July 10, 17, 24, and 31
Sue Maskaleris
So You're in the Chorus
4 Saturdays, July 10, 17, 24 and 31
3:00pm - 5:00pm
Class Fee $88
Gain experience reading, blending, maintaining harmony parts and counterpoint from the musical theatre repertoire. Choral styles from barbershop, classic "legit" Broadway scores through Sondheim, Schwartz and their contemporaries; folk to current rock, pop, gospel, tropical and hip hop musicals will be sung as an ensemble. Sight reading ability and/or a good ear are recommended but not mandatory. Ms. Maskaleris will accompany.
Sue Maskaleris is a Grammy-nominated and award-winning singer, pianist, composer, lyricist, arranger and producer. She sings in six languages and plays 3 other instruments. Sang and recorded with Cissy Houston, and is on many other CDs. Her own CD, UNBREAKABLE HEART features many jazz legends on her jazz and Brazilian jazz originals and has aired worldwide. She has played for Tony winners LaChanze, Lillias White, Liz Calloway, B.D. Wong, Anne Crumb, John Tartaglia, Natalie Belcoin, and Betty Comden; TV stars Cybill Shepherd, Philip Michael Thomas; jazz legends Annie Ross, Abbey Lincoln; film great Austin Pendleton and many former HB faculty luminaries, including Charles Nelson Reilly, Rita Gardner and Carol Hall for over 30 years. Worked on new works with Burt Bacharach, Stephen Schwartz, Galt McDermott, Taj Majal, and Lenny Pickett (SNL). Performed original music with groups at Birdland, Damrosch Park, Bryant Park, and Blue Note; worked in Europe, GA, FL, NC, TX, and on 24 ships worldwide. Created many open mics in NYC and now produces a series at Rouge Wine Bar in the West Village. Studied composition with John Corigliano at Manhattan School of Music and film scoring at NYU. www.suemask.com.
August 6, 13, 20 and 27
Amanda Quaid
What's In Your Blood? Accents and Dialects of Your Heritage
4 Fridays, August 6, 13, 20 and 27
2:30pm - 4:00pm
Class Fee $72
Actors often have the easiest time picking up dialects that are part of their lineage, and they tend to use them the most in their work. In this special dialects workshop, you will research and prepare dialects from your family's heritage. This may include interviewing an elderly family member, creating an audio archive of your family's speech, or simply probing your family tree to discover a dialect you may never have known you could use. Rather than learning dialects as a group, the class will be focused primarily on research strategies for tackling dialects on your own along with a monologue presentation at the end of class. Students should be prepared for research work outside the classroom. By the end of the short workshop, you will have a dialect you know you'll be able to use, an improved ear, and a wealth of research methods for approaching dialects in the future. Suitable for students who have some previous dialect training, but open to enthusiastic beginners.
Broadway: EQUUS opposite Daniel Radcliffe. Off-Broadway and Regional: THE YEATS PROJECT (Irish Rep), Rosalind in AS YOU LIKE IT (Folger Shakespeare Theatre), Juliet in ROMEO AND JULIET (Hudson Valley Shakespeare Festival), The Flea, Culture Project, Kitchen Theatre Co. Raised in Greenwich Village, Amanda began her acting training at HB when she was 16 with Edward Morehouse. She received her B.A. in English from Vassar College, graduating with honors for her work with Shakespeare. She works with actors, singers, corporate clients, and others from all over the world. For more information on her background and approach, please visit www.amandaquaid.com.
August 7 and 14
Stephen DeRosa
Musical Theatre Audition Clinic
2 Saturdays, August 7 and 14
3:00pm - 6:00pm
Class Fee $64
Are your musical theater auditions run down, fatigued or just a pain? Then this is the workshop for you! An intensive for serious musical theater performers who want to refresh old material or try out new material. The focus will be on the individual interpretation of the song as an expression of character and storytelling as opposed to mere vocal production and style. Students should bring their songbook or have at least two songs fully memorized to work on. Please have legible copies of the sheet music in the appropriate key for the accompanist. Let the "Doctor" give your songs a booster shot. You'll leave feeling better. Guaranteed!
