TEACHING
As a teacher (and an actor), I am interested in the vulnerability of simple fun, pleasure and play. I have found that a lot of actors, myself included, tend to fixate on getting things right; they turn play into work and lose all of their fun along the way! But audiences don’t go to the theater, the movies, live music, dance, or scroll through Netflix to watch people work – we do all of that to watch people play! My job is to reintroduce people to their fun and incorporate it into everything they do.
What's next?
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Acting As Play with Gabriel Levey
Tuesdays, 6-9pm March 25th - May 20th at Northampton Karate, 320 Riverside Dr in Florence, MA
$275
Get out of your head and into your body! Give your chorus of critics a break and rediscover the simple pleasure of playing pretend!
In this 8-week class, participants will be provided with a safe, brave space to:
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Take big risks before feeling “ready”
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Put logic aside to make way for a highly imaginative physical appetite/objective
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Embrace the precarious pleasure of not needing to know what’s coming next
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Find fun in whatever given circumstances the character has no choice but to endure
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Always lead with hope, regardless of the inevitable disasters laid out in the text
Building on the work of master teachers Christopher Bayes (Head of Movement, Yale School of Drama), Ron Van Lieu (former chair of NYU Grad Acting and the Yale School of Drama) and Evan Yionoulis (former chair of the Yale School of Drama and current chair of The Juilliard School), Acting as Play is a wholly unique approach to text and scene work, centering imagination, play and vulnerability as the foundation of all performance. Over the course of the class, all participants will have the opportunity to work on a monologue and/or a scene, depending on their interests.
This class is perfect for
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Anyone interested in a physical approach acting
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Anyone interested in acting in general
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Anyone curious about the relationship between improvisation and scripted text
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Anyone with a movement, or music background interested in other modes of performance
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Anyone
Where I've taught
I've taught courses including Acting as Play, Shakespeare as Play, and Clown in traditional university settings such as NYU, Smith College, Amherst College and the Yale University Summer Program. I have also developed workshops and curriculum independently for renowned regional theaters such as The Alliance, Berkshire Theater Group and Northern Stage, as well as smaller, more nimble institutions such as the Pine Box Studio in Florence, MA, and The East Street Studios in Hadley, MA.
Pandemonium Studio
In 2019 I co-founded (with Christopher Bayes and Annelise Lawson) The Pandemonium Studio, a studio for the study of Clown, Commedia, and Improvisation. Located in Brooklyn, I teach my signature class, Acting as Play, at Pandemonium whenever possible.
Completely Ridiculous Productions
In June of 2020, I founded The Completely Ridiculous Conservatory where I built a team to provide six weeks of comprehensive conservatory-style online actor training - throughout the pandemic - ​with a particular focus on physical acting, self-care, clown, justice, equity, diversity, inclusivity, ensemble and play.​ Now, CRP is back to focussing on the development of new work and soon to be announced in-person classes in Western Massachusetts.