New York, N.Y. – Shakespeare & Company’s Center for Actor Training will hold a Weekend Intensive Friday, Feb. 24 through Sunday, Feb. 26.
Designed to meet the needs of professional actors and theater students seeking an introduction to Shakespeare & Company’s training methods as well as alumni who wish to refresh and reconnect with the work, the intensive will be led by long-time faculty members Andrew Borthwick-Leslie (he/him) and Corinna May (she/her).
Shakespeare & Company’s Center for Actor Training Weekend Intensives integrate voice, movement, and monologue work, beginning with an introduction to Shakespeare & Company’s aesthetic and a series of exercises involving voice, body, and memory work. The workshop then moves on to hone in on the actor’s individual voice and experiences, which are incorporated into a monologue that the actor has prepared for the class and culminates with the actors reconnecting with Shakespeare’s text, revisiting their monologues, and exploring how the structure of the verse might influence character and performance.
The intensive’s schedule is Friday, 6 p.m. to 10 p.m.; Saturday, 1:30 p.m. to 10 p.m., and Sunday, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. – the cost is $385. Actors who have completed the Center for Actor Training’s Month-Long Intensive, Summer Shakespeare Intensive (formerly the Summer Training Institute), or conservatory programs are eligible for a 15% tuition discount; members of acting unions and the Shakespeare Theatre Association receive a 10% discount. Scholarships are also available for BIPOC participants.
To apply, visit shakespeare.org, or call (413) 637-1199, ext. 114.
About the Center for Actor Training
Shakespeare & Company’s curriculum is internationally recognized as a deeply effective training experience for actors who aspire to bring their talent, intuition, and spirit to a higher level. Through the Center for Actor Training, actors, directors, writers, and teachers from all over the world come to work with the Company’s faculty to train their voices and their bodies with a daily regimen of demanding classes, and to delve deeply into their own imaginations, intellects, and emotional lives.
To bring a Weekend Intensive to your city, theater company, or university, contact us.
Faculty Bios
Andrew Borthwick-Leslie is a Shakespeare & Company Artist who has taught, directed, and acted with the Company for more than 20 years. He is also the Co-Artistic Director of The Humanist Project in New York, N.Y., and has taught acting and voice at the University of Pennsylvania, Temple University, Emerson College, DeSales University, and the University of Maryland among others. Borthwick-Leslie has run workshops for the Center for Renaissance Studies, the American Bar Association, the New England Homeless Veterans Shelter, and many more. He has directed, devised, or assisted with more than 50 productions—from Cymbeline to Perestroika. Most recently, he directed Love’s Labour’s Lost and Merchant of Venice for the Shakespeare Forum at the Gym at Judson in Washington Square, Macbeth and Frances Goes to War for The Humanist Project, and Double Falsehood for the Letter of Marque Theater Company.
Corinna May has been a Company Artist with Shakespeare & Company for more than 30 years, took her first Intensive in 1990, went on the education tour right afterward, and has been working ever since both as an actor and faculty member. May has acted in New York, N.Y., and regional theater in classical, modern, and new plays, and appeared in film, on television, in radio plays, and in audiobooks. She stars in the indie feature Split Ends, directed by Dorothy Lyman, and spent two years on the Broadway tour of The Graduate, with Jerry Hall, Linda Gray, Lorraine Bracco, Kelly McGillis, and Morgan Fairchild as the various Mrs. Robinsons. Her TV credits include “House of Cards” and “Law & Order”. Her one-woman play Dancing With The Czar was produced at Ventfort Hall in Lenox, Mass. She has also trained with the Society of American Fight Directors and with Fight Directors Canada. May is a Designated Linklater Method voice teacher and a Feldenkrais Method practitioner, currently serving as an adjunct assistant professor of Voice & Speech at the Actors Studio Drama School MFA program at Pace University. She has also taught at Smith College, MIT, Syracuse University, and many other colleges and universities.
COVID Safety Guidelines
All workshop participants and staff must be vaccinated against COVID-19 (including a booster shot), and will be tested on the first day of the workshop. Masks are not currently required, but this is subject to change depending on the recommendation of our COVID Safety Officer.
Photo Caption: Stephanie Heitman and Welland Scripps, taking part in Shakespeare & Company’s Center for Actor Training 2019 Month-Long Intensive. Photo by Christina Lane.
