studio 55 - seniors theatre program
Studio 55...Exactly what is all the fuss about?Watch this short (hint:FUN) video to find out!
Studio 55 is a very serious playspace!
Anyone over 55 can come and have a laugh whilst learning some fantastic theatre skills. An ongoing open floor theatre training where participants can come and go as they please or sign up and stay forever!
Every eight weeks we start a term, covering a range of topics such as improvisation, neutral mask, commedia dell’arte, text, movement, theatre games, character, poetry, clowning, dialogue and storytelling. Each session begins with a warm up game using some combination of voice, gesture and imagination.
We are very lucky to have the use of the beautiful stage at the Byron Theatre as our working space. Occasionally we also venture OUT on to the streets with masks on, or to perform at community events or local residential homes for the elderly to speak poetry with red noses on!
Absolutely no experience is required!
One of the things we learn is the glory of ‘getting it wrong’, which is what clowning is all about! Apart from being great fun our open floor theatre work is brilliant for training us in spontaneity, collaboration, memory, creative confusion, flexibility, generosity (how to let yourself off the hook and make your partner look good too!).
If not now then when?
The art of being creatively present in the moment and thinking, or moving, or speaking gobbledegook as it unfolds. The joy of working as a group and stepping into our crazy creative selves and remembering once again how to PLAY!
8 wk TERM START DATES:
Thursday 16 January
Thursday 12 March
Thursday 7 May
Thursday 2 July
Thursday 27 August
Thursday 22 October
Thursday Mornings 10.30am - 12.00 pm. The Byron Theatre, Byron Community Centre, 69 Jonson Street, Byron Bay.
The 8 wk term cost is $95 and each session runs for 90 mins. Casual drop in classes are $15 per session. Please contact Philippa today on 0422 882 319.
Participant age restrictions - Anyone 55 + !!
NEXT START DATE 16 January 2020.
ABOUT YOUR FACILITATORS...
Philippa Williams - Director/Community
Philippa Williams has a Diploma from the London School of Speech and Drama and toured for fifteen years as an actress with Dionysia Theatre, The Rose Theatre Company, The Mask Studio, Portal Productions, Circle X Arts and TaurusVoice Theatre Company.
Philippa ran the Stroud Performing Arts Courses in Gloucestershire, England and has taught, directed, facilitated and worked as a therapist in a variety of settings including schools, colleges, the Mental Health Sector, with teenagers with special needs and in Adult Education.
Philippa has a Diploma in Dance Movement Therapy and an Advanced Diploma in Psychophonetics Counselling. Since coming to Australia seven years ago Philippa has been teaching, facilitating theatre courses and directing community theatre productions.
She has taught at The Actors Workshop in Brisbane, Byron Bay Film and Television School, Cape Byron Steiner School, Shearwater School, The Warehouse Workshop and WeMove Studio. Philippa is passionate about using theatre to empower people and bring communities together.
Brin Pritchard - volunteer facilitator
With a Bachelor of Education in Drama and Post Graduate Diploma in Film already in his profile, Brin studied with the great theatre teacher and practitioner Jacques Lecoq in Paris in 1997-98. Other significant training includes Ruth Zapora in Berkely, California; extensively with Al Wunder in Melbourne; and Giovanni Fusetti’s Kiklos Theatre in Padua, Italy.
Brin has a long list of credits as an actor, theatre writer, director and teacher in Australia and the UK. Recent performances with Lightwire Theatrical Productions include: Café Floriani; Spirit of the Mask; and Thoughts Have Feelings Too. He has also performed for companies such as Emerge, Underground and Evocations in shows such as Callisthesia at the Brisbane Powerhouse, Batavia at the Judith Wright Centre and A Man with 5 Children by Nick Enright. With Mercury’s Wings Theatre on the Gold Coast he played Horatio in Shakespeare’s Hamlet; Hamm in Becket’s Endgame; Leonarto in Much Ado About Nothing; and Feste the Fool in Twelfth Night. La Mama in Melbourne commissioned Brin to play a very innovative Clown in The Show Must Go On.
Brin has extensive teaching experience. He was a tutor/director at the Northern Melbourne Institute of TAFE – Performing Arts Department from 1990-98 and for Inner London Education Authority at the Fleet Community Education Centre in 1986-87. Since then he has worked in conjunction with various organisations including Backbone Youth Arts, Homunculus and Lightwire Theatrical Productions as a specialist tutor in Commedia dell’Arte, Clown, Mime and Improvisation.
““Acting is my way of investigating human nature and having fun at the same time.””