CLOWN & COMEDY

IT’s Foolish, it’s freeing, it’s fun

Comedy and comedic situations on stage permeate all elements of theatre and film, yet relatively little is said about them in classical actor training. Yet finding the inner clown, discovering and exploiting comic stage situations is a beautiful, exciting, challenging and at the same time, very entertaining task. Not to mention the fact that there are a lot of theatrical practices and tricks that can be learned, and the 'comedic brain' can be developed and trained. And of course, it is important to do all this with real joy, with the joy of the play, otherwise there is no point to it all. Through these exercises we will explore what that joy is, try to bring out the playful and ridiculous clown in us and hone our physical comedy skills. We'll discover how to plan and execute physical comedy situations so that we can apply them to any performance as an actor, comedian or clown.

What is this workshop?

This unique workshop will try to walk you through the physical and logical skills needed to build physical comedy scenes. Physical comedy is difficult in many ways, but mostly because it usually requires the actor to be present on two levels simultaneously. At the same time, the actor must also play with an audience, living authentically and truthfully in the situation (let's call this the clown level), so that the audience is not distracted from the emotional life of the performance and does not notice the acting work behind it. So it takes some skill, character-formation and a lot of practice to get through this joyful journey. However, the clown level should not be neglected either. After all, there are many times when we see a perfectly staged comic scene and we don't laugh. We may be technically impressed, but it's not that funny. Without the personal-clown level, these comedy routines remain sappy and boring. We also learn that it's okay to make mistakes, be bad and fail. We can use this to our advantage and even use it to our own advantage. And if we succeed, we may end up understanding ourselves a little better, and using this deeper awareness on stage, we will be able to dive into comic situations more freely and joyfully.

CLOWN:

PHYSICAL COMEDY:

This unique workshop will try to walk you through the physical and logical skills needed to build physical comedy scenes. Physical comedy is difficult in many ways, but mostly because it usually requires the actor to be present on two levels simultaneously. At the same time, the actor must also play with an audience, living authentically and truthfully in the situation (let's call this the clown level), so that the audience is not distracted from the emotional life of the performance and does not notice the acting work behind it. So it takes some skill, character-formation and a lot of practice to get through this joyful journey. However, the clown level should not be neglected either. After all, there are many times when we see a perfectly staged comic scene and we don't laugh. We may be technically impressed, but it's not that funny. Without the personal-clown level, these comedy routines remain sappy and boring. We also learn that it's okay to make mistakes, be bad and fail. We can use this to our advantage and even use it to our own advantage. And if we succeed, we may end up understanding ourselves a little better, and using this deeper awareness on stage, we will be able to dive into comic situations more freely and joyfully.