Advanced Series

A course to bring music to your acting and acting to your music. In this course, we will seek to

- Discover the music in the natural voice
- Explore and refine your individual music of emotion
- Define and expand your vocal communication palette in terms of Pitch, Sustination, Rhythm, Tempo, Lyricism and Dynamics.

We will work to practically cross-pollinate “singing” and “acting” so the voice becomes one fluid and versatile communication instrument.   We will be bringing musical choices to speeches and working with scenes as ‘jam sessions,’ as well as pulling lyrics out of their rigid context under the staff and discovering them as scenes and high-stakes decisions in-process. 

All actors are welcome from non-singers to those highly trained. This class will be physical. Please dress comfortably for movement and bring a mat.

Read this great feature on Billie in the Bellingham Herald: Artist Spotlight:  Billie Wildrick

Take what you've learned from the basics of improv to the next level. We will delve further into scenebuilding through games & open scenes, learn new long forms like "Harold", & explore creating narrative & monologues through developed characters. This class is for anyone who's had some previous improvisational experience. It works great for actors, writers & directors alike.

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.

Business of Theater will provide an overview of the practical aspects of seeking a career in the theater -- how to seek the work and how to get people to see the work once you get it. Topics covered will include developing a personal mission, strategic planning, resumes, agents, query letters, marketing and career development.  This course is designed for actors who are ready to market themselves as actors and wish practical guidance on how to pursue the work. The principles covered directly relate to playwrights and directors as well and could be taken by any artist in the theater. 

 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.

This course is an essential hands-on laboratory for directors and actors who want to work in film and television. All scenes are shot film style on a high end digital camera. Directors will explore every facet of the directorial process, learning what a set is like, how scenes are structured, how to create scene coverage by creating storyboards and shot lists and what the important issues for a director are. This class will teach you to interpret and translate the written ideas of the screenplay into cinematic form and improve your abilities to communicate with actors.

Actors will learn to identify the specific demands of the scene and how to tailor their performance to the needs of the camera. Instruction emphasizes developing the ability to focus on character and intent while navigating the external distractions of a movie set. Actors will work on a variety of scenes being assigned a new director for each new scene.

Please note that you will be expected to be available for rehearsal outside of regularly-scheduled class time.

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).

 This 5-class workshop is intended for those who have some idea of who - or what - their clown is, and provides the opportunity to deepen and further develop aliveness in relationship to other clowns, in confrontation with the intransigence of inanimate objects, and in exploration of an ever-deepening relationship with the audience. The work will be supplemented with techniques of physical comedy: trips, falls, slaps: and with specific object work.

Instructor permission required.

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.

This class will explore the unique tasks that musical theatre poses to the actor: the task of merging the physical and internal expression of a character while singing and/or dancing and the task of exploring the relationship between scene and song in the musical form. We will work on integrating traditional acting and script analysis techniques with new techniques that help explore a wide range of possibilities for expression when preparing a role for music theatre. Music Theatre performances demand a great deal of preparation and physical clarity, but the process to prepare that performance can be full of fun experimentation and exploration. We will tackle the unique feat of auditioning for music theatre in solo form as well as scene study with partners on the music theatre form. This genre of theatre pulls nearly all theatrical skill sets together into a challenging, organic whole: voice, singing, movement, dance, acting, script analysis, and sometimes even combat and improv.

This class is an approach to character that involves taking the part of oneself that is most uncomfortable, and expanding it to the ridiculous. It is an in-depth investigation into that deeper source of comedy: the tragedy of the character's failure. This work emphasizes physical articulation and expansion of the actor's every impulse and serves as an introduction into elements of physical comedy. The process is readily applicable to any role one may play as a way of discovering whole other dimensions of character.

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.

While story structure may get a character part way up the mountain, it does not guarantee his (or a play’s) success. In this workshop, writers examine characters from their emotional power base, analyzing and implementing the desires that motivate them through learning how to arc, map, and choose one of “nine emotional engines”(nine emotional engines ©all rights reserved lhutzler@ucla.edu) that motivate character. Writers may wish to deepen the behaviors and personalities of their own characters-in-progress and/or write short plays, scenes or monologues that identify each character type discussed in the workshop. The “Nine Emotional Engines” model, conceived by UCLA professor and story editor Laurie H. Hutzler will help the writer to kick-start character action (wants versus need), create conflict (external and internal) and generate proper, concurring responses (flee, fight or surrender).

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!

Three reasons to find the time/money/committment to take Shakespeare intensive this summer:

• Shakespeare is the ultimate workout for all actors - whatever you want to do better as an actor, working on this text will help.  If you want better stakes in contemporary plays, more audition saavy, higher notes while you sing, deeper in-performance connection to your own truth and simplicity, this class will help.  Shakespearean language demands everything you've got, will help you to recognize your own habit and/boundaries, AND inspire you to reach further.
• A life well-spent is a life spent exploring and owning these delicious and thunderous and trashy and glorious and awe-inspring texts.  The thing about Shakespeare is that he's actually as good as everybody says... how rare is that?  Deepen your connection to one of the key canons that exist IN OUR WORLD!
• Amy Thone is actually pretty good at helping people own their work with this seminal playwright.  She's been working actively on these plays as an actor, director, dramaturge, casting director and teacher for 28 years... and is always hungry to learn more about them. 

All students will work on one sonnet, two speeches and one scene.  We will speak, deconstruct, speak, read, practice, run around outside, speak, watch movie clips, speak, do weird exercises, speak, work with speech/diction, speak, play with breath control, write, study, speak...

Prerequisite: Previous experience with speaking Shakespeare and faculty permission required.  After registering, please submit a resume or cover letter of your experience for final approval.

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. 

 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.

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.

In this Voice-Over class we will identify the special qualities you bring to the voice-over world and how to maximize them using breath work, articulation and using your entire body and imagination. We will address the physical skills necessary for optimal recording as well as how to sell the product and how to market yourself. Students will learn how to take the listener on a journey, be taught the importance of operative words, acquire familiarity with equipment, learn about the resources available to voice-over talent and acquire audition tips. The final class will culminate in obtaining experience in a professional recording studio.