Event

Melodrama Physical Theatre Workout

COME PLAY:

Debbie McMahon, Artistic Director of the Grand Guignolers in Los Angeles, leads a physically theatrical workout to get you out of your head and into your body. This is a heightened and physically expressive style ideal for actors seeking to improve movement skills, physical theatre artists looking for a 'workout' and non-artists who want to sweat and have fun. It is the only training of its type in Los Angeles. Melodrama is the most expressive of Western theatre forms, closest to the theatrical impulse, based in heightened physical gesture, high stakes, the struggle of virtue and evil ... to music. It is the visceral expression of Artaud's "athlete of the emotions." It's cathartic, powerful and FUN! Dress to move. All levels welcome.

A one-night INTRO TO GRAND GUIGNOL will also be offered separately (see website for details). The Grand Guignolers present critically acclaimed sold out shows blending traditional genres: melodrama, Commedia dell'Arte, clown, Grand Guignol, dance, vaudeville and puppetry in a 1920s Parisian event-like atmosphere. Their last production, Absinthe, Opium and Magic: 1920s Shanghai earned an honorary award from the LA Drama Critics Circle and played both in Hollywood and at The Actors' Gang by invitation of Artistic Director, Tim Robbins. Debbie earned her M.A. at NYU in Performance Studies and studied physical theatre at Dell'Arte International School of Physical Theatre. teaches melodrama, Grand Guignol, and movement with Grand Guignolers, at Dell'Arte and USC and has clowned for Cirque du Soleil.