Training in voice work begins with the cultivation of deep physical awareness. Specific attention will be given to how the body—bones, muscles, breath, and nervous system – relates to healthy vocal production and vocal freedom. Examine how it feels to stand on your feet. Learn about how you live in your body, how you relate to your head and neck and shoulders. Discover how this affects your use of voice and influences healthy vocal spontaneity and expressiveness. Develop curiosity about these sensations and the circumstances and habits that affect them. Work through specific exercises to develop a Level 1 vocal and creative warm up sequence that will become your ongoing practice. Through your warm up become used to the process of checking in: recognizing and allowing the physical/emotional moment you are in and the circumstances that attend it, experiencing the moment, and working from it. Develop a relationship with the habitual patterns that influence how you engage with yourself–your skeletal and muscular structures, autonomic nervous system, your breath and your voice. Develop spontaneity, learning what it feels like to give in to a physical experience. With curiosity, explore and experience rigidity in the body through the release of tension, breathing, and spontaneous truthful sound. Learn the basic anatomy that supports breathing, sound making, and articulation in speech. Throughout Level 1 you are asked to discover your own process and be with others in theirs, so together the group develops a sense of what it means to be heard, seen and understood. This class employs the destructuring and restructuring processes of Fitzmaurice Voicework® devised by Catherine Fitzmaurice. Be advised that this Level requires time to master, and most actors will need a two- or three- term investment at Level 1 to develop awareness and become confident in these practices. All else in voice and speech work will build on this foundation.

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• Registration Prerequisite: Open to all

The extremely practical acting exercises found in Uta Hagen’s world-famous books, Respect for Acting and A Challenge for the Actor, probe the depths and heights of human behavior. They offer the actor a structure for lifelong practice exploring the dynamic interaction between sensory/emotional experience and the creative imagination. Uta Hagen’s approach to acting works. She challenges the actor to develop skills continually. She offers avenues of creativity that, with an open imagination and expanding sense of self, are unlimited. Her ongoing process of self-observation and self-discovery fortifies your ability to respond truthfully, dynamically, and vividly with fellow actors, releasing unpremeditated truthful behavior in performance. Over time, you find yourself creatively alive and present in the process. Taught by Kelly Wolf, who trained directly with Uta Hagen. Held at HB Studio, the birthplace of the Hagen exercises.

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• Required Reading: A Challenge for the Actor by Uta Hagen
• Recommended viewing: Uta Hagen's Acting Class documentary
• Prerequisite: Open to all

The Fundamentals of an HB acting technique: Here, you develop the ability to respond truthfully, dynamically, and vividly with fellow actors and the ability to access sensory elements. You tap into the power of imagination and the reservoir of memory. You gain a working understanding of the terms: previous circumstances, destination, inner and outer objects, intentions, obstacles, and conflicts. You develop an awareness of the power, function, and dynamics of “place”, and learn to be in a state of discovery, which leads to actions. You develop tools of research and observation and you get comfortable improvising. You begin to measure yourself against professional standards and develop habits of discipline and a strong work ethic. Do understand that these practices take time to master. It takes about a year (20-30 weeks) at this level to really own the skills addressed. Further scene study or performance work will then take root in this fertile ground. 

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• Required reading: A Challenge for the Actor by Uta Hagen
• Recommended viewing: Uta Hagen's Acting Class documentary
• Prerequisite: Open to all

Weapons training for actors. Learn how to sword fight for stage and screen. Practice safety protocols for working with prop guns on set. Expand your special skills as an actor training with the Sordelet, Inc. team, who bring decades of experience and expertise in the field of safely creating extraordinary fight scenes with weapons.

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• Registration Prerequisite: Some stage combat experience recommended but not required

Open to everyone, from first-time writers to experienced playwrights who want to go back to the basics. This class will introduce a variety of dramatic tools in order to build a strong sense of craft. Assignments, written as scenes, will explore elements such as character, relationship, time, place, structure, plot, story, and language. Note: This course will primarily meet in person. However, due to Instructor Ben Benne's professional travel as an actively producing playwright, some class sessions may be held via Zoom.

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• Prerequisite: Open to all