Wednesday, August 18, 2004
Acting Lab @ TheatrePEI
This acting course is designed for actors to strengthen their craft, starting from whatever stage of development the participant has reached. Through on-your feet practice, we will develop common tools to create truthful acting. These “tools” are:
1) Trusting your instincts
2) Being unwilling to ever say “that will do” (tenacity)
3) Being Brave in performance (abolish fear, take the “big leap”)
4) Exercising lateral thinking (art should be surprising yet inevitable)
5) Appreciating for “ensemble” playing (i.e. exercising generosity, saying “yes” as the primary impulse)
6) Exercising rigorous creative speculation (“what if…”, “I wonder why…”)
7) Rigorous appreciation of the need to constantly reassess the stakes of any set of circumstances (“how close can this situation be to ‘life and death’ and still be true to the text)
8) A connection to breath and voice which is both active and relaxed throughout the actors entire performance
These tools will be developed in on your feet scene study and rehearsal during a six-week course.
Instructor: Duncan McIntosh
Dates: Thursday nights, 7 to 10 PM, September 30th to November 4th inclusive
Location: Basilica Recreation Centre, 200 Richmond Street, Charlottetown
Workshop Fee: $100.00 for TheatrePEI members, $125.00 for non-members
Class size is limited; preregistration is recommended. Contact TheatrePEI for more information or to register at 894-3558 or .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)
Instructor Duncan McIntosh has been the Artistic Director of The Charlottetown Festival, The Citadel Theatre and Theatre Plus Toronto. He has founded the Academy of the Shaw Festival, The Citadel Teachers& Students Clubs and The Theatre Camp at the Charlottetown Festival. He created the Prince Edward Island Conservatory this summer. It will return from July 16 - August 6, 2005.
He has been resident director at the Canadian Film Centre and the Canadian Opera Company. He has also been a guest director at many theatre faculties at Universities and Colleges in Canada. He has won fifteen awards for his direction of new plays in Canada, the United States and internationally. Recently, he created large theatrical events celebrating creativity with Lily Tomlin, Phillipe Starck, Joni Mitchell and J.K. Rowling.
McIntosh is presently the Co-Executive Director of a performance documentary about Anne of Green Gables- The Musical and was director/ dramaturge for the new opera, The Hobbit, at the Canadian Opera Company Children’s Chorus. Currently, McIntosh is directing a new production of Cricket on the Hearth for Theatre New Brunswick to debut this Christmas.