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Workshops

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Get out of your head and into your ridiculous in this 2-day clown intensive where we learn how to play joyfully, listen to the audience, and connect with our inner goofball. We will discover what makes us laugh, the power of fully committing, and the incredible freedom that comes when we bravely share our foolish selves with one another.

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All levels welcome!

Scholarships Available!

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$150

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March 23 & 24

12:00 - 4:00 pm​

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Register HERE!

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COLDTOWNE THEATRE

1700 East 2nd St

Austin, TX 78702

 

CB GOODMAN is the Founding Director of Grackle Jack Productions. Her work incorporates disparate source materials, clown, bouffon, drag, physical theatre, and puppetry and has been presented at venues in Austin, New Orleans, Charlotte, Atlanta, and New York City. Her current show, In The Beginning received Best Clown, Top Grossing, and the Jill Miersch Award at the 2023 Frigid New York Fringe and the Producer's Choice Award at the 2023 Atlanta Fringe Festival.. CB has trained with clown teachers Philippe Gaulier, Aitor Basauri, Mick Barnfather, and Shannan Calcutt as well as theatre companies Complicité, Atlantic Theatre Company, and SITI Company. She has been teaching clown infused classes since 2014, winning the Teaching Award at Southwestern University in 2020. She also directs and designs for local colleges and theatre companies.

Other Workshops We Offer

Spymonkey's Intro to Clown Masterclass with Aitor Basauri (click here to learn more!)
In this workshop you will learn to discover what makes you funny, hone your skills, and practice making an audience belly laugh. The positive group dynamic will allow you to focus on following your impulse, being adventurous, taking risks and learning to trust your spontaneous self. In this highly enjoyable workshop Aitor will teach you technically how to make people laugh through status play-offs, parody, improvisation and many more games and exercises developing trust and complicity with the group. Be prepared to find the pleasure in your own ridiculousness, stay optimistic, discover your funny, and get ready to laugh until your face hurts.

Ridiculous Vulnerability

Want to uncover what makes you and only you funny? Looking to improve your improv, stand up, listening skills, or stage presence? Then you have to FREE YOUR INNER IDIOT! We all have inner idiots and through clown we can begin to figure out who that idiot is and learn to share it with an audience. Being honest, sensitive, and vulnerable are the keys. When you share your idiot with an audience they will go with you anywhere and watch you do anything. Clown techniques help you gain access to your idiot as well as help you gain confidence, improve audience sensitivity, and develop the skill of dialing in performance energy all the while laughing your ass off. Through games, exercises, flops, and laughs we will try and discover together what makes you uniquely funny.

Puppetry
What makes an object come to life? In this visual storytelling workshop students will explore that question through different types of puppetry. From simple everyday objects to Bunraku-style puppetry, students will create stories, build projects and experiment with ways to say less and show more.

Solo Playmaking
In this class students write and perform original solo pieces. Students will create a five to ten minute piece using material from their own life experiences, imaginations, personal objects, newspaper clippings, obituaries, celebrity doppelgängers, passions, and pet peeves. Readings from Anna Deavere Smith, Nilaja Sun, John Leguizamo, Holly Hughes, Lisa Kron, Spalding Gray, and other solo performers will be required. Students will leave this class with an original piece of theater that they may expand on in the future, a variety of physical and written methods to develop characters, and tools to help them create new work. 

DIY Playmaking
Money and resources should never get in the way of making theatre. In this workshop students learn how to to tackle a variety of stories from plays by Euripides to monster movies. By combining accessible materials and creating innovative staging techniques, the stories come to life in an entirely new way.  

Le Jeu: From Playing to Making
Learn how to play your way into performance and devising new work. Through game-playing and improvisational exercises, students will discover "complicite" (how to work together) and "jeu" (the pleasure of playing). This class focuses on identifying the rules of a game, playing within them or against them, and ultimately realizing that there is always a game happening.  

We love to share how we make theatre with you and from time to time bring our favorite artists to Austin to share what they know as well. Check back for upcoming workshops or better yet sign up for our newsletter.

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Happy to customize any workshop in order to fit your needs.

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Just email us at CB[at]GrackleJack.com

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