DATES: Saturday, August 17 & Sunday, August 18, 2024
TIMES: Saturday - Noon-3pm; Sunday - Noon-5pm
LOCATION: Tapestry Dance Studios, 2015 E Riverside Dr, Bldg 7, Austin, TX 78741
TUITION: $125.00 (includes both days of the workshop)
No matter your experience level or point in your career, whether preparing for a role or devising original material, this playful and physical workshop will provide a tool kit to discover dynamic and specific characters relevant for any genre.
As “mad scientists” in this character lab, expect to:
Play games to explore the versatility of your instrument to unleash the thousands of characters within;
Draw upon the world around us to embody rhythms and dynamics that spark characterization;
Improvise to find specificity, discover the “counter-mask” and learn what plays to an audience;
Leave with a new character or find new playable layers of an existing character; and
Have fun, be in community, and move your body and spirit!
The stakes are low and the joy is high - join us as we experiment and play in the Character Lab!
Attendance is capped at 8 performers so secure your spot now! Come prepared ready to move.
Please direct any additional questions you may have to auditions@austinshakespeare.org
IMPORTANT: If you are attempting to register and the workshop is sold out, please use the button below to put yourself on the workshop’s wait list!
Michael “Dola” Amendola
(he/him)
A Philadelphia & NYC-based performer-creator, educator and clown who shares the language of “play” as a path to empowerment, discovery, and community.
Over the past 15 years, he has performed in over 40 productions across the US including 600 shows with the Off-Broadway award-nominated comedy hit, Drunk Shakespeare. Select regional credits include: Baal (starring Gabriel Luna and Adriene Mishler, directed by Obie and Lucille Lortel award-winning director Dustin Wills); the solo show Every Brilliant Thing at Mill Mountain Theatre; Our Town at ZACH (Austin Critics’ Table Award for ‘Best Supporting Actor’) The Tempest, Measure for Measure and Love’s Labour’s Lost with Austin Shakespeare and 100+ performances as Puck in A Midsummer Night’s Dream with the American Shakespeare Center.
He earned his BFA in Acting from Texas State University and has trained in various territories with world-renowned teachers such as Giovanni Fusetti, Lauren Lane, Aitor Basauri, Sophie Amieva, Julia Proctor, Chris Bayes, Adam Lazarus, Eric Davis and The Royal Shakespeare Company. His desire to teach and create new work in new ways has led him to The Pig Iron School where he is currently pursuing an MFA in Devised Performance.
He follows a clown ethos in order to disorient power and nourish the curiosity of what is possible.