Stanford TAPS - Brechtian Storytelling Workshop

MONDAY, OCTOBER 29 - Thursday, NOVEMBER 1 AT 7-9PM
Brechtian Storytelling Workshop with Sean Donovan
Prosser Studio Theater in Memorial Auditorium | Open to Stanford Students
RSVP (or send questions) to [email protected]

This workshop intensive will explore solo original performance using our own personal life stories as a source of material and creativity. Employing the notions of Brecht’s Epic Theatre (alienation, distance from character) and drawing on the work of Dutch director and teacher, Paul Binnerts, this class explores the relationship between performer and character. The workshop begins with the actor telling a story from his personal life. What follows are a series of exercises that first help him create and maintain a distance from that story and then re-approach the story from a new perspective. We will also focus on the notions of presence, the inner clown and task-based, “real-time” acting. At the conclusion of the workshop, the students will perform original solo performances created from their personal stories. The workshop will be taught by Sean Donovan. Mr. Donovan has trained, among others, with Paul Binnerts in “Real-time Acting,” Steve Wangh in Grotowski-based theater, Chris Bayes in Clowning, and legendary New York Acting teacher Michael Howard in Acting. He holds a BFA in Acting from New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts in the Experimental Theater Wing.

Sean Donovan is a New York based actor, dancer, and writer. He is one of the original performers with the critically acclaimed Witness Relocation Theatre Company with whom he has been making work both nationally and abroad for the past ten years. He is also a dancer with the Bessie Award winning Jane Comfort and Company. In New York, he has performed as an actor and dancer at such places as The Kitchen, PS122, HERE Arts Center, Joyce SoHo, The Duke, The Baryshnikov Arts Center, The Ontological Hysteric Theatre, The Ohio Theatre, Dance Theatre Workshop, La MaMa ETC, The Chocolate Factory, Theatre for the New City, Dixon Place, Galapagos Arts Space, and the Brooklyn Arts Exchange. Recent credits include Heaven on Earth at LaMaMa ETC. (NY) and Les Subsistance, Lyon France; Soul Leaves Her Body at HERE Arts Center (NY); Faith Healing at Joyce SoHo (NY) and a national tour; Vicious Dogs on Premises at the Ontological Hysteric Theatre (NY) and a European tour to France, Poland, and Russia; and Stravinsky’s A Soldier’s Tale at the Castleton Opera Festival (VA) conducted by the world-renowned Lorin Maazel. As a writer he was a 2008 Brooklyn Arts Council grant recipient with which he began work on Equator with Sebastián Calderón Bentin at the Brooklyn Arts Exchange. Other original works include Se Vende, also in collaboration with Sebastián Calderón Bentin at the FAE Festival in Panama; Not Unclear at New York University, and Sublimate at Galapagos Art Space. He received his BFA in Theatre from New York University’s Experimental Theatre Wing. He has trained and performed internationally in France, Holland, Romania, Poland, Russia, Panama, Canada, Thailand and Japan working with the highly acclaimed Ildi! Eldi of France and Sankai Juku Butoh company of Japan. He is currently working with The Builders Association on their latest piece, HOUSE/DIVIDED, which premiered in October 2011 at the Wexner Center (OH) with a subsequent world tour and New York premiere at the Brooklyn Academy of Music (BAM) in October 2012. In 2013 Donovan joins the cast of the legendary Blue Man Group in New York City.


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MONDAY, OCTOBER 29 - Thursday, NOVEMBER 1 AT 7-9PM Brechtian Storytelling Workshop with Sean Donovan Prosser Studio Theater in Memorial Auditorium \| Open to Stanford Students RSVP (or send questions) to [email protected] This workshop intensive will explore solo original performance using our own personal life stories as a source of material and creativity. Employing the notions of Brecht’s Epic Theatre (alienation, distance from character) and drawing on the work of Dutch director and teacher, Paul Binnerts, this class explores the relationship between performer and character. The workshop begins with the actor telling a story from his personal life. What follows are a series of exercises that first help him create and maintain a distance from that story and then re-approach the story from a new perspective. We will also focus on the notions of presence, the inner clown and task-based, “real-time” acting. At the conclusion of the workshop, the students will perform original solo performances created from their personal stories. The workshop will be taught by Sean Donovan. Mr. Donovan has trained, among others, with Paul Binnerts in “Real-time Acting,” Steve Wangh in Grotowski-based theater, Chris Bayes in Clowning, and legendary New York Acting teacher Michael Howard in Acting. He holds a BFA in Acting from New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts in the Experimental Theater Wing. Sean Donovan is a New York based actor, dancer, and writer. He is one of the original performers with the critically acclaimed Witness Relocation Theatre Company with whom he has been making work both nationally and abroad for the past ten years. He is also a dancer with the Bessie Award winning Jane Comfort and Company. In New York, he has performed as an actor and dancer at such places as The Kitchen, PS122, HERE Arts Center, Joyce SoHo, The Duke, The Baryshnikov Arts Center, The Ontological Hysteric Theatre, The Ohio Theatre, Dance Theatre Workshop, La MaMa ETC, The Chocolate Factory, Theatre for the New City, Dixon Place, Galapagos Arts Space, and the Brooklyn Arts Exchange. Recent credits include Heaven on Earth at LaMaMa ETC. (NY) and Les Subsistance, Lyon France; Soul Leaves Her Body at HERE Arts Center (NY); Faith Healing at Joyce SoHo (NY) and a national tour; Vicious Dogs on Premises at the Ontological Hysteric Theatre (NY) and a European tour to France, Poland, and Russia; and Stravinsky’s A Soldier’s Tale at the Castleton Opera Festival (VA) conducted by the world-renowned Lorin Maazel. As a writer he was a 2008 Brooklyn Arts Council grant recipient with which he began work on Equator with Sebastián Calderón Bentin at the Brooklyn Arts Exchange. Other original works include Se Vende, also in collaboration with Sebastián Calderón Bentin at the FAE Festival in Panama; Not Unclear at New York University, and Sublimate at Galapagos Art Space. He received his BFA in Theatre from New York University’s Experimental Theatre Wing. He has trained and performed internationally in France, Holland, Romania, Poland, Russia, Panama, Canada, Thailand and Japan working with the highly acclaimed Ildi! Eldi of France and Sankai Juku Butoh company of Japan. He is currently working with The Builders Association on their latest piece, HOUSE/DIVIDED, which premiered in October 2011 at the Wexner Center (OH) with a subsequent world tour and New York premiere at the Brooklyn Academy of Music (BAM) in October 2012. In 2013 Donovan joins the cast of the legendary Blue Man Group in New York City.
	mon-Thu. 10/29 - 11/1 at 7-9pm Brechtian Storytelling Workshop This workshop will be held in Prosser Studio Theater, located in Memorial Auditorium. Enter the buidling from Memorial Way (the opposite side of the building from the main entrance) and ascend stairs to second floor. This event is sponsored by the Department of Theater & Performance Studies (TAPS).

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