Stephen DeRosa studied with Herbert Berghof and is a graduate of the Yale School of Drama. Broadway: HAIRSPRAY, INTO THE WOODS, HENRY IV, TWENTIETH CENTURY, THE MAN WHO CAME TO DINNER. Off-Broadway: THE MYSTERY OF IRMA VEP, LOVE’S FIRE (Acting Company and the RSC), THE IT GIRL, NEWYORKERS, WONDERFUL TOWN, DO RE MI, WALMARTOPIA. Regional Theater: Williamstown Theater Festival, Berkshire Theater Festival, Old Globe Theater, Huntington Theater Company, Arden Theater and many others. Television Credits include LAW & ORDER, THIRD WATCH, SUDDENLY SUSAN, RESCUE ME, UGLY BETTY.
August 9
Tony Vellela
One-Day Intensive: A Closer Look at Edward Albee
Monday, August 9
10:00am - 2:30pm
Class Fee $45
Actors, directors, playwrights, designers and dramaturgs will all benefit from digging deeper into two major works by Edward Albee. Go beyond basic text analysis to uncover character back-stories, behavior motivations, the impact of time and place, the playwright's voice reflected in stage directions, and thematic similarities among these great classic works that will always be produced and revived. Take what you learn with Mr. Vellela, whose sessions have been rated excellent by his students, and use your own judgment about how to apply it to your chosen career path. Students need to have recently read the works to be discussed prior to the workshop: Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf & A Delicate Balance.
Tony Vellela is the writer/producer of the PBS series “Character Studies,” [www.characterstudies.net]. His award-winning play ADMISSIONS which received three New York productions all directed by Austin Pendleton, won the Best Play Award at the New York International Fringe Festival, and was published by Playscripts. He has also served as a Broadway critic and theatre reporter for several publications and is the resident critic at dramabookshop.com. Mr. Vellela was the last person to conduct a substantive series of interviews with Uta Hagen, in connection with his PBS project, which included a discussion of Albee’s WHO’S AFRAID OF VIRGINIA WOOLF and Miss Hagen’s Tony Award-winning performance as Martha.
August 9-13
Special One-Week Intensive
Jeffrey Sweet
Collaborative Play Development
Monday-Friday, August 9-13
1:30pm - 5:30pm
Class Fee $145
For Actors, Directors, and Playwrights
Some years ago, Jeffrey Sweet formed a group of writers, actors and directors to work together developing new work. That group was called the New York Writers Bloc, and alumni won the Pulitzer Prize, the Emmy, the WGA Award and a Tony nomination. This is an attempt to build a similar group in which projects may be developed. We will work on pieces genuinely in-progress. No trunk plays, please! Actors with improvisational backgrounds especially welcome.
Jeffrey Sweet has won the Writers Guild of America Award, an Emmy nomination, a Jefferson Award, two American Theatre Critics Association playwriting prizes and the Outer Critics Circle Award for his writing for stage and TV. A resident playwright for the Tony Award-winning Victory Gardens Theatre, his scripts have been performed by Nathan Lane, Helen Hunt, William Petersen, Jack Klugman, Alan Bates, Ellen Burstyn, Jon Cryer, Richard Kind, Michele Pawk, Judy Kaye and Austin Pendelton, among others. His book on improvisational theatre, SOMETHING WONDERFUL RIGHT AWAY, was called a “classic” by the Chicago Tribune. He serves on the Council of the Dramatists Guild.
August 16-20
Special One-Week Intensive
Ian Marshall
Minor Stunts for Actors: Stage Combat Intensive
Monday-Friday, August 16-20
10:00am - 1:00pm
Class Fee $120
Ready for action? Every role has physical demands, but some may take you out of your comfort zone and into heightened situations, whether comic or dramatic. Need to faint or collapse? Need to be thrown over something? Need to look like an action hero or villain? This one-week, intensive workshop will teach you these and other common utility stunts such as falls, rolls, flips, basic stage combat and martial arts--often using furniture and props. Good for film or stage action sequences.
