July 13 - Workshops with Amica and Bruce!

July 13 - WRITE IT OUT with Bruce

***This is the first of two workshops happening on Saturday July 12th at Sparrow Studios in Olympia! Both of the workshops are pwyc/sliding scale, with a $40 - $80 suggestion for each individually, or in the $70 - $150 range for the full day.***

WRITE IT OUT: How to Write & Structure Your Own One Person Show with Bruce Ryan Costella! Feel stuck in your creative process? In this guided workshop, you will develop written performance material using practical techniques, exercises and games designed to supercharge your creative work. Whether you're a poet, a comedian, have a literary practice or ESPECIALLY if you are looking to create a one person show this workshop is for you! In the first half we will employ movement, play and embodied practices to generate text. We will then look at playwriting structure and best practices to figure out how we can develop material into a performable piece for an audience.

July 13 - MORE PROPS TO YA with Amica

***This is the second of two workshops happening on Saturday July 12th at Sparrow Studios in Olympia! Both of the workshops are pwyc/sliding scale, with a $40 - $80 suggestion for each individually, or in the $70 - $150 range for the full day.***

MORE PROPS TO YA: In 2012 I dropped out of college to go to clown school, and it was the best decision I've ever made. While there, my teacher often repeated an ominous and mysterious saying: "Manage your props, or they will eat you" I didn't know what he was talking about at the time, but boy-oh-boy I sure do now! This is a clown workshop about STUFF and THINGS. We will explore games, writing exercises, and devising activities oriented around our relationships to the physical, tangible items that we choose to bring onstage with us. I come from a long line of hoarder artists, and so I have naturally become the type of clown with a strong affinity for costumes and props. Does this make me the best or the worst person to lead a workshop like this? I guess you will be the judge of that! My love of making shows and acts with a surplus of stuff is often a logistical nightmare when it comes to touring, but can be so rewarding to have a strong relationship to what you are holding/wearing/sitting on/moving/manipulating etc, AND to create organized systems for how to create, pack, and partner with them. This workshop is an on-your-feet, playful, four hour class for adults of all experience levels who want to explore dynamic performance, act/show creation, and play through the gateway of physical items. Whether you are trying to cut down on (or add) props & costume elements to an existing act/show, you have a prop or costume in mind and are looking to build something new, or you just want to dip your toe into the process of creating concepts and presenting yourself onstage, I can offer an array of tools and jumping off points that you can use to approach their creative process, through the sometimes unwieldy-yet-glorious magic of OBJECTS. By starting from a mutually arrived upon sense of play, participants in this workshop will get to know each other as a small collaborative group, creating resilience, trust, and buoyancy as the communal foundation before focusing on individual stage work and material proposals. Core concepts will include tapping into a deep sense of play, creating an honest, comfortable, and engaging stage presence, partnering with the audience, identifying the ingredients of compelling work, and using props and costumes, as external prompts to begin world-building and material creation.

Amica Hunter has a background in clowning (graduated the San Francisco Circus Center’s Clown Conservatory Program in 2013), and a decade of building and touring original physical comedy shows on the Fringe Festival circuit and beyond. Amica uses their unique gender-bending and genre-blending lens to encourage and guide participants in the art of creating authentic, original performance. Amica's approach to teaching is rooted in fostering a playful, collaborative and supportive environment that encourages participants to trust themselves and each other, as they explore their creative voice and strengthen their confidence and their innate sense of curiosity.