Great conversation today with Marina Lai on ARACITY Radio — Christine Probst and Peter Zazzali, the actors in our upcoming production of THE GUYS, by Anne Nelson, along with director Erik Abbott, talking about the show.
Did you miss it?
No worries, have a listen here:
Actors Repertory Theatre Luxembourg is proud to announce
A Neutral Mask and Clown Workshop
With New York and Paris based actress and teacher
CARINE MONTBERTRAND
When and Where:
Sunday, 03 June 2018
At: Bamhaus
18A / 18D rue de la Cimenterie
L-1337 Luxembourg-Dommeldange
Time: To Be Confirmed
Cost: 100 €
OR
Register AND pay by 12pm (12.00), Saturday, 19 May 2018 and receive a 25 € discount — only 75 € !
(This offer has been extended but will not be again.)
About Carine:
Carine is a professional actress based in New York who has performed in most of the United States. Born in France, She is a dual citizen who grew up in the US (American mother / French father).
As a young actress, she developed a love of French classical theatre and decided to go back to her roots to train at France’s premier acting school, the Conservatoire National Superieur d’Art Dramatique in Paris. Later she received an MFA in acting from the University of Delaware’s Professional Theatre Training Program. Her roles have spanned a large range of types from Lady Macbeth to Brecht’s Arturo Ui to Laura in The Glass Menagerie. She loves transforming and creating roles for all styles of theatre — classical, contemporary, and original.
As a freelance actor, she’s performed Off-Broadway, on tour, and for many major US regional theatres. She’s also been a member of several exceptional theatre companies including The Acting Company, The Flying Machine, and University of Delaware’s Resident Ensemble Players. In related fields, Carine is the award winning narrator of numerous audiobooks as well as an acting teacher specializing in neutral and Commedia dell’Arte mask.
As a teacher, aCarine has over twenty years of experience. During that time she has taught everything from basic acting to Shakespeare to mask work. Her students have ranged in age from high school students and teens to undergraduate students (BFA and BA) to graduate students (MFA) and professionals. Her special passion is teaching neutral and Commedia dell’Arte mask, which she first studied at the Conservatoire National Superieur d’Art Dramatique in Paris. She has taught mask at Stella Adler Studio of Acting in New York, the University of Delaware, and Amherst College among others. Carine has also spent many years as a voice and speech teacher at The American Musical and Dramatic Academy (AMDA) in New York. She coaches accent acquisition privately in New York or via Skype, and is also an audition coach.
This three-hour workshop will focus on Neutral Mask work and will incorporate some Clown work.
For ages fifteen and up.
Neutral Mask
A Neutral Mask is a Mask with no expression and no opening for the mouth. The work is silent. The exercises we learn will enhance the actors’ spatial awareness, timing, listening, concentration, management of focus, economy of movement, spontaneity, and ability to guide the audience. Students will have a new idea of what it is to be present on stage and a side benefit will be enhanced stage presence. They will discover the expressive potential in the most basic movement and become acutely aware of extraneous or habitual patterns or postures revealed by the simplicity of the Mask. With Neutral Masks actors find their simplest states, devoid of personal character as far as possible. Onto this blank canvas they can later build and add the traits of a brand new character of any style, age or type, while they themselves transform and become unrecognisable. I tell my students that what we learn with Neutral Mask is the skeleton that holds us up on stage, the most basic stage technique.
TO REGISTER or for further information, please contact Actors Rep: ActorsRep.Erik@gmail.com
Please also visit Carine’s website:
http://carinemontbertrand.com
Don’t miss this unique workshop with an extraordinary theatre artist!
Actors Rep regrets to announce that we must cancel the Actors Lab PLAY 2 Series of workshops that was scheduled to begin Thursday, 15. March 2018.
Actors Rep is a very small non-profit professional theatre company. Our experience has shown that we cannot present workshops and classes without the minimum enrolment needed to cover the costs of offering them. Unfortunately, with PLAY 2, we fell short of the minimum number needed.
We’re very sorry, as we were excited about this new section of workshops. We will offer a section of classes or workshops later in the year. We also plan at least one short (one- or two-day) workshop in 2018.
