Educator
It has been my privilege and pleasure to work with theaters, educational organizations, and summer camps across the United States, building brain architecture and relationships through laughter, poetry, imagination and art. I have offered classes in storytelling, theater creation and devising, circus, puppetry, acrobatics, mask theater, mime, clown, commedia dell’arte, viewpoints, physical comedy, acting, audition technique, small stage, melodrama, grotesque characters, satire, musical theater, playwriting, and more.
These are a few of my most memorable projects and fruitful affiliations so far.
At The Well Young Women’s Leadership Academy
As the founding director of At The Well’s Theater Atelier, I facilitated and directed the devising processes for two original theater pieces—”One Voice: Young Women Leaders Stand Against Violence,” and “Women of Action: The Montgomery Bus Boycott”—created by groups of eleven to thirty-two high school-aged women of color, each over an eight-day period.
Theaters and Arts Education Organizations
In my capacity as a teaching artist, I have created and implemented curriculum with a variety of theaters and companies, including The New Victory Theater, Tectonic Theater Project, TADA! Youth Theater, CO-Lab Theater, Seattle Repertory Theatre, Seattle Children’s Theatre, Seattle Theatre Group, the 5th Avenue Theatre, and the Village Theater, as well as arts education and youth development organizations like Partners for Youth Empowerment, Centrum, ArtsCorps, LeAp NYC, Triangle Associates, and more. Conducting classes and workshops both at theaters and in schools, I have worked with students of a range of ages, languages, and needs through the magic of art making, collaboration, and imaginative play.
Academic Institutions and Summer Camps
Teaching intensive theater and clowning courses at boarding schools and summer camps has afforded me and my students the opportunity to take a quick, deep dive into collaborative theater making process and exploration. These have been some of my most rewarding teaching experiences.
Freelance Theater Workshop Offerings
I enjoy facilitating stand-alone intensive theater workshops for adults of all experience levels. I am available to lead short intensives on red nose clown (“Celebrate Your Stupid”), treteau (“Big Play, Small Stage,” co-created with Nicole Quenelle), and Satirical Bouffon and Grotesque Characters (co-created with Tara Demmy).
Celebrate Your Stupid: Resilience Through Laughter and The Red Nose Clown
“Only two things are infinite—the universe and human stupidity. And I’m not so sure about the universe.” —Albert Einstein, Genius.
In this workshop, we celebrate our stupid, exploring the playful, healing wisdom of our unique inner idiots.
Big Play, Small Stage: Treteaux for Theater Creators
created with Nicole Quenelle
The tréteau (French for 'trestle') is a small, elevated stage that was used by traveling Commedia dell'Arte troupes in Renaissance Italy. Rather than relying on costly set pieces and props, performers used the constrained space of the tréteau to expand their physical vocabulary, creating space and images using only their voices and bodies. As a core element of the pedagogy of Jacques Lecoq, training on the tréteau allows performers to compose stage images with the precision of a photographer--with the small space functioning like a tightly focused camera lens.
In this workshop, groups of 4-6 performers work together on the tréteau to build narratives with innovative storytelling techniques and precisely articulated movement and gestures. The small stage is the platform for telling big stories.
Play for the Rafters: Commedia dell'Arte, Physical Comedy and Mime
Infused with play and imagination, the languages of gesture, mask and space can make a huge impact with few words. The exploration of archetypes and game through masked Commedia dell’Arte; of scale, repetition, rhythm and relationship through physical comedy; and of spatial awareness and articulation through mime all strengthen the performer’s ability to communicate with an audience, provoking laughter, connection, and discovery.