Program / Event Details

During this long-term residency, students will learn about this theatrical style which came to life during the Renaissance in Italy and introduced the use of stock characters that still populate television, plays and films of today. Commedia is the mother of western comedy, and this series of workshops is grounded in pedagogy that relates key historical information regarding this revolutionary act of performing professionally before and through the Renaissance, and into the 1700’s in Europe, giving context to the characters portrayed. Students will make a Commedia style mask of their own in paper mâché, learn what features on a mask speak about the character, physically train in the traditional stock archetypes of the Commedia Dell’Arte, and play in scenarios of the period. There will be slapstick, clowns, status play, masks and hijinks aplenty! This work has a heavy emphasis on ensemble cooperation and imaginative play, giving students the autonomy to create and fully inhabit a large character and write/devise her own comic performance text. Students will have the opportunity to keep the mask they make.