Actors Repertory Theatre Luxembourg Actors Lab
Announces
PLAY 2: A Series of Six Workshops
Actors Repertory Theatre Luxembourg (Actors Rep) announces its Spring 2018 Actors Lab offering, ‘Play 2’, a series of six workshops taught by Actors Rep Associate Artistic Director Christine Probst.
Christine Probst, Actors Rep Associate Artistic Director and Instructor for the PLAY 2 Series of Workshops
Actors Lab is a place to experiment, succeed, fail, laugh, cry, whisper, scream, twist and shout. Actors Lab will once again focus on the need to play and how we can use play more as actors and as non-actors.
We invite anyone who wishes to explore the personal creative self to come and play with us.
Actors need to be in full access of childlike curiosity and an ability to play (also very helpful for non-actors), to find the truth of self and eventually the characters.
This series of workshops will explore play as another way of finding truth.
Actors Lab continues with The Play Series. The first of The Play Series focused on opening, experimenting and playing, and we will continue opening, experimenting and playing.
Play 2 Series will also begin to dip into the play as a structure as well as an action. The Actors’ Lab series Play 2 will focus on ‘The Play’—that is, the theatrical play. We will explore and delve into scene and character work through play. This series of workshops is reserved for experienced students.
If you would like to participate in this series you must submit a CV or have previously participated in a prior Actors Lab acting class or workshop.
We will work with several different kinds of texts and play with how one can find a character through play. These workshops will be physical, so please come prepared to move.
‘The creation of something new is not accomplished by the intellect but by the play instinct acting from inner necessity. The creative mind plays with the objects it loves.’ – Carl Jung
When and Where:
Thursdays: 15, 22, 29 March / 12, 19, 26 April 2018 / 7:30pm – 10:00pm
Location: TBA
Cost for class (six sessions): 300 €
UPDATE:
We have confirmed that the PLAY 2 series of workshops will be at
Bamhaus
18A / 18 D rue de la Cimenterie (Old ArcelorMittal site)
L1337 Luxembourg-Dommeldange
Contact Actors Rep for more information and to register: ActorsRep.Erik@gmail.com
Happy New Year
from
Actors Repertory Theatre
Luxembourg!
We hope that 2017 has been a good year for all of you.
It was an incredible year for Actors Rep in many ways.
And it is all thanks to you, our committed, enthusiastic audiences, supporters, friends, and fans.
This year we were able to engage with English-language audiences and communities more than ever before.
For the first time, we produced three shows:
#WTF HAPPENED? ON THE PHENOMENON OF TRUMP (September)
BIG BOYS (November)
DEAR SANTA… (November / December)
Audience Success!
Combined, the audience totals were our best ever. More people saw an Actors Rep show this year than in any of our five years of producing passionate, professional thought-provoking English-language theatre in Luxembourg.
Take a look at the small photo gallery of pictures from those productions on our website:
Additional pictures are also on our Facebook page.
What You Had to Say
Audiences loved our 2017 shows — and so did the critics:
‘Absolutely stupendous!’ – Wendy Winn, Chronicle.lu (#WTF Happened?)
‘The audience leaves breathless… and having been highly entertained.’ – Duncan Roberts, Delano (#WTF Happened?)
‘A thoroughly entertaining evening.’ – Jess Bauldry, Delano (Big Boys)
‘You’ll walk home wondering just what you’ll be asking Santa for.’ – Sarita Rao, Luxembourg Times (Dear Santa…)
New Faces and a Favourite Collaborator Returns
We were privileged to work again with Peter Zazzali (left, below), who travelled from the US to direct Dear Santa…, and, for the first time, Luxembourg actor Maximillien Jadin (right, below), lit up the Actors Rep stage in Big Boys. Leslie Fischbach also came on board as an invaluable Assistant Director for Big Boys and Dear Santa…
Jill Robertson Kibbey designed the wonderful props and set for Big Boys, and Jess Arling did the terrific graphic designs you saw on our posters, flyers, programmes, and Facebook banners.
And Deirdre Wolohan and e2advance continued the terrific work on our website.
We couldn’t have done it without any of them.
