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Register for more than one masterclass and get a discount
- Early bird discount: $200
- One class: $250
- Two classes: $450 (10% off)
* Register online for your first Masterclass and contact Renata Soares at renata@irondale.org to claim your discount on your second and third registrations.
SPECIAL DISCOUNTS TO:
Actors Equity, SAG and DBAA members.
Contact renata@irondale for direct link.
Members of IRONDALE DIRECTOR'S CIRCLE get FREE TUITION for all three classes!
Contact Jacquline Joncas at jacqueline@irondale.org to register.
Irondale’s Mythic Masterclass Series: How the Ensemble Came to Be and How It Stayed That Way
The Irondale Ensemble Project began as a dream shared by three young actors determined to create their own work. They dedicated years to researching, playing, and exploring new ways to breathe life into performances and to use acting techniques to tackle real-world challenges.
Now, over 40 years later, as they look to the future and consider their legacy, the founders are eager to pass on the knowledge they’ve accumulated to the next generation of theatre makers, teaching artists, and improvisers. For the first time ever, the three founders are offering a master class series where they will share the most valuable insights and techniques they’ve developed throughout their careers.
This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity that may never come again, and spots are limited. Don’t miss your chance—register now to secure your place!
When the renowned actor, director and acting teacher Konstantin Stanislavsky was under house arrest, for the last four years of his life, he continued his exploration of the acting process. In his private workshops, he developed a technique for an early rehearsal exploration known as Active Analysis. Abandoning early ‘table work’ he immediately got the actors up on their feet.
Active Analysis is a joyous way of exploring the inner actions of the story and finding a personal connection to the material. Using psychophysical instincts where the body not the mind leads, the actor explores the text through a series of etudes.
This playful process taught by Barbara MacKenzie-Wood has greatly influenced her approach to actor training.
The material for this class will be taken from Anton Chekov’s The Seagull.
For professional actor at all stages of their careers.
DATES: October 12, 19 and 26
TIME: 11am-2pm
LOCATION: Fairbanks Studio, Houghton Hall – 22 E 30th St, New York, NY 10016
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Are you an artist who longs to work more in long-form improvisation? Are you seeking a way to bring your improv center stage? Does devised theatre intrigue you but also seem daunting? Welcome to the world of Collisions.
Collisions, Irondale’s unique approach to long-form improvisation, takes a classic and challenges its "assumptions" by mashing it with a profane, improvised story, seeming at first glance to have nothing to do with the original play but questions its morals, expands its audience and in the end deepens its plot. For example: Rosalind from As You Like It runs off to the forest of Arden where she meets an American anti-hero, the notorious bank robber, Pretty Boy Floyd.
Explore the world of Collisions, long-form improv, collaborative “work-ups”, and excursions into the intuitive with Irondale’s Artistic Director, Jim Niesen.
Recommended for actors with a basic familiarity with Spolin/Sills improv skills.
DATES: November 30, December 7 & 14
TIME: 11am-2pm
LOCATION: A.R.T NY – 520 8th Avenue, suite 319
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Are you an actor, director or teacher trying to build an ensemble? Are you someone who needs to build an effective team?
For 40 years Irondale has been strengthening communities and creating ensembles. We teach people how to work together with compassion and empathy. Improv is the key, but there’s so much more.
This workshop, led by Terry Greiss, Irondale’s co-founder, ensemble actor and Executive Director, uses the Irondale method, derived from the work of Viola Spolin, Augusto Boal, Keith Johnstone and Irondale’s 41 years of creating theatre-building ensembles with:
For early and mid-career actors and Teaching Artists, theatre teachers, and anyone interested in how groups are formed.
DATES: January 4, 11 & 25
TIME: 11am-2pm
LOCATION: Booth Studio, Houghton Hall – 22 E 30th St, New York, NY 10016
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Barbara Mackenzie-Wood led Carnegie Mellon University’s Acting/Music Theatre Option for thirteen years culminated in her being honored as a University Professor, a national honor given to select members of the teaching profession who have “distinguished themselves by achieving international recognition for their work, their research, and their level of achievement.” She created the theatre program of Global Camps, a pioneering, international venture fighting the devastating effects of HIV/AIDS on children in South Africa. She has appeared in more than sixty-five acting roles in New York and regional theatre and film and is a founding member of the Irondale Ensemble Project.
Jim Niesen has served as Artistic Director of the Irondale Ensemble Project’s since its founding in 1983, directing more than eighty plays among them nine by Brecht including the three play cycle Brecht in Exile and sixteen by Shakespeare most prominently the epic marathon 1599 - Henry V, Julius Caesar, As You Like It, and Hamlet – all performed in a single evening. Mr. Niesen created the Irondale production of YOU CAN’T WIN, which took the Grand Prix at the International Drama Festival in St. Petersburg, Russia. With Barbara Mackenzie-Wood he devised the theatre program for Global Camps a non-profit organization working with children affected by HIV/AIDS in developing African countries. In 2018 he was named a distinguished alumnus of Ohio University where he serves on the College of Fine Arts Leadership Council. In 2019 he was selected to be part of the US delegations to Santiago a Mil, the largest arts festival in Chile and the Joint Chinese US Theatre Conference in Shanghai. Mr. Niesen is listed in WHO'S WHO IN AMERICA and the BROOKLYN MAGAZINE named him one of the “100 Most Influential People in Brooklyn Culture.” His articles on theater have been published in GESTUS and THEATER THREE. He is a contributor to the book AMERICAN DRAMATURGY and writes a weekly column on theatre: What’s on Jim’s Mind.
Terry Greiss is a co-founder of Irondale, where he is also an actor and the Executive Director. He has performed in more than 60 roles with the company, and he is a creator of most of Irondale’s original works and education programs. He has conducted hundreds of workshops in public schools, prisons, theaters and professional training programs.
Terry was the Founding President of the Network of Ensemble Theatres and the Downtown Brooklyn Arts Alliance wher he continues to serve on its Board of Trustees. He was a panelist for the New York Foundation for the Arts, New York State Council on the Arts and the National Endowment for the Arts. In 2008 he was invited by the US Embassy to lecture and teach improvisation in Russia. He has taught at the New School, the University of Wisconsin Drama Center. In 2010 he was awarded Brooklyn Arts Exchange’s Arts Education Award. From 2015-2020 he was an improvisation instructor for the Alan Alda Center for Communicating Science. In 2015, he created To Protect, Serve and Understand Irondale’s improv training program for NYC police officers, designed to heal some of the tensions between officers and community members and provide real tools to improve communication and understanding.
Terry is a graduate of the New York (LaGuardia) High School for the Performing Arts and Sarah Lawrence College. Outside of Irondale he has performed at the Manhattan Theatre Club and the Cincinnati Playhouse, in Sarah Ruhl’s adaptation of Three Sisters, directed by John Doyle. If you watch carefully, you can see him on episodes of Boardwalk Empire and Sneaky Pete. He is married to the amazing actress Vicky Gilmore and they have a son, Liam.
For more than 40 years, Irondale has been a place where artists and audiences matter.
To do the work we do, we count on our community of friends, neighbors and citizen artists who share our value of creating projects that speak to the issues of today.
We are entirely in debt to our community. Your support makes it possible.
DONATE TODAY to help us guarantee the future of our company, artists & staff.
