Course Outline

Sometimes theatre gets better when things get a little weird. This course will have participants on their feet from the start, exploring such elements as rhythm in movement and speech, ensemble work, improvisation, physicalising dialogue and collaborating with fellow actors in finding stage actions. We will play improvisational games and exercises.

The course will use famous classic plays as a starting ground for accessing new ways of staging plays. We’ll look at techniques in breaking down a play into units of action and events, using central themes in the play to inform staging, and developing character studies grounded in the rhythm of the play. It also offers directors and actors techniques for evaluating their own work.

The course gives new insights into how to act in and direct plays in new and interesting ways. The techniques translate to each participant’s particular circumstances and assist all participants to gain confidence in staging that enhances the central themes of performance.

About the tutor
Joy Nesbitt is a theatrical director, writer, and neo-soul artist originally from Dallas, Texas. She is a current member of the SEEDS Program Directing Strand for Rough Magic Theatre Company and a writer in development in the Baptiste Programme at Smock Alley Theatre.

Joy is a recent graduate of the Theatre Directing MFA at The Lir National Academy of Dramatic Arts. Joy’s productions have included: Feet Pics Aren’t Free by Grainne Blumenthal (2023), endings. by Fionntán Larney (2023), Appropriate by Branden Jacobs-Jenkins (2022), Reflections by Joy Nesbitt and Pedro Pacheco (2022), Canonical by Scout Black (2022), Reasons to be Pretty by Neil LaBute (2021); R+J: An Ultramodern Fantasia by William Shakespeare (2020); God of Carnage by Yasmina Reza (2020); and Dreamgirls by Henry Krieger and Tom Eyen (2020). She has also directed musical productions such as Mamma Mia (2019) and A Very Potter Musical (2018).