Peter Zazzali
Maximillien Jadin
Classes and Workshops: Actors Lab and Guest Instructor
Associate Artistic Director Christine Probst (left, below) taught four sections of classes delving into the Development of Truth in Acting, Play for the Actor, and Vocal explorations. Keep an eye out on the website for new classes coming soon!
We presented an ‘Impulse Training’ workshop with the great Cologne based actor, director, and acting, comedy and Improv trainer Hans Kieseier (right, below).
Christine Probst-Staffen
Hans Kieseier
Lëtz Go Local!
In March (in Ettelbruck) and again in October (in Luxembourg) we had a stand at ‘De Lokale Maart’, a recurring event presented by lët’z go local. Dozens of people stopped by, chatted, learned about Actors Rep and signed up for our email list.
We look forward to participating in more ‘Lokale Maarts’ later this year!
Ready, Set… Live!
Finally, we were honoured to be onstage at Delano’s final ‘Delano Live’ event of the year with the Théâtres de la Ville de Luxembourg and the Théâtre National du Luxembourg, as well as being featured with them in their cover story on professional English-language theatre in the Grand Duchy.
Onward into 2018!
We have big plans for the coming year.
In June, we plan to produce Anne Nelson’s extraordinary and profoundly moving play The Guys, about a New York City firehouse Captain who loses eight men in the September 11th attacks. Paralysed by his grief and shock, he enlists the help of a journalist to help him write memorials for his lost comrades.
The New York Post described The Guys as ‘a generous, sad, touching play about the braveries of grief’.
The Guys will feature Peter Zazzali and Christine Probst and will be directed by Erik Abbott.
We’re also planning an autumn 2018 show, to announce by spring.
December 2018!
After an enthusiastic reception from public performances and a corporate Holiday party at State Street in Kirchberg, We will revive Dear Santa… during the 2018 holidays. We will host a few public performances and the show will also be available as an entertainment for your company or organisation’s holiday event.
Look for details about booking the show for your holiday event in late summer.
On the Road?!
Also in the summer, we hope to present #WTF Happened? in two theatre festivals in the US.
Applications have been submitted, and we are eagerly awaiting to hear back — fingers crossed!
Resolutions for 2018 and Beyond:
We are committed to continuing to deepen our connection to the Luxembourg English-speaking community.
But we need your help.
Professional theatre is expensive to produce. We rely on ticket sales, of course, but those box office receipts cover only a fraction of the costs of producing professional theatre, even for a small company such as Actors Rep. The rest comes from grants and donations – including individual contributions.
We were very fortunate in 2017 as we saw our contributions from corporate and individual sources rise – allowing us to present our fullest schedule of programming in our history.
Still, the financial challenges are steep.
Would you consider making a contribution to help us continue that success?
Drop us a line (info@actorsrep.lu or ActorsRep.Erik@gmail.com) or phone (+352 621 304 916) and we can answer any questions you might have.
Our bank details are below.
It’s about the people.
Every production has people behind the scenes making what the actors do onstage possible.
Like all professional theatre companies, we are always looking for great actors, but we also need people whose passions may lie backstage in designing or building scenery, helping with costumes or props, or in administration or fundraising or publicity.
Actors Rep is committed to establishing a permanent professional English-language theatre in Luxembourg. We are very proud of what we have been able to accomplish towards that goal in the last five years.
You are the most vital part of the community which believes in and supports that vision.
What can you do?
Do you have fundraising skills? Get in touch. (Please!)
Can you help organise events to help us reach a wider audience?
Can you spend a couple of hours distributing posters and flyers?
Do you have a barn or other space where we can store things?
Do you have a space where we can rehearse?
Do you know of a space where we can perform? (Appropriate performance spaces are difficult to find and book and are always expensive.)
Do you have an idea of a play you’d like to see us produce? A focus for a workshop or classes you’d like to take?
There are so many ways you can be a part of the community we’re building and the vision we’re creating.
Together.
And of course if you or your company would like to make a financial gift to support us or to become one of our sponsors, please contact us.
Most importantly, be part of our audience.
We hope we see you at the theatre!
