KCACTF Summer Intensives

In association with The Shakespeare Theatre's Academy for Classical Acting
CLASSICAL ACTING
With Catherine Weidner, Christopher Bayes, Dody DiSanto, Christopher Cherry, Roberta Stiehm, David Snider and additional guest artists from The Shakespeare Theatre Acting Company
July 5-17, 2004

“The actor who can perform the classics with confidence - who can meet the technical demands of performing classical dramatic texts - can perform anything.”
--Artistic Director Michael Kahn

The Shakespeare Theatre Academy for Classical Acting and KCACTF are proud to announce a new summer intensive in Classical Acting, intended for sophomores, juniors, seniors and theatre faculty from undergraduate or graduate programs affiliated with the Kennedy Center American College Theater Festival.

This two-week program will feature almost 100 hours of contact time in Acting, Movement, Voice, Alexander, Mask, Text and Clown - a powerful introduction to the formidable challenges of texts of enormous complexity: a “boot camp” in acting Shakespeare.

These two weeks will focus on bringing Shakespeare's verse to life through a rigorous and physically demanding curriculum culminating in scene presentations at the end of the two-week program. Participants will develop a practical, common-sense approach to the text and greater awareness of their physical, vocal and emotional instruments. They will explore how to bring Shakespeare's language alive through careful and detailed examination of the text, and develop fundamental skills and tools needed to express the action, characters and relationship contained within a scene.

All participants will be expected to engage fully in all aspects of the program, which includes classes from 9:00am -6:00pm six days a week, as well as evening scene rehearsals and homework sessions.

No previous experience with Shakespeare is necessary, but a genuine interest and passion for the material is required. Scenes will be selected from Othello or Richard III.

Participation:
18 participants, a combination of faculty and students, will be accepted.

Tuition:
$900 for the master class
$850 for faculty or students from KCACTF participating institutions
$800 for faculty and students whose home institutions are offering scholarship or professional development support, at any level, for this opportunity.

Housing:
Available at a rate of $40 per night- or $560 for the entire master class period- shared lodging- in the George Washington University Residence Halls.

To Apply:
- Letter of application describing the reasons for your interest in the program, including a “self-study”/inventory of your strengths and weaknesses as an actor.
- An acting resume that includes related experience (dance, vocal performance, etc.) and educational background.
- The names, phone numbers and e-mail addresses of up-to four directors and/or performance teachers/mentors (acting, voice, movement, text) who can attest to your abilities as an actor and as a student.
- This program is designed for students at the junior level of college/university and above. Interested sophomores will need to include a letter from a performance professor (acting, movement, voice, text) attesting to your ability to participate in a rigorous two-week performance intensive in classical acting.

Send to:
KCACTF Classical Acting
The Kennedy Center
Box 10808
Arlington, Virginia 22210

Or to:
ghenry@kennedy-center.org

by: Friday, April 2nd. Participants will be notified by April 30.
(Early submission and acceptance notification may be possible if applicants' home institutions have earlier professional development funding deadlines. Please inquire at the e-mail address above)

The Faculty
Catherine Weidner
Program Director, Acting and Text
Catherine Weidner is the Program Director of The Shakespeare Theatre Academy for Classical Acting at the George Washington University. She is the primary acting teacher for the ACA, where she teaches a detailed and comprehensive approach to acting the text of Shakespeare, and is responsible for all aspects of the training program. She has worked professionally at The Guthrie Theater where she assisted the late Garland Wright, and worked closely with dramaturgs Michael Lupu and Mark Bly on several productions from 1987-1990. At Theatre de la Jeune Lune in Minneapolis, she was the Assistant Director on Cyrano, directed by John Clark Donahue . She spent two seasons as assistant to Des McAnuff at the La Jolla Playhouse in San Diego, working on his productions of Elmer Gantry, Twelfth Night, A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, Fortinbras, and Three Sisters, among others.

As an actress, she has recently performed at Center Stage in Baltimore in productions of Mary Stuart directed by Irene Lewis and Blithe Spirit, directed by Tim Vasen , and in staged readings of Ken Ludwig's Shakespeare in Hollywood at the Kennedy Center and in a new translation of Lesage's Turcaret by James Magruder at The Shakespeare Theatre. In New York, she has directed and performed at the Soho Rep and New Dramatists. From 1993-1997, she was head of the theatre program at Goddard College in Plainfield, Vermont, where she collaborated on several projects with Bread & Puppet . She has directed productions of Richard III, Much Ado About Nothing, Measure for Measure, Waiting for Godot, Caligula, Otherwise Engaged, Animal Farm, Reckless, Cloud 9, The Visit , and Ubu . She teaches Public Speaking for the Smithsonian Associates program and works as a consultant with Washington Imrpov Theater, a local improvisational troupe.

