Date and Time of Workshops:
September 22, and 29 from 12-4PM.
September 15 from 12-2pm.

Learn how to make people laugh by attempting to make them to cry! Learn the ins and outs of improvising the exaggerated, stylized, and very dramatic form of Melodrama.

Through games and scenes, students will study the use of melodramatic acting for comedy, whether approached as a parody, or through a sincere effort to be beautiful. We will use scenes and elements of Victorian-era French and English melodramas, but the skills we will study draw from clown and improv to teach students to be sensitive to a live audience, make big choices confidently, recover well from failure, and to play clearly with multiple scene partners.

You do not need performance or improv experience to take this workshop!

Jack and Zoe are two clowns from the USA who make comedy shows in non-traditional (but also traditional) performance spaces, running on donations and accessible ticket prices. We believe that live performance should be accessible to the masses, and we like to make you go ha ha.

Zoe (she/her) is a theater maker, visual artist and teacher from Chatham, NY. She has worked with Ars Nova, Shakespeare & Company, Olney Theatre Center, Pittsfield Shakespeare in the Park, and Columbia County Youth Theatre. She is an alumna of Bard College, the Eugene O’Neill Theater Center’s National Theater Institute and Ecole Philippe Gaulier.

Zoe is also a professional babysitter.

Jack is a comedian from Tulsa, Oklahoma who studied to be a chemistry professor and dropped out to become a clown. After leading the sketch department of UCLA’s comedy club and hosting a variety show out of his apartment, Jack left LA to study at École Philippe Gaulier in Étampes, France, where he met Zoe and Friends™ and created A Night of Drama.

Jack is also a professional forager.

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Tickets: $125.00 for all five sessions (in-advance) or $25 single session drop-in (at-the-door)

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Parking is limited at the venue so please utilize the three public parking lots in Town. One is across from the Post Office, one is behind Berkshire Bank and the other is just off Main Street. They are clearly marked. Do not park at Trúc Orient Express Restaurant or the Post Office or you might receive a ticket.

All sales are final – The Foundry is unable to make any returns or exchanges.