To enroll, unless otherwise noted: Place check payable to DAOR in DAOR mailbox in Gateway. Include name, phone/email, class title.
Events take place at Hillside Performing Arts Studio, unless otherwise noted
DAOR Offers Scene Study Class Mondays, June 12-July 31 10 am - noon Fee: $50 for DAOR members $70 non-members (incl. membership fee)
Interested in learning about script analysis and developing your acting skills? Enjoy the work of well-known, modern playwrights? This in-depth screen study class is taught by experienced dramatist Stephanie Singer. The class is intended for both students new to acting and actors who want to refresh their script analysis skills.
The focus will be script analysis, line by line work, beats, character intentions, emotional adjustments and given circumstances – a basic, one step at a time, approach to understanding a character leading to authenticity in performance. Some at home script analysis homework, and working with scene partners on scenes outside of class to present to the class, will be necessary. Memorization is encouraged but not required.
The class is limited to 12 people, so reserve early with Roanne Butier: rbutier@sbcglobal.net Checks should be made out to DAOR and can be submitted at first class.
Play Reading Group
Third Monday each month, 10 am Gateway MPR #1 Facilitator: Tancred Agius No fee
The Play Reading group welcomes actors and non-actors. If interested, just show up at a meeting. The atmosphere is relaxed and fun. A new play is read at each meeting. The characters' parts are changed during the meeting so that each person has the opportunity to read aloud. Enjoyable discussions follow.
The group will read a variety of plays, some comedies, new and contemporary plays, and older plays. Members will have an opportunity to choose a play.
Movement on Stage, taught by experienced actor, director and drama teacher Cynthia Wilson, will focus on the fundamentals of stage movement, with special attention to concentration, awareness of the space your body fills, and your spatial relationship to others. You will learn how to sharpen your senses in order to fully perceive and elevate your physical presence on stage.
Although designed for beginning and intermediate actors, all are welcome.
To reserve a space, contact Roanne Butier rbutier@sbcglobal.net
Shulie Cowen's Improv Class
Session Ended
The marvelous Shulie Cowen is returning to Rossmoor for another weekend of her wonderful improv class.
There are only 20 spaces and the class fills up fast, so reserve now.
To register, contact Roanne Butier: rbutier@sbcglobal.net
Theater Games, Improv and Whatevers
Offered by Member Bobbi Ausubel Sponsored by the Giving Tree Club
Session Ended
Theater Games, Improv and Whatevers, a new class at Rossmoor, sponsored by the Giving Tree Club, will focus on games and improvisations that engage the body, the imagination and emotions. This is an opportunity for playful expressive movement, sound, and dialogue.
You are invited to participate in the first session free. No pre-registration required; just show up.
Theater Games, Improv and Whatevers will be led by Rossmoor residents Bobbi Ausubel and Rosalie Giffoniello. Bobbi has taught theater games internationally and in the US. She is an experienced theater teacher and director. She will be assisted by Rosalie, a speech therapist
Opening exercises assist participants in discovering their rich stories buried within. One does not need to know the story in advance. Early classes use warmups and improvisation to free the body, voice and imagination. Classes are devoted to finding one’s stories through lively group storytelling and/or improvisations. There is a great variety of subjects welcomed, memories and experiences people write about make attending the class and sharing in feedback interesting.
Next, the stories are edited to become dramatic monologues or scenes. One gets support to learn to rewrite for drama rather than literature.
Finally, participants get coaching to act their scenes. One free private coaching class is offered.
Participants are provided the opportunity, if they wish, to present their story as part of a well-attended showcase, performed with visuals, at the final class showing. Participants also may wish to be presented in the showcase on Channel 28.
The class celebrates the students who have taken their collection of stories into one-person shows. Cecelia Wambach did one performance as a fundraiser for REAL, an organization working with refugee education. Elliott Tertes gave his one-man show in August privately, for family and friends. Upcoming, Tancred Agius is now preparing his collection of stories and scenes for a future performance.
Recent stories included a marriage proposal, overcoming embarrassment at using a cane, love song to a tree, winning song at a Christmas celebration, making a wedding cake, fight to go to college, coming out to a loving but homophobic father, an abortion, and more.
Bobbi Ausubel, the instructor, is a professional theater director and acting coach. Also, she taught acting at the The Boston Conservatory for 20 years. All are invited to attend the first class free and see if it’s a fit for you.
“Shakespeare’s Sinners” on Zoom Session Ended
All lectures will be recorded for those who can’t make live sessions.
Course topics include: “The Meaning of Sin,” “The Id,” “Virtue/Vengeance,” “Reshaping History through the Drama of Sin,” and “Sin and the Human Body.”
In addition to discussions of Macbeth, The Tempest and Richard III, there will be many references to King Lear, which is being performed at Cal Shakes in Orinda from Sept. 7 to Oct. 2.
For more information or to enroll, email Philippa Kelley: philliecal@aol.com
Tuition check for $69.50 should be payable to: “Philippa Kelley” and mailed to: Philippa Kelley 51 Avenida Drive, Berkeley, CA 94708
Women's Monologues with Alan Bennett Session Ended
Facilitator: Jean Wilcox
To register, contact Roanne Butier: rbutier@sbcglobal.net or (925) 930-7356
Reprising the program first offered in April 2019, this 6-part video series will look at the women’s monologues for which Bennett is famous.
Although best known in this country as the writer of “The Lady in the Van,” with Maggie Smith, the program’s facilitator, Jean Wilcox, feels his monologues are better reflections of the human condition, each in a different way. These pieces are of such power as to have attracted such prominent actors as Maggie Smith, Patricia Routledge (Mrs. Bouquet) and Penelope Wilton (Mrs. Crawley in "Downton Abbey"), among others. Alan Bennett even performs one himself.
According to the LA Times, “In the hands of Alan Bennett, the tragic and painful are close bedfellows with the funny and the sexual . . . We laugh at the situations presented and then feel a twinge of guilt.”
We'll begin by taking turns reading the monologue (a different one each week), discussing it, and then watching the video. Men as well as women find these pieces engaging and compelling, so all are invited to participate.
For more information, contact: Jean Wilcox, (925) 937-6524 or jeanmary3@comcast.net
Intermediate Acting Class: Building a Character
Session Ended
Students choose a character from dramatic literature and explore external qualities (movement, speech, mannerisms, etc.) and subjective qualities (emotions and thoughts), and how to combine the two to produce a fully developed character. The class will include exercises on major principles of acting and how to apply them to the character.
Instructors Linda Kelp and Gail Wetherbee have extensive experience as actors and director in DAOR and other community settings.
To reserve your place in the class, contact: DAOR Academy Facilitator, Cynthia Wilson 925-949-8498.
Make checks payable to DAOR and send to: Roanne Butier 2516 Ptarmigan Dr. #2 Walnut Creek, CA. 94595 or place your check in DAOR box in Gateway Administration Office
At the first session, each student will be assigned a partner and a comedy scene. The paired students will then study and rehearse the scene in depth for the remainder of the course. Commitment to minimum homework will yield optimum results but no memorization will be required.
“The knowledge that every day there is something more to learn, something higher to reach for, something new to make for others, makes each day infinitely precious” - Uta Hagen -