Catherine holds a BFA in Acting from Ithaca College and an MFA in Directing from the University of Minnesota, and has also trained and performed at The Second City in Chicago and The Neighborhood Playhouse in New York.

Christopher Cherry - Alexander Technique
Christopher Cherry is the director of Studio 2C, a studio for the performing arts and the Alexander Technique. A certified teaching member of the American Society for the Alexander Technique, Chris has given lessons backstage at Lincoln Center, taught workshops at several colleges and universities, and consulted on productions in Washington and New York. Before joining the faculty of ACA, he taught at The Shakespeare Theatre's Summer Acting Conservatory and is himself a graduate of that program. Chris also directs youth theatre productions in the Washington area and is the creator of four children's musicals-- Magic in the Attic, The Cookie Caper, Hidden Lands , and the forthcoming Secret Circus . With his partner, pianist Stefan Brodd, Chris has also produced Let's Make A Date To Remember , a series of participatory classes for adults about the music of Broadway, Hollywood, and Tin Pan Alley. He earned his bachelor's degree from the College of William and Mary and his master's and law degrees from the University of Virginia.

Christopher Bayes - Physical Comedy, Clown
Actor, director, designer, composer, and artistic associate, Theatre de la Jeune Lune, 1984-90; productions include Red Noses, Yang Zen Froggs, Romeo and Juliet, Circus, The Bourgeois Gentleman . The Guthrie Theater Acting Company, 1989-95; roles include Caliban, The Tempest , Jennifer Tipton, director; Blunt, The Rover , Joanne Akalaitis, director; The Herald, Marat/Sade ; Edgar, King Lear , Garland Wright, director; Mr. Fitzpatrick, The Skin of Our Teeth , Robert Woodruff, director. Directing credits: Twelfth Night for The Burning House Group; This Ridiculous Dreaming , his one man show based on Heinrich Boll's novel, The Clown , for which he received a Minnesota State Arts Board Fellowship and Career Opportunity Grant. Taught physical comedy and clown at University of Minnesota Graduate Acting Program, Iowa State University, Yale University, Augsberg College, Carlton College, Theatre de la Jeune Lune, and The Guthrie Theater. The Juilliard School Faculty since 1994.

Dody DiSanto- Mask
Twenty-five years of performing includes Off-Broadway at LaMaMa E.T.C., Lincoln Center Serious Fun Festival, Theatre for the New City, the Avignon Festival and for television and film. She was a founding member of Phoenix Dance Theatre and a member of several ensembles, including Chantier Theatre, Present Company and Barking Rooster Theatre. TRAINING: Diploma, teaching certificate, Laboratoire Etude de Movement from Ecole Jacques Lecoq, where she received a private pedagogic apprenticeship; Etienne Decroux: corporal mime; Ecole Nationale du Cirque: wire, juggling, acrobatics and tap under the direction of Annie Fratellini; George Washington University: Fine Arts, Dance; Corcoran College of Art and Design. Nationally Certified for Massage Therapy and Bodywork. TEACHING: Center for Movement Theatre: fundamentals of Lecoq; Corcoran College of Art and Design: Dynamic Studies in space, gesture and structure; Towson State University: graduate acting: performance ensemble, neutral mask; Theatre of Creation Festival: assistant to Jacques Lecoq; Tufts University: Lecoq colloquium; University of Toledo: mask; NY Goofs winter clown intensive; Ringling Clown College; MotionFest; Penn State University: graduate acting; M.I.T.: neutral mask; Amherst College Department of Theatre and Dance: George Washington University; choreography for Cabaret; Mid-Atlantic Movement Theatre Festival; ATA National Convention at Tulane. Founder and artistic director, Membrane Ensemble Theatre; Dody also created, owned and managed internationally acclaimed music venue, Nightclub 9:30 in Washington DC from 1980-87.

