Emotional clowning + physical comedy. Embody characters from the inside out and outside in. For performers to re-energize and have fun!
EARLY BIRD DISCOUNT AVAILABLE UNTIL AUG 20
It’s a first! Allan Turner and John Towsen team up to teach two ways to character comedy!
This crash course teaches performers how to make their performances more emotional and characters more vulnerable by making their comedy more physical and their physicality more funny. And all of it repeatable, guaranteeing audiences a good time.
You will be introduced to a range of physical comedy vocabulary and its application for clowns, circus and variety artists, physical actors, dancers, mimes, and everyone in between. You will be introduced to a wide variety of skills centered around your own physicality, playing with partners, and object manipulation. You willl learn how to play status that underlies all relationships and how to amplify emotions to comic effect. You will integrate these techniques into character creation, gag structure, and story. Working independently, with partners, and in small groups, you will develop short comic turns for in-class presentation and feedback.
This course is designed for performers and emerging artists of all disciplines looking to re-energize and have fun. All experience levels welcome.
Dates:
Thursday, Sep 10 - 6:00pm-9:00pm
Friday, Sep 11 - 6:00pm-9:00pm
Saturday, Sep 12 - 10:00am-5:00pm
Sunday, Sep 13 - 11:00am-5:00pm
18 hours of class time
Instructors:
Allan Turner
Multi award-winning writer, director, and one of Toronto’s most enduring clowns. Allan has created, produced, and performed in Canada, the US, and Europe in clubs, shows, plays, cabarets, circuses and festivals.
John Towsen
John Towsen has taught physical comedy as a weekend intensive and as a full-semester college course all over the world, from the Juilliard School in New York to the Institut d’Art Dramatique in Morocco. His students have included a dizzying variety of performers, from Cirque de Soleil artists in Las Vegas to a feminist wrestling troupe in Leipzig; from hospital clowns in Vienna to stand-up comedians in London. He is the author of Clowns (1976) and of the current physical comedy blog(opedia), All Fall Down. He was artistic director of two NY Festivals of Clown-Theatre and of the NYC Physical Comedy Lab. His career includes 25 years of performing and 40 years of directing. He loves Toronto, and not just because his grandkids live here.