Emerging Series

Click on a course title to read details. Courses marked Open are currently open for registration. Please be sure to read the course descriptions and note any prerequisites.

Fundamental offerings are our progression of core acting classes which provide a structured learning experience in which you can begin to build your skill set as an actor.

Accelerated Intro to Acting

This class, meeting twice a week, combines Step I and Step II of the acting progression. In it, you will develop fundamental acting tools: playing an action, living truthfully in imaginary circumstances, and working with a partner. Then you will apply these tools to a two page scene, deepening your experience with given circumstances, honing your action on stage and developing a sense of play and creativity. You'll develop a practical method for approaching scenework, and get to explore the possibilities of rehearsing and staging scenes. This class offers a more intense introduction into the craft of acting for students willing to make a greater commitment.

Emerging Series, Fundamental Offerings
Step I: Intro to Acting

At Freehold, we believe that acting is a process that can be learned and practiced by anyone at any age. In the Intro class, you develop fundamental acting tools: playing an action, living truthfully in imaginary circumstances, and working with a partner. No matter your experience, you learn acting in an exciting and safe environment. This is the first class in our three-step acting progression, introducing you to a vocabulary and approach that will be the basis of Step II: Acting with Text and Step III: Basic Scene Study.

 

Emerging Series, Fundamental Offerings
In Progress:
Step II: Acting with Text

The focus in Step II is on scene work. Applying the fundamentals introduced in Step I: Intro to Acting, you will deepen your experience with given circumstances, hone your action on stage, and develop a sense of play and creativity in order to bring life to a major character in a script. 

This class does involve scene work with a scene partner with the expectation that you will be available to rehearse outside of the scheduled class time.

Q: I have some acting experience, do I take Step I or II?

A: Good question! A lot of beginners are unsure as to which class to start with. If you have had stage time, but no formal training, start with Step I. There are certain elements and vocabulary of acting that you need to have in order to communicate in more advanced classes. If you have taken another introduction class elsewhere, you may feel comfortable enough to start with Step II. Think about what you learned in that class. Did you learn to play an action? discover what your character wants? discover given circumstances and subtext?

IInstructor permission is necessary if you have not completed Step I: Intro to Acting.

Step I: Intro to Acting
Emerging Series, Fundamental Offerings
In Progress:

Workshops and clinics feature a variety of disciplines and unlike our fundamental offerings may include students with a range of experience.

Alexander Technique Intensive: For the Actor's Toolbox

Open to performers with all levels of experience in the Alexander Technique (beginners welcome!), this class is an actor-specific introduction to a process that enables you to use all the tools you have with more effectiveness and efficiency. It is practical - something you can use in the moment of performing; it is rewarding -- what you intend to do manifests more readily; its hallmarks are creativity, spontaneity, and adaptability to change. Come prepared with warm-ups, monologues, scene work, etc. so we can put the process to work for you right away.

Emerging Series, Intermediate Series, Advanced Series, Workshops & Clinics
In Progress:
Crafting the Ten Minute Play

 The hottest new theatrical genre is the 10-minute play, with Festivals and even full runs of short pieces springing up all over the country. Playwright John Longenbaugh, multiple veteran of 14/48 and 24 Hour Theater Festival (as well as writer of over two dozen successful 10 minute plays, including the award-winning "Stardust"), gives you the long on the short in a series of classes that include a history of the genre, how a play differs from a sketch, finding inspiration when you're backed into a corner, choosing a subject, and a survey of publishers, contests, and production opportunities.

Emerging Series, Intermediate Series, Advanced Series, Writing Series, Workshops & Clinics
Improv

Learn spontaneous storytelling through improvised scenes via games, exercises, lecture and open scene work. Experience the art of honest connection to the moment and to your scene partner. Learn to trust your own authentic responses while you discover your spontaneous voice. (No experience required).

Emerging Series, Intermediate Series, Advanced Series, Workshops & Clinics
In Progress:
Movement

Based on the physical training techniques of Vsevolod Meyerhold's Biomechanics, this class will explore a wide range of basic individual and ensemble floor exercises, individual and partner work with sticks, balls, and everyday objects, as well as exercises that develop the body's rhythmic and expressive capabilities.

Participants can expect to experience

  • heightened aweareness of the physical center and the ability to move from the physical center
  • an increased sense of balance and connection to the floor
  • an awareness and expressivity of gesture and physical form
  • heightened reflexive dexterity when working with partners and physical objects
  • increased awareness and agility in ensemble work

Biomechanics should be seen as an invaluable part of an actor's personal palette of technique, helping to develop control of his or her body in an expressive and grounded way.  As a part of his or her palette, Biomechanics will prove beneficial to an actor's work regardless of the specific aesthetic of a given project - from Miller to Beckett to Lecoq clowning - anything and everything in an actor's future can benefit in some way from this work.  It has been said that training in Biomechanics is not unlike the honing of technique involved when a pianist practices musical scales or a ballet dancer puts in time at the ballet barre.

One of Meyerhold's favorite actors, Igor Ilyinsky, once said, "Technique arms the imagination."  Ultimately, this is what this class seeks to achieve, the "arming" of the imagination.

 

Emerging Series, Intermediate Series, Advanced Series, Workshops & Clinics
In Progress:
Movement Intensive

Based on the Biomechanics of Vsevelod Meyerhold, this class seeks to develop in the actor

  • the physical confidence to undertake dynamic action onstage
  • an extraordinary sense of focus to direct that action
  • the physical imagination that allows the actor to make choices that will excite the actor's own - and through them, the audience's - senses

Participants will discover a heightened sense of their own physical capabilities by acting in a state of physical extremity, using physical constructions (ramps, stairs, and tables), basic acrobatics, props (sticks, balls, and everyday objects), partner interplay, and dynamic vocalization.