Actors Repertory Theatre Luxembourg (Actors Rep) has had a great year and we’re very grateful to our supporters, donors, and — most of all — our audiences. Thank you for letting us share our work with you this year. We had a great time — we hope you did as well.
A few pictures (all taken by the great Margo Skwara), a few memories…
DEAR SANTA… (November / December)
At State Street Bank in Kirchberg
At Café Rocas
BIG BOYS (November / at Arendt House)
#WTF HAPPENED? ON THE PHENOMENON OF TRUMP (September / Théâtre National du Luxembourg)
The Coal Miner
The Congresswoman
The Conspiracy Theorist
Actors Repertory Theatre Luxembourg (Actors Rep), the professional English-language theatre company, is proud to announce its Autumn 2017 Season of three productions:
• #WTF Happened? On the Phenomenon of Trump
• Big Boys
• Dear Santa…
The company’s ambitious season opens with the original solo piece #WTF Happened? On the Phenomenon of Trump, to be presented September 20 – 24 at the Théâtre National du Luxembourg ‘Bar National’ (lobby) space: 194, route de Longwy, L-1940 Luxembourg.
Originally created by Actors Rep Artistic Director Erik Abbott, the play was commissioned by Théâtre d’Esch and developed with Director Charles Muller as a piece for the Ville de Esch-sur-Alzette’s ‘Nuit de la Culture’ in May, 2017. Only short segments were performed.
#WTF Happened? On the Phenomenon of Trump,
Now re-imagined and substantially revised, the show theatrically explores the curious phenomenon of the Donald Trump Presidency. One actor (Abbott) portrays several Trump supporters. These characters, some of whose monologues are based on published interviews and statements, present a variety of voices and viewpoints—alternately sympathetic, funny, perhaps frightening—and reveal a complex emotional and cultural tapestry examining the Trump effect in a compelling, theatrical way.
Actors Rep Associate Artistic Director Christine Probst directs.
In November, Actors Rep partners with Arendt House in Kirchberg to present Big Boys, by New York playwright Rich Orloff. Big Boys is a hilarious satire on corporate culture that the New York Times described as ‘rip-roaringly funny’, with ‘snappy dialogue and non-stop mayhem’. This ‘over-the-top comic fable’, as Orloff describes it, pokes fun at the peculiarities of the business world in a style he says is ‘influenced by the surreal energy and comic rhythms of vaudeville comedy’.
Actors Rep will be present the production in Arendt House’s auditorium (where the company participated in an evening of Shakespeare readings for the British Ambassador to Luxembourg in January 2016). In performing this corporate play in a corporate setting, Actors Rep brings to the doorstep of the Luxembourg business community a boisterous laugh filled event that (gently) pokes fun at business—juxtaposing the onstage fun with its real-world counterpart.
MAXIMILLIEN JADIN
Probst will again direct and Luxembourgish actor Maximillien Jadin will perform with Abbott. Jadin trained at the American Musical and Dramatic Academy in New York. We are delighted he is making his Actors Rep debut in Big Boys.
The show opens with performances for Arendt House employees and invited guests on November 15 and 16, and continues with public performances November 17 – 19 at Arendt House: 41 Avenue J-F Kennedy, L-2082 Luxembourg.
ERIK ABBOTT
Finally, during the festive season, Actors Rep takes to the road with the world premiere of Dear Santa…, a sweet and funny half-hour play about a couple’s holiday plans with their family. In this completely portable soupçon of charm, they write letters to Santa, exploring a latent childlike sense of wonder and review their gift list, chuckling at their extended family and celebrating their connections. Developed by Actors Rep, Dear Santa… is available as an entertainment for seasonal parties and events—great theatre and holiday cheer to deliver! —and will also be presented in three public performances. (Venue to be announced.)
Dear Santa… is a warm cup of festive delight—to go!
In addition to the three productions, Actors Rep will also continue its commitment to theatre education and training opportunities through its Actors Lab programme with autumn classes. One section of acting classes and a section of stage voice technique have begun, both taught by Christine Probst, and a second section of acting classes planned for November and December. The company also plans a workshop—topic to be determined.
Please check the Actors Rep Facebook page and back here for additional details.
CHRISTINE PROBST
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