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Veteran San Francisco Mime Troupe members will take participants through the basic skill and physical training required to play in the larger-than-life style that drives their comedies. This involves brainstorming about “burning issues.”
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With the guidance of an experienced Mime Troupe writer, the students will begin story and genre discussion; create a scenario and finally a script.
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Processes of devising include a series of games designed to mold participants into an ensemble.
- Procedures of instruction also include an examination of character archetypes based on those of Commedia Dell’Arte, American melodrama and other global forms of popular theatre such as Kabuki.
Undergraduate: DRAMA 425, 3 units
Graduate: DRAMA 625, 3 units
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Performers (dancers, singers, musicians, and actors), writers, designers, and directors are encouraged to apply. Ideally the Troupe encourages a multi-racial, multi-generational approach because they believe the broader the experience the deeper the scope of the project. Students, professionals, and faculty are welcome. Also the workshop welcomes community activists who want to learn how to use this type of theatrical collaboration as a tool for change.
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Submit a head shot, resume, cover letter detailing your particular interest in this course, and one letter of recommendation.
- Send the materials listed in Step 1 with your completed Registration Form to the Summer Arts Registration Office by Friday, May 1, 2009. THE DEADLINE TO APPLY TO THIS COURSE HAS PASSED.
Professor Ruth Griffin
ruthg@csufresno.edu
559-278-5108
Joan Holden
Joan Holden was principal playwright for the Tony Award-winning San Francisco Mime Troupe from 1967 to 2000: creating, as author or head writer, a satire a year for the Troupe’s annual summer season in the parks. Selected titles: The Independent Female, or Man Has His Pride; The Dragon Lady’s Revenge; False Promises; The Hotel Universe; The Factwino trilogy; Ripped Van Winkle; Seeing Double; Back to Normal; Social Work; and City for Sale. With composer-lyricist Bruce Barthol and others, she also wrote most of the Troupe’s major indoor productions in the 1980s and 1990s: Americans, or Last Tango in Huahuatenango; Steeltown; Spain/36; and Offshore.
Since the 1980’s, Ms. Holden has enjoyed a parallel career as a translator and adaptor of comedies: Dario Fo’s The Accidental Death Of An Anarchist and Open Couple for the Eureka Theater, Beaumarchais’ The Marriage of Figaro and Fo’s The Pope and the Witch for the American Conservatory Theater, and Ben Jonson’s Volpone and The Alchemist for the Berkeley Repertory Theatre. With director Dan Chumley, she has created shows in collaboration with artists in Israel, the Philippines, Nepal, and Hong Kong.
Nickel And Dimed, Ms. Holden’s stage adaptation of the best-seller by Barbara Ehrenreich, was commissioned by the Intiman Theatre in 2002, and subsequently produced at the Mark Taper Forum, the Trinity Repertory Company, the Guthrie Lab, the Cleveland Public Theater, TheatreWorks, Brava! for Women in the Arts, the Uppsala Staateater (Sweden), and dozens of smaller theatres and universities. Paris on the Platte, about an early-1900’s clash between reformers and machine politicians in Denver, was commissioned and produced by Curious Theatre there in 2005. Mall-Mart, The Musical received a workshop production at Brava! for Women in the Arts and at Curious Theatre.
Ms. Holden served on peer panels for the California Arts Council and National Endowment for the Arts. She has received Bay Area Critics’ Circle, Dramalogue, and Los Angeles Critics’ Circle awards; playwriting grants from the Rockefeller and Gerbode Foundations; the San Francisco Working Women’s Festival Working Woman of the Year award, and, with SFMT, the San Francisco Media Alliance Golden Gadfly Award. In 2007 the Bay Guardian named her a Local Hero.
Joan Holden was principal playwright for the Tony Award-winning San Francisco Mime Troupe from 1967 to 2000: creating, as author or head writer, a satire a year for the Troupe’s annual summer season in the parks. Selected titles: The Independent Female, or Man Has His Pride; The Dragon Lady’s Revenge; False Promises; The Hotel Universe; The Factwino trilogy; Ripped Van Winkle; Seeing Double; Back to Normal; Social Work; and City for Sale. With composer-lyricist Bruce Barthol and others, she also wrote most of the Troupe’s major indoor productions in the 1980s and 1990s: Americans, or Last Tango in Huahuatenango; Steeltown; Spain/36; and Offshore.
