During this intensive weekend course you will be guided step by step through the techniques necessary to authentically understand and perform Commedia Dell’Arte. You will gain an insight into the rich history of Commedia Dell’Arte and learn about its stock characters. We will work physically to find each character’s essential shape and movement. You will also learn about the techniques of performing the Masks, with the opportunity to work with original Commedia leather masks created by Carlo Setti and Fabrizio Paladin.

After an introduction to technique and characters, we will start with simple improvisations, creating scenes and adding new theatrical techniques such as the use of props or music, as well as fight coreography. 

*Commedia Dell’arte (also known as Improvvisa, Commedia Zannesca or Italiana) began in Italy during the first half of the sixteenth century, and went on to become the primary form of theatre performed by professional actors. Unlike modern theatre, where set lines and cues are set down in a script, most Commedia performances follow what is known as a canovaccio – a kind of outline, or collection of sketches that provides the fundamental framework for the action: the themes, the entrances and exits, etc. Commedia actors improvise, following the structure of the canovaccio and the fixed characteristics of their own characters.