ACTion: Dramatic Arts Program for 50+

Have you ever wanted to take an acting course or try your hand at playwriting but have been too busy with work and family? Join us for ACTion, a new and innovative program in Dramatic Arts designed for the 50+ group. The objective is to encourage older adults to discover their potential creativity through practice.

Whether you are working or retired, are a complete beginner or have already developed some skills in the Dramatic Arts, this program will offer you and your peers a relaxed environment where you will learn new skills to enable you to create theatre in novel and exciting ways and feel totally at ease.

Adults in the 50+ age range are encouraged to discover their creative voices in bringing to light important issues in their communities through dramatic study and production and where your life experiences will inform your practice in this program.

Initially, participants in the program can choose to focus on playwriting, acting, or both. We will eventually add new courses in directing, scene analysis, playing Shakespeare and more.

Playwriting

Writing for Stage and Screen: Creating Believable Characters
3 hours | 900-A55-00-01| Tuition: $60

Believable characters have depth and complexity. In this workshop we’ll create compelling, believable characters based on four main categories that will provide our characters with a ‘backstory’. In this way we’ll give them a personality, a voice and a moral stance which will determine how they react, given their character, strengths and values as we’ve defined them, when we place them in a variety of situations.

Saturday : 09:30-12:30
April 18

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Writing for Stage and Screen – Creating Conflict
3 hours | 900-A56-00-01| Tuition:$60

Conflict is at the heart of every drama. We define conflict as a struggle between opposing forces. In a play/film this usually means that our main character faces great odds when trying to attain his/her goal and this creates conflict and tension within the storyline. The choices our characters make defines who they are. This workshop will give you practice in introducing and building conflict in your play or film script.

Saturday: 09:30-12:30
April 25

Instructor: Christine Davet  is an actor and playwright. She has taught courses in screenwriting/scriptwriting at London University’s Birkbeck College and has worked for the UN, Voice of America and CIDA creating Dramas for social change.

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Acting

Acting 1
18 hours | 900-A52-00-01 | Tuition: $195

This introductory course in acting will introduce you to the joys and excitement of performance in a relaxed and supportive atmosphere. We will touch on the basic skills, techniques and theories involved in acting and you will gain a basic practical grounding in voice work, speech, movement, improvisation and acting. Participants will be required to choose and prepare a monologue that they will perform towards the end of the course as well as attend a live play in a professional theatre.

Thursday: 19:00 – 22:00
Feb. 13 – March 26 (no class on March 5)

Instructor: Stephanie Merulla  (MFA) is an actress who has worked internationally with companies such as It’s Not a Box Theatre in Saskatoon, the Cambridge Shakespeare Festival in the UK, the Whitehorse Theatre Company in Germany, and the Live Art Performance Platform in Nicosia, Cyprus. She has also represented Québec on the national planning committee at Canada’s Magnetic North Theatre Festival. Currently, Stephanie is teaching acting in Verdun where she provides workshops to students with a practical and creative approach to learning.  Her practice is based on the Stanislavski system while drawing inspiration from other acting training techniques such as Laban and Grotowski. 

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Acting II
18 hours | 900-A53-00-01| Tuition: $195

This course will focus on the actor’s work on the role with some attention to voice and movement. We will analyze play texts by breaking them down into playable actions that carry the story forward and give insight on how to bring a character to life.

Thursday: 18:30-21:30
April 2 – May 21

Instructor: Ralph Allison was for twenty years, the director of the Theatre Performance program at Concordia University in Montreal. As well as teaching acting, he has directed and acted for stage and film in the United States and Canada.’

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Introduction to Set Design
6 hours |900-A54-00-01 |Tuition: $120

Set Designers create the locale and environment for the plays to take place. This 6-hour workshop will give an illustrated overview of Set Design and it’s breadth, scope and impact in Theatre. The first part will cover the theory and practice of scenography and include an exploration of Set Design and its relationship with the Dramatic work. The second part is definitely “hands on”. By the end of the day you will have created a Set Design suitable for an historical epic.

Saturday: 9:30-12:30 & 3:00-16:00
May 30

Instructor: Chris Brown Christopher Brown saw John Arden’s “Sergeant Musgrave’s Dance” at the Sunderland Empire Theatre when he was 14 years old. He announced to his Mother ” I want to be a Set Designer when I grow up” He still hasn’t grown up but half a century later he’s still designing: a balcony for Juliet, the Blasted Heath for MacBeth, under the expressway for a rumble between The Sharks and The Jets, a hovel, a palace, a magical forest or an East Side tenement.

For more information on the program and /or the courses: Contact program creative director Christine Davet at: christine.davet@johnabbott.qc.ca