of the Neutral Mask, this is the first mask in Jacques Lecoq’s pedagogy. This type of mask work will teach the student to break free from their physical habits and find stillness. This stillness and physical awareness will be the canvas to which character can then be applied. Commedia Dell’arte will be studied to start to look for the “Truth” in comedy. It is a theatrical form about finding the ugly parts of ourselves and our fellow citizens and using them to expose the human struggle in a comedic context. That is why Jacques Lecoq calls it “the human comedy”. The last mask to be studied will be the mask of the Clown. We will also work on full body gesture by studying mime. This is when the Corporeal Mime training of Etienne Decroux will come into the students’ lives, I want them to be able to see themselves, as they perform, from a 360-degree view. This type of mime training will help them to develop a three-dimensional physical awareness, a heightened sense of body articulation, and the corporeal precision that will help the students on their journey to becoming professional actors.
How can we help the student to re-define their relationship with failure? For me this pedagogical question is answered in the study of the clown. Because the search for truth in clown is not measured in success but in failure. When I first discovered the clown, I realized that failure is a form of success in this work. And the sooner the acting student learns to embrace failure instead of success, they are more likely to be successful in the acting task. The clown must fail for the delight of the audience and in the clown’s failure I found that the audience laughs from a much deeper place. They laugh with the heart of the 5-year-old that lives within each of us. It all comes down to the moment when the student stands before the people with an open heart, to make them laugh. To be a funny clown is to be so open and vulnerable that the audience cannot help but laugh, as the clown is a mirror to their own ridiculousness. This open state is what makes good clowns, it’s also what makes more generous actors.
In closing I would like to say that as an acting and movement specialist I am very excited to share this work with your students. It would be my pleasure to invite the actors of tomorrow to be more connected to the truth of the scenes in which they play through physicality and imagination. I will do this by helping the student to physically expand themselves thru mask and mime work. And I will then invite them to investigate the deep well of themselves through Clown work and the image work of the Michael Chekhov acting technique. Thank you so much for the time it took to read this letter and if you have any further questions, do not hesitate to ask.
I have strived to be a disciplined and skilled actor for the last 30 years. It is my life’s ambition to help ignite that desire in my students. I want to give back what all the great teachers in my life have given me, the ability to understand what it is to be an actor and concrete ways in which to achieve that. This starts by having a safe and supportive classroom space in which to practice the craft of acting. How do we as educators instill discipline in actors? I believe fun is a big part of it, showing the students that it is ok to have fun. I also try to help them to discover a different type of fun that they may or may not be used to, like the fun of creating a character or the fun of devising their own work. At a time in the student’s development when they are supposed to grow up, get educated, and get a job, it is my job to remind them that what we do in the theatre is to PLAY!
The pedagogical areas that I emphasize in all my classes are the power of pretending, imagination, the expansion of the physical gesture, and the redefinition of the student’s relationship with failure. The power of pretending is the ability to pretend again as a child would. We must pretend as if our very lives depend on it, just like we did when we were young, when we truly believed that “THE FLOOR IS LAVA!”. Most of us have played this game in our youth where we would jump on our desks to avoid the “lava”. But the actor must invest in the image by truly seeing the lava pouring from the volcano. What color is it? Can you feel the heat from where you are standing? Does it burn just to be next to it? Imagination is the cornerstone of the acting technique of Michael Chekhov. This psycho-physical acting technique uses the actor’s physicality to explore the depths of their imagination. It is easy to act a part in a play with no stakes, but through the power of pretending and by being fully grounded in “the image”, the student will engage with their work in a much deeper way.
The student’s journey into expanding the physical gesture begins with finding “Truth and Size”. This is having the ability to act in a large physical fashion yet being truthfully connected to the text of a scene. This is a useful tool in the actors toolbelt for navigating many theatrical forms. We will start this journey in to “Size” with the study of the Neutral Mask, this is the first mask in Jacques Lecoq’s pedagogy. This type of mask work will teach the student to break free from their physical habits and find stillness. This stillness and physical awareness will be the canvas to which character can then be applied. Commedia Dell’arte will be studied to start to look for the “Truth” in comedy. It is a theatrical form about finding the ugly parts of ourselves and our fellow citizens and using them to expose the human struggle in a comedic context. That is why Jacques Lecoq calls it “the human comedy”. The last mask to be studied will be the mask of the Clown. We will also work on full body gesture by studying mime. This is when the Corporeal Mime training of Etienne Decroux will come into the students’ lives, I want them to be able to see themselves, as they perform, from a 360-degree view. This type of mime training will help them to develop a three-dimensional physical awareness, a heightened sense of body articulation, and the corporeal precision that will help the students on their journey to becoming professional actors.
How can we help the student to re-define their relationship with failure? For me this pedagogical question is answered in the study of the clown. Because the search for truth in clown is not measured in success but in failure. When I first discovered the clown, I realized that failure is a form of success in this work. And the sooner the acting student learns to embrace failure instead of success, they are more likely to be successful in the acting task. The clown must fail for the delight of the audience and in the clown’s failure I found that the audience laughs from a much deeper place. They laugh with the heart of the 5-year-old that lives within each of us. It all comes down to the moment when the student stands before the people with an open heart, to make them laugh. To be a funny clown is to be so open and vulnerable that the audience cannot help but laugh, as the clown is a mirror to their own ridiculousness. This open state is what makes good clowns, it’s also what makes more generous actors.
In closing I would like to say that as an acting and movement specialist I am very excited to share this work with your students. It would be my pleasure to invite the actors of tomorrow to be more connected to the truth of the scenes in which they play through physicality and imagination. I will do this by helping the student to physically expand themselves thru mask and mime work. And I will then invite them to investigate the deep well of themselves through Clown work and the image work of the Michael Chekhov acting technique. Thank you so much for the time it took to read this letter and if you have any further questions, do not hesitate to ask.