ON THE SQUARE PRODUCTIONS PRESENTS
Joy in the Performing Arts: An Empathetic Lab for Theater Practitioners
Joy. What brought us to the stage in the first place, and also the first feeling to fade from a rehearsal room gone sour. Why does this happen so often amongst people who make a living understanding people? How can we prevent it?
“Joy in the Performing Arts” will begin with two assumptions. First, joy is attainable in any collaboration. Second, theater artists have a unique capacity for joy, and thus a humanist responsibility to cultivate and spread it both in the theater and beyond.
From there, we will engage in a thorough exploration of the role of joy in our craft. Join director and teacher Stephen Kaliski and an inspiring line-up of weekly guests, including Tony Award winner Michael Cerveris, NY theater legend Austin Pendleton, and Pulitzer Prize finalist Sarah Ruhl, as we engage in an 8-class intensive geared toward all theater artists, from actors to directors to designers to playwrights to administrators. We will mix solo work tailored toward your individual goals, ensemble exercises, conversation, and Q&A with our guests on how they’ve built a career based in empathy. Part practical technique class and part big-picture inquiry, “Joy in the Performing Arts” puts one of our most necessary and elusive creative skills under the spotlight.
DATES: Sundays 2:00-6:00 and Wednesdays 6:00-10:00, June 2 – 26 in Midtown
PRICE: $400
TO APPLY: Email resume and letter of interest to summerjoyclass@gmail.com
Stephen Kaliski is a director, playwright, and educator. Directing credits include In the Next Room or the vibrator play (Yale Dramatic Association), The Minervae (On the Square; Backstage “Critic’s Pick”), Cardenio, The Violet Hour and The Dumb Waiter (Brooklyn College), West Lethargy (59E59, Edinburgh Fringe, New York Fringe), and His Minute Hand (Hollywood Fringe, 45 Bleecker). Playwriting credits include West Lethargy, which was published in Plays and Playwrights 2011 (ed. Martin Denton), His Minute Hand, Any May Now, and Memoriam, a sequel to Euripides’ Alcestis. He has worked with such directors as Austin Pendleton (Three Sisters, Assistant Director) and Michael Grandage (Evita on Broadway, SDC Traube Fellow) as well as with The Royal Shakespeare Company, Classic Stage Company, and LAByrinth Theater Company. Stephen received his M.F.A. in directing from Brooklyn College and has taught acting, directing, public speaking, and master classes at Brooklyn College, NYU, Fordham, Yale, Talent Unlimited High School, and BMCC. www.stephenkaliski.com.
