The Twin Cities Improv Festival is pleased to offer the following classes:
SATURDAY JUNE 26th
•11AM-2PM SAT AM: JET EVELETH - "Being A Human - An Improv Workshop for Honest Play"
•11AM-2PM SAT AM: MATT CRAIG & FRANK CAETI - "Scenic Improvisation"
•3-6PM SAT PM: MATT CRAIG & FRANK CAETI - "Scenic Improvisation"
•3-5PM SAT PM: NELS LENNES & JILL BERNARD - "Beginning Improv"
SUNDAY JUNE 27th
•11AM-1PM SUN AM: FRANK CAETI - "Using Scenes to Inspire New Scenes"
•3-6PM SUN PM: HOLLY LAURENT - "Exploring a Form: JTS Brown"
•3-5PM SUN PM: NELS LENNES & JILL BERNARD - "Beginning Improv"
Two hour classes are $40 ($30 for festival performers)
Three hour classes are $60 ($50 for festival performers)
A four-pack of classes is $180.
BEING A HUMAN - AN IMPROV WORKSHOP FOR HONEST PLAY with Jet Eveleth (3 hours - offered only once)
Having a difficult time playing clever? Try playing real. Let go of feeling robotic on stage and speaking in unnatural tones. Instead of playing a fairly convincing human, be a human. What you are trying so hard to play is what you are all the time, now take out the effort. This workshop will focus on being truthful to your internal experience on stage. We will utilize emotional information in the breath and eyes of the performer to work from a deeper place. We will also explore ways of bringing more of yourself to the stage. With such work we can connect to the audiences’ humanity rather than just their intellect. We will use techniques that focus on: playing from an unforced place, breaking the habit of over thinking and indicating, connecting to your scene partner from a place that is more emotional. Once you play this way you may never want to go back to standing on stage and saying witty things.
SCENIC IMPROVISATION with Matt Craig and Frank Caeti (3 hours - offered twice)
The foundation of great improvisation is good scenes. In this workshop we will focus on improvising solid two-person scenes utilizing emotion, character, and point of view. The ultimate goal of scenic improvisation is the discovery and manifestation of relationship. This workshop is a great opportunity to learn the ropes of building a rich and layered scene from the ground up. Great as a transitional workshop between forms, as a introduction to the fantastic world of scenic improvisation, or as a touch-up for you experienced improvisers out there.
IMPROV DIAGNOSIS with Matt Craig (2 hours - offered only once)
Discover what type of improviser you are using a simplified structure that will enable you to approach scene work in a whole new way. In this comprehensive workshop, we will categorize your strengths and weaknesses in a method that I have been developing for over ten years. You will leave this workshop able to identify yourself as either a proactive or reactive improviser, and why, and then be able to take away the positive and negative implications of both. After this workshop, participants will be able to pinpoint their strengths as an improviser, but also determine their weaknesses so that all who take it will become fully-rounded, unstoppable, improvising juggernauts.
USING SCENES TO INSPIRE NEW SCENES with Frank Caeti (2 hours - offered only once)
You have just performed the first couple scenes of your long form, now what? This class will focus on using scenes you have performed early in any long form structure to inspire new scenes and make strong connections. Students will learn techniques that go beyond just following plot and heighten the ideas you originally explored. Time-dash, analogous situation, theme, character, location, game of scene, and following the fun - are all worthwhile threads to pursue for the second beat and beyond.
EXPLORING A FORM: JTS BROWN with Holly Laurent (3 hours - offered only once)
JTS Brown is a 12-year-old form created by some of the best long form players of i.O. Chicago. It’s patchwork style combines a pallet of moves deigned to highlight solid scene work within its highly transformational and almost dream like string of characters, relationships and realities. It elevates long form to a higher level of theatricality by combining sophisticated scene work with playful and experimental group work. JTS produces an exciting hybrid of fresh comedy and downright good theater.
Holly Laurent has been teaching JTS in the upper levels of the i.O. training center since 2006. She enjoys helping groups take the fundamentals of JTS and develop new moves based on its inspiration. In her JTS workshop you will develop original moves and invent long form pieces that reflect the distinctive personality of YOUR group.
BEGINNING IMPROV with Nels Lennes & Jill Bernard (2 hours - offered twice)
Does improv look fun? Would you like to try it? Nels Lennes & Jill Bernard from HUGE Theater offer this class to absolute beginners. Come give improv a try with simple exercises that will train you to be more fearless and spontaneous from the get-go.
ABOUT THE INSTRUCTORS
Jet Eveleth is a member of The Reckoning and recently toured in I Live Next Door To Horses, winner of the 2008 Del Award for Best Scripted Show. She can also be seen in Ted & Melanie, Pleasant Valley and The Armando Diaz Experience. She received her M.A. in Interdisciplinary Arts from Columbia College and is an instructor at Columbia’s Comedy Studies Program. Jet was a faculty member of The Second City Conservatory, the iO Theater and is the co-artistic director for the Chicago Improv Festival.
Holly Laurent is a writer, actor and teacher hailing from Michigan. She is a member of the Chicago improv group The Reckoning, with whom she recently completed the pilot Ditch Mitchem: Writer Detective. Film credits include The Strip, Bicentennial Curious and American Legacy, and writing credits include I Live Next Door to Horses and Sitting at the Grown Up Table. She has been featured as part of Serendipity Theatre Collective’s Second Story series and is a member of the National Touring Company of the Second City, where she frequently understudies their resident stages. Holly holds a MA in Interdisciplinary Arts from Columbia College and her BA in Acting from Anderson University. She teaches at i.O. Chicago and the Second City. Her strengths as an instructor are in fostering group work and offering personal diagnostic feedback for performers. Her vision is to help students elevate their acting and improv skills, and in the process she also hopes to bolster your spirits!
Matt Craig began his career at Washington University with the troupe Mama's Pot Roast. Previous theater credits include The Annoyance, iO, iOWest, Disney Cruise Lines, Brave New Workshop, The Second City Touring Company, The Second City ETC, and The Second City Mainstage. Recent television credits include According To Jim and The Office. He is currently a member of the faculty at the Second City Training Center in Los Angeles, taught for the Second City Conservatory in Chicago for five years, and the Brave New Institute in Minneapolis in addition to teaching workshops all over the United States. He currently works for Norwegian Cruise Lines writing and directing sketch comedy that is performed all over the world. Matt is pleased to be returning to the Twin Cities where he happily lived and performed for several years during the Clinton administration. He currently resides in Los Angeles with his lovely wife Rebecca and his baby daughter Phoebe.
Frank Caeti has taught and performed improvisation for over 10 years. He is currently on the faculty at The Second City Hollywood. Frank has taught improv for ComedySportz (Chicago), Second City (Chicago, LA, Las Vegas), and workshops in many cities including Seattle, Charleston, Dallas, and Beijing, China. As a performer, his credits include: series regular on MADtv, a resident company alum of The Second City Chicago, io Chicago, Reno 911, DITKA, io west, UCB, CSz Chicago, and one half of the duo FrankenMatt.
Nels Lennes and Jill Bernard are founding members of HUGE Theater. Jill has played ComedySportz since 1993 and has toured all over the country with her solo show "Drum Machine" and taught improv in over 30 states. Nels has extensive experience with nationally recognized improvisational theater groups including The Groundlings, Annoyance Theater, and The Upright Citizens Brigade in addition to his Twin Cities collaborative experience since 1995. In addition to his extensive improv teaching experience, Nels is also an accomplished screen actor, appearing in several films as well as commercials for national marketing campaigns.
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