Acting for Improvers Ensemble Company

Come along for a taster session taking place on Monday 22nd May 2023 to see if the company is the right fit for you. If you would prefer to have a telephone interview with the Ensemble Company director to see if you would be suitable, please email satc@afperformingarts.com to arrange a convenient time.

Participants should have some acting experience already and be keen to advance their skills. You can not join this course unless you have had a taster session to assess your suitability. 

This course is a natural progression from some of our other Acting courses, but we also welcome new performers who have not previously enrolled with us.

This two term course provides a fun and rewarding process in which participants develop their physical and vocal abilities, foster their creativity and imagination, create their own performance material from different stimuli, and learn techniques on how to build believable and stimulating characters for stage and screen.

“In improvisation there are no mistakes” – Miles Davis

This class will start from a place of fun, play and exploration. Then you will learn to go beyond what you know….this is the place where great art happens. You will learn to have the courage to gloriously fail, to go outside of your comfort zone. To begin with you will explore the basics of improv through exercises and games. Then the group will progress into more advanced exercises designed to ignite your imagination and improve your skills.

As a group you will work together over two terms to devise and construct an ensemble piece to be performed based around a modern re-telling of ‘Phaedra’s Love’ by Sarah Kane. The play explores the brutal nature of love, social relations, nihilism and belief through the example of an affair between a queen and her stepson.

You will use this script as the base and a will be improvising some parts. The idea is to get you as connected and responsive as possible to each other and the text. The techniques being used / worked on are a combination of improvisation and Meisner. Each student will have minimum of one scene each and the scenes will be inter-connected. 

Under the highly experienced guidance of Liam you will:

Course Content:

• Stimulate your imagination and creativity through play and improvisation
• Create and shape a play ready for performance
• Learn how to take that play from page to stage, experiencing a full rehearsal process
• Perform two public shows at a central London theatre
• Learn how to conquer performance nerves, (techniques you can apply to all areas of life!)
• Learn how to build believable and interesting characters, using techniques evolved from a range of theatre practitioners, including Stanislavski, Stella Adler and Uta Hagen.
• Boost your confidence
• Work as an ensemble and independently
• Add to your actors’ toolkit, through learning different techniques and storytelling devices
• Develop breath, movement and vocal techniques
• Learn how to shape the text into narrative arcs to tell thought provoking and inspiring stories
• Enjoy the buzz and sense of community that being part of an acting ensemble provides
• Re-find your social life and be inspired at the same time!

Please note that as we are an adult performing arts school, any video footage or photographs taken during your class may be used on our social media for marketing and promotional purposes.

ALL profits from this course will go into the Fiorentini Foundation.

**If you are successful and offered a place in the company, fees can be split and paid via direct debit. Please email satc@afperformingarts.com and someone will get back to you within 48 hours to arrange. Please check your junk mail**