Since the 1980’s, Ms. Holden has enjoyed a parallel career as a translator and adaptor of comedies: Dario Fo’s The Accidental Death Of An Anarchist and Open Couple for the Eureka Theater, Beaumarchais’ The Marriage of Figaro and Fo’s The Pope and the Witch for the American Conservatory Theater, and Ben Jonson’s Volpone and The Alchemist for the Berkeley Repertory Theatre. With director Dan Chumley, she has created shows in collaboration with artists in Israel, the Philippines, Nepal, and Hong Kong.
Nickel And Dimed, Ms. Holden’s stage adaptation of the best-seller by Barbara Ehrenreich, was commissioned by the Intiman Theatre in 2002, and subsequently produced at the Mark Taper Forum, the Trinity Repertory Company, the Guthrie Lab, the Cleveland Public Theater, TheatreWorks, Brava! for Women in the Arts, the Uppsala Staateater (Sweden), and dozens of smaller theatres and universities. Paris on the Platte, about an early-1900’s clash between reformers and machine politicians in Denver, was commissioned and produced by Curious Theatre there in 2005. Mall-Mart, The Musical received a workshop production at Brava! for Women in the Arts and at Curious Theatre.
Ms. Holden served on peer panels for the California Arts Council and National Endowment for the Arts. She has received Bay Area Critics’ Circle, Dramalogue, and Los Angeles Critics’ Circle awards; playwriting grants from the Rockefeller and Gerbode Foundations; the San Francisco Working Women’s Festival Working Woman of the Year award, and, with SFMT, the San Francisco Media Alliance Golden Gadfly Award. In 2007 the Bay Guardian named her a Local Hero.
Keiko Shimosato Carreiro
Keiko Shimosato Carreiro is a veteran of the San Francisco Mime Troupe and of the Bay Area theatre. She has been a performer, writer, director and designer at the San Francisco Mime Troupe. Ms. Shimosato Carreiro has also performed and designed costumes for productions at Berkeley Repertory Theatre, been nominated for the Bay Area Critics Circle Award for costume design for Kokoro, which she also co-directed at Theater of Yugen. Most recently she directed the very well received Cowboy vs. Samurai at Asian American Theater Company. This past year she was awarded the TBA Cash Grant Award to produce her own one person bunraku performance based upon the story of her time spent caring for her mother who was dying of cancer and the discoveries that they both made during that journey.
Keiko Shimosato Carreiro is a veteran of the San Francisco Mime Troupe and of the Bay Area theatre. She has been a performer, writer, director and designer at the San Francisco Mime Troupe. Ms. Shimosato Carreiro has also performed and designed costumes for productions at Berkeley Repertory Theatre, been nominated for the Bay Area Critics Circle Award for costume design for Kokoro, which she also co-directed at Theater of Yugen. Most recently she directed the very well received Cowboy vs. Samurai at Asian American Theater Company. This past year she was awarded the TBA Cash Grant Award to produce her own one person bunraku performance based upon the story of her time spent caring for her mother who was dying of cancer and the discoveries that they both made during that journey.
Victor Toman
Victor Toman is an actor and choreographer. He has been living in the Bay Area since 1988 and has worked with the San Francisco Mime Troupe, El Teatro de la Esperanza, Berkeley Repertory Theatre, The Dance Brigade, and Elbows Akimbo to name few. In other parts of the world, Mr. Toman has worked with The Caravan Stage Company, Mixed Blood Theatre, and The Eugene Festival of Musical Theatre.
Check out the San Francisco Mime Troupe website at: www.sfmt.org
Victor Toman is an actor and choreographer. He has been living in the Bay Area since 1988 and has worked with the San Francisco Mime Troupe, El Teatro de la Esperanza, Berkeley Repertory Theatre, The Dance Brigade, and Elbows Akimbo to name few. In other parts of the world, Mr. Toman has worked with The Caravan Stage Company, Mixed Blood Theatre, and The Eugene Festival of Musical Theatre.
Check out the San Francisco Mime Troupe website at: www.sfmt.org
BACK TO 2009 COURSES
CHECK OUT THE OTHER THEATRE COURSES:
Oregon Shakespeare Festival
Chicago Style Comedy
CSU Summer Arts is Hosted by College of Arts and Humanities, Fresno State.