Roberta Stiehm- Movement
Roberta Stiehm has been dancing since the age of 8. At 12, she began professional training in ballet and modern dance with Loyce Houlton at the Minnesota Dance Theater and School in Minneapolis, Minnesota. At 16, she began dancing with that company and went on to dance leading roles in such ballets as Sir Frederick Ashton's Les Patineurs and Facade , Herbert Ross' Capprichios , George Balanchine's Serenade, Concerto Borocco , and Allegro Brilliante , Glen Tetley's Mythical Hunters , and over fifty world premieres by resident choreographer Loyce Houlton. She later joined the Bat Dor Company of Israel, where her favorite role was the Lamentoso solo in Alvin Ailey's Streams . In South Africa, she danced with several small dance groups and with the American tour of Disney on Parade . In the early 80's, she played the roles of Bebe and Diana in the National and International companies of A Chorus Line and was honored to have worked directly with Michael Bennett. In Washington, D.C., she acted in the Studio Theater's acclaimed production of Fifth of July , emceed the Folger Theater's Annual High School Shakespeare Festival, and performed and choreographed for D.C. Cabaret Theater. Ms. Stiehm spent more than one year on Broadway in Cats, playing the role of Cassandra. She also performed various other roles from the musical in the National company. Ms. Stiehm was Rehearsal Director of the D.C. Contemporary Dance Theater under the Artistic Direction of Miiya Hisaka, and she has been on the teaching staff of many companies and schools, including The Shakespeare Theatre, George Mason University, Feet First, Joy of Motion, The Ballet Center, The Jewish Community Center, and Model Secondary School for the Deaf at Gallaudet University (where she also choreographed numerous production and concert modern dance pieces). She is on the permanent senior teaching staff of the Academy of the Maryland Youth Ballet, where she has choreographed numerous concert and demonstration pieces for senior-level students of the Academy. Ms. Stiehm studied Pilates under the tutelage of Romana Kryzanowska, a former student of Joseph Pilates, and has been a certified instructor since 1999.

David Snider- Voice
David Snider is a graduate of the NYU Graduate Acting Program, Tisch School of the Arts. Having trained with master voice teachers Deborah Hecht, Sarah Felder and Shane Ann Younts in vocal techniques based in the work of Edith Skinner, Kristin Linklater and Cicely Berry, David has taught voice and speech throughout the U.S. and England. Since 2001 he has been the School Programs Manager and Director of Camp Shakespeare at The Shakespeare Theatre, training young actors in voice, text and mask. In the summer of 2001 David received a Drama League Directing Fellowship, for which he served as the Artistic Director and Voice Instructor for the Hangar Theater's Lab Company, an intensive training program for young actors. Prior to the Hangar, David was the Robert Moss Directing Resident at Playwrights Horizons in New York for the 2000-01 season, a distinction given to him in recognition of his work assisting Mark Brokaw on Kenneth Lonergan's Pulitzer prize-nominated Lobby Hero and Michael Mayer on Keith Bunin's The Credeux Canvas . He holds a BA in English Literature/Russian language from Dickinson College, magna cum laude, Phi Beta Kappa, and an MFA from New York University's Tisch School of the Arts, for which David received a full fellowship. David has worked as an actor, director, and teacher at several theatres in New York and around the world, including the NYSF/Joseph Papp Public Theater, Playwrights Horizons, New York Stage and Film/Powerhouse, Jean Cocteau Repertory, the Hangar Theater, Bloomsburg Theater Ensemble, the Theater at Monmouth, Mendeleev Institute in Moscow, USSR, and with the Maddermarket Theatre in Norwich, England. New York acting credits include Cymbeline (NYSF, Andrei Serban), The Cherry Orchard, The Country Wife, Napoli Milionaria (U.S. premiere), Hamlet (Jean Cocteau Rep), Show and Tell (78 th St. Theater Lab), Three Man Macbeth (Theater 80). Regional: Oberon in A Midsummer Night's Dream (The Hangar Theater), Macbeth, Twelfth Night, The Importance of Being Earnest, Ah, Wilderness! , Ambition Facing West , Suicide Weather (NY Stage and Film). U.K.: Love's Labours Lost, The Revenger's Tragedy , Julius Caesar, The Merry Wives of Windsor, A Midsummer Night's Dream (The Maddermarket Theatre). U.S.S.R.: The Marriage Proposal (original Russian text). NYU: Uncle Vanya (Liviu Ciulei), The Changeling, On the Razzle (Doug Wager), The Reluctant Doctor of Love (Chris Bayes), Macbeth (Bart Sher), Andorra (Liviu Ciulei) , Awake and Sing!, Many Colors Make the Thunder-King (Bart Sher). David is a recipient of the Michael Tuch Foundation Acting Grant and a founding member of the Shakespeare Lab at the Joseph Papp Public Theater.

Questions? Contact Gregg Henry at ghenry@kennedy-center.org