Ian Marshall is a Theater/Opera director and movement specialist. Teaching: Yale University (graduate acting and opera departments), NYU, Circle in the Square, NY Film Academy, etc. Directing: HAMLET, KING JOHN, COSI FAN TUTTE, SUOR ANGELICA, and the NY premiere of A.R. Gurney’s THE GUEST LECTURER, etc. Movement, choreography, and fight direction: HB Playwrights Foundation, Ensemble Studio Theater, Atlantic Theater, National Shakespeare Company, Hudson Valley Shakespeare Festival, Bronx Opera Company, Chelsea Opera, CBS’ The Learning Channel, Sing Sing Maximum Security Prison, music videos, commercials and many independent films. Ian is also the co-founder of United Stages, www.unitedstages.com.
August 23
Tony Vellela
One-Day Intensive: A Closer Look at Rodgers & Hammerstein
Monday, August 23
10:00am - 2:30pm
Class Fee $45
Actors, directors, playwrights, designers and dramaturgs will all benefit from digging deeper into two major works by Rodgers & Hammerstein. Go beyond basic text analysis to uncover character back-stories, behavior motivations, the impact of time and place, the playwright's voice reflected in stage directions, the information in the lyrics, and thematic similarities among these great classic works that will always be produced and revived. Take what you learn with Mr. Vellela, whose sessions have been rated excellent by his students, and use your own judgment about how to apply it to your chosen career path. Students need to have recently read the works to be discussed prior to the workshop: Oklahoma! and The King and I.
Tony Vellela is the writer/producer of the PBS series “Character Studies,” [www.characterstudies.net]. His award-winning play ADMISSIONS which received three New York productions all directed by Austin Pendleton, won the Best Play Award at the New York International Fringe Festival, and was published by Playscripts. He has also served as a Broadway critic and theatre reporter for several publications and is the resident critic at dramabookshop.com. Mr. Vellela was the last person to conduct a substantive series of interviews with Uta Hagen, in connection with his PBS project, which included a discussion of Albee’s WHO’S AFRAID OF VIRGINIA WOOLF and Miss Hagen’s Tony Award-winning performance as Martha.
August 16-20
Special One-Week Workshop
Peter Kyle
A Physical Approach to Character Study:
Focus on Chekhov's THE CHERRY ORCHARD
Monday-Friday, August 16-20
2:00pm - 6:00pm
Class Fee $145
As anthropologist Michael Jackson asks in his book AT HOME IN THE WORLD, “…how do people transform given-ness into choice so that the world into which they are thrown becomes a world they can call their own.” This single existential question seems to summarize a central challenge of any performer wishing to build a character for performance. It suggests the need for keen understanding of one’s own physicality as well as an insatiable curiosity for new ways of being in one’s body.
Articulating physicality with specificity and totality can make the difference in whether a portrayal is believable or not. Physical training for performers must reach beyond physical fitness and prepare them to enter into the realm of aesthetics. It must provide a pathway toward discovery, and toward the acquisition of skills that facilitate the investigation of previously unimaginable ways of moving. However, physical innovation alone is insufficient. It must be accompanied by rigorous attunement toward a physical expression that is fully embodied, revealing the inner life and emotional depth of any character that has seen and lived in a world that is specific and rich in detail.
Using characters from Chekhov’s classic work, THE CHERRY ORCHARD, we will devise a methodology for discovering character through a physical process. Assembling a range of sources, media and reference material each performer will construct a character, physically re-creating one of the figures in the play. Each day will begin with a rigorous, full-bodied warm-up designed to heighten and sensitize the performer’s kinetic sensibilities. Subsequent process-oriented work will allow performers to develop skills for understanding tempo, shape, physical alignment, spatial awareness, motional intelligence, and the inner sensibility of his/her character.
Peter Kyle is Artistic Director of Peter Kyle Dance. His choreography has been presented/commissioned by Kaatsbaan International Dance Center, Symphony Space, Dancenow/NYC, Cornish College of the Arts, UW Summer Arts Festival and the Museum of Glass, and overseas in Norway, Cyprus, and Scotland. Peter has received awards from Concours Internationale de Danse de Paris, Simpson Center for the Humanities and Washington State Arts Commission. He has performed with Nikolais & Murray Louis Dance, Mark Morris Dance Group, Erick Hawkins Dance Company, Gina Gibney Dance, and the theater company, Pacific Performance Project, among others. Peter teaches dance and movement for actors in the U.S. and internationally. He currently teaches at Marymount Manhattan College.
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