Emerging Series, Intermediate Series, Advanced Series, Workshops & Clinics
Playwriting I: Exploring the Craft

Theatre tells stories using actors, with powerful objectives, living at specific moments in time. Explore the many ways playwrights create interesting, truthful characters and dynamic stories using the language of the stage: words: movement, light, sound, and silence. This interactive class includes both sit-down writing exercises, and up-on-your-feet work, so please dress comfortably.

Emerging Series, Intermediate Series, Advanced Series, Writing Series, Workshops & Clinics
Playwriting Preview Class

 Get a glimpse into a few of the ways playwrights create interesting, truthful characters and dynamic stories using the language of the stage: words, movement, light, sound, and silence. This interactive preview class includes both sit-down writing exercises, and up-on-your-feet work, so please dress comfortably.

Emerging Series, Intermediate Series, Advanced Series, Writing Series, Workshops & Clinics
Open
Public Speaking

The best way to become a better public speaker is through practice!  And in this class, taught by Gin Hammond, all students will have many opportunities to do just that in a safe and supportive atmosphere.  Through games, exercises, and discussions, you’ll learn a wide range of skills related to public speaking including breath and voice techniques, body language, Neurolinguistic Programming (NLP) basics, cultural awareness issues, the value of benefit statements, and more!

Emerging Series, Intermediate Series, Advanced Series, Workshops & Clinics
Open for Registration:

Click on the dates for more information or to register.

Solo Performance and Presentation

Learn to find the spine of a story by drawing heavily from your own life.  Students explore the various elements of: performance techniques, music, character work, movement and storytelling.  Through improvisation and writing exercises, you will create an outline and begin looking at the staging of your show.  We culminate in an invited performance of our works-in-progress, and you leave the class with a repeatable technique of how to conceive, develop, and produce a solo performance.

Emerging Series, Intermediate Series, Advanced Series, Writing Series, Workshops & Clinics
In Progress:
Spoken Word and Performance Poetry

Explore the art of performance poetry, engage in critique/analysis of past and present performers and poetic styles through text, video and audio samplings, find/develop/refine our own voices through writing exercises, and take written poems on the journey to become spoken word pieces/performance poems. Taught by Daemond Arrindell, Slam Master of Seattle.

You can check out the video of Freehold's Spoken Word students performing in our Winter 2008 Showcase. 

Emerging Series, Intermediate Series, Advanced Series, Writing Series, Workshops & Clinics
In Progress:
Stage Combat

This series offers instruction in stage combat focusing on rapier and dagger, unarmed, and broadsword techniques. The ongoing exploration of nonviolent physical conflict helps the actor create the illusion of violence in a safe but dramatically effective way. Students who take the full three quarter progression may be eligible to take the Skills Proficiency Test offered by the Society of American Fight Directors at the end of Spring Quarter.

Emerging Series, Intermediate Series, Advanced Series, Workshops & Clinics
In Progress:
Suzuki

 This class is designed for all levels – from beginners to seasoned professionals – to learn and train.  You will learn basic and advanced exercises while working on the inner sensibility of active calm.  It is rigorous and inspirational.  Suzuki training was created by Tadashi Suzuki, the renowned Japanese theatre director.  It is a series of exercises, walks, and disciplines that trains the actor’s body – focusing on the legs and feet.  This training is vital in helping an actor connect to the floor, produce a clear sound and intention, and sustain a strong, concentrated performance.  Directors such as Anne Bogart, Robert Woodruff, and Tina Landau have worked with Suzuki training and understand its utility on stage.

Emerging Series, Intermediate Series, Advanced Series, Workshops & Clinics
Voice

Students will move through a series of voice/mind/body exercises aimed at freeing their natural voice and strengthening their connection to vocalized sound. You will develop a set of tools for vocal development that draws on an understanding of human anatomy and how to apply that knowledge of physiology to voice work. Students will acquire ease and power in their vocal skills that will enhance their vocal potential.

 

Emerging Series, Intermediate Series, Advanced Series, Workshops & Clinics
Voice and Movement for Actors: The Basics

In this introduction to voice and movement for actors, students will participate in exercises designed to broaden their understanding of and capacity for sound and physical readiness. This work encourages students to explore the concept that all sounds have equal value. You will also begin to explore the idea of neutrality as it applies to the actor. The work will take students through both subtle and rigorous physical explorations, expanding both their vocal and physical awareness.

Emerging Series, Intermediate Series, Advanced Series, Workshops & Clinics
Yoga for Actors

Acting training and practicing yoga have a great deal in common. Both focus on the need to relax the body in order to open up to the experience at hand, whether it be on stage or in life. Both explore breathing techniques designed to encourage immediate and highly specific responses in the body and the mind. Both recognize the importance of a strong, flexible body; in acting because our body is the instrument of our craft, andin yoga because the body is viewed as the instrument of our soul. But the most important connection between acting training and yoga is the emphasis on the development of concentration of the mind. In yoga this is accomplished by anchoring the mind in the body. Even Stanislavski recognized the importance of developing the ability to focus the mind when he wrote,"The first step in the creative art of the stage is concentration of attention."

If you are new to the art of yoga, or have been practicing for years, all levels are welcome. Come join us as we explore together these ancient mind/body techniques that have the wonderful potential to make us better actors and better human beings.

Emerging Series, Intermediate Series, Advanced Series, Workshops & Clinics