Cheryl Cashman Cheryl Cashman Cheryl Cashman
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Biography/Résumé
Workshops
One Woman Shows
 Turning Thirty
 Pushing Forty
 10,000 Year Old Woman
 Roads Taken
Clown Teaching
 Thoughts of a Clown
 Shows Directed
 Richard Pochinko
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Character Teaching
 Shows Directed
 Articles
Masks
 Character Masks
 Clown Masks
Directing
 Shows Directed
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Contact Info
Cheryl Cashman

Workshops/Master Classes/University Teaching

ACTING

Characterization

By observing and then presenting people from everyday life, the actor becomes malleable enough to take on the shape of a great number of characters. The actor in the warm-up activates his physical/vocal energy field completely; then comes to neutral - a state of receptive emptiness - allowing a character to be internalized rather than be a pastiche upon the actor's already existing personality. In this way the character's way of speaking and internal monologue can be discovered.

DIRECTING

Introduction to Directing

(No experience necessary)

This workshop will consist of basic techniques of staging a play beginning with play and scene breakdown and the tracking of character and plot developments, and moving on to floor plan, design, stage composition, blocking and business. And lastly, an overall structural sense of the movement and rhythm of the play from exposition through to denouement. Students will use the rest of the class or a group of invited actors to do various exercises in stage composition and blocking.

Advanced Directing
(Pre-requisite: Introduction to Directing or the equivalent)

Staging collective creations, ensemble and choral plays, adaptations, mask and clown plays, and regular scripted plays. The focus will be on achieving subtlety and variety in tempo and mood and rhythmic flow of the overall production.




CLOWNING

Introduction to Clowning
(No experience necessary)

Work with the foundations of Clowning. This will involve voice, movement and ensemble exercises to center, empower and attune to the self and the group. This will be followed by improvisations that invite the varied aspects of yourself to come out: male/female, happy/sad, dark/light, then uniting all of these aspects as they come out and play under the Red Nose.

Clowning Intensive
(8-10 weeks)

Through the six masks to clown. (Previous Introductory Class or interview / audition necessary.) Participants make 6 masks with eyes closed, paint them by a similarly unconscious process, and wear them in two exercises: "Return to Childhood" and "Waving Goodbye to Someone you Love." Finally, all 6 masks and the aspects which they have released are encapsulated under the 7th mask - the Nose.




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