Instructor: Janice Orlandi –
Held in-person:
Spring 2025: Chekhov on Chekhov
The Playwright and the Actor: Anton Chekhov and his Nephew Michael Chekhov
“All true artists, bear within themselves a deeply rooted and often unconscious desire for transformation.” ~ Michael Chekhov
This class explores Transformation, creating a Chekhovian character utilizing Michael Chekhov’s “psycho-physical” exercises and approach to acting, as outlined in his book, TO THE ACTOR.
Character Monologues from the major plays and short stories of Anton Chekhov will be our texts, adding classical period pieces to your arsenal of audition selections.
Cross-training and warm-ups in a variety of Movement methods will be incorporated, including Loyd Williamson’s Physical Process of Acting, Eight RASA-Emotions, Overlie Six-Viewpoints. These psycho-physical techniques and exercises offer a wide variety of effective physical acting tools which can inspire endless exploration and possibilities for enlarging the actor’s expressive body, physical ease and freedom, inspiring transformation and the actor’s organic connection to their inner life, creative artistic expression and generosity of ensemble collaboration.
We will explore Chekhov’s tools for creating both the overall ensemble and scenic atmospheres of the play, including: The character’s personal atmospheres, character centers, imaginary body and archetypes, leading to transformation and discovery of the character’s Archetypal and Psychological gestures.
To set the Chekhovian characters in the era of the play, we will incorporate Williamson Technique Character Historical Period Style to explore Period Character, Movement and Dance, including deportment, silhouette, manners, protocol, period costumes and props. We will also explore and incorporate Williamson’s and Hagen’s physical processes of creating character Conditions, states, age and/or impediments.
Winter 2025: The Lost Art of Letters
Creating Character Portraits through their Letters
This workshop lays the foundation for performers to create, write, self direct and incubate a Character Solo Performance through the exploration and dramatic form of letters.
The epistolary form adds a confessional reality to a story and demonstrates differing points of view and dramatic content. Actors will explore and research powerfully inspired and passionate letters of love, celebration, joy, grief, forgiveness, compassion, anger, despair, romance, friendship, and more. Inspired by Michael Chekhov’s Character Portraits exercises, we will incorporate character transformation and embodiment, physical dramaturgy, historic research, costume elements, props, set, sound and music, to fully realize solo moments and performances presented as choreographed portraits through letters.
You will create a character and their environment through exploring: archetypes, atmospheres, inner objects or centers, imaginary body transformations, movement and vocal qualities, animals, objects, age, status, historical period style and physical states or conditions. We will utilize character development tools for transformation including exercises and approaches developed by Michael Chekhov, Stanislavski, Uta Hagen, and Loyd Williamson.
Letters will be drawn from many sources, including letters to and from; artists, historic personages, the press, family, lovers, poets, actors of cinema and theater, leaders, prisoners of war, letters from the front, and others. The possibilities may include for example, letters to and from: Frida Kahlo & Diego Rivera, Isadora Duncan, Ida B. Wells, Georgia O’Keeffe, Oscar Wilde, Ira Aldridge, Rudyard Kipling, Anton Chekhov, Marilyn Monroe, Tennessee Williams, Zora Neal Hurston, Ernest Hemingway, Lorraine Hansberry, Lillian Hellman, Anne Sexton, Mahatma Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Queen Elizabeth I, Mozart, Nicholas Romanoff, Pushkin, Vincent Van Gogh, Anne Frank, Florence Nightingale, Abraham Lincoln, Dorothy Parker, Michelangelo, Chief Seattle of the Duwamish Tribe, and others discovered through research and personal connection.
“How can you buy or sell the sky –the warmth of the land? The idea is strange to us. Yet we do not own the freshness of the air or the sparkle of the water. How can you buy them from us? We will decide in our time. Every part of this earth is sacred to my people.” – Chief Seattle of the Duwamish Tribe, 1855