Background
Early in the year, I (Ken Mayer/Hirsch von Henford) was contacted by email about a workshop on Commedia dell'Arte being held in New York, by the "Roving Classical Commedia University¹". Now, the GSP being an amateur troupe, and the notice coming out shortly before the workshop, not to mention we live in the San Francisco Bay Area, there was no way we could go. However, I started a dialog with these folk, because it seemed like a good idea.

In the process, it turned out Julie Goell and her husband Avener would be in the SF Bay Area in July, doing some training here, and her husband was directing a play. So, Julie asked if we would be interested in a one afternoon workshop on Commedia. I contacted the troupes and the overall feeling was "YES!". We did a bunch of back and forth emailing, and eventually worked things out. Julie and her husband invited some other folk to attend, and when we all got together 8 members of the GSP were there (not counting myself and Teresa, who watched) and 8 non-GSP folk (some of whom had worked with Avener in another workshop) attended.

Julie asked me to bill this in the following manner:

Julie Goell grew up in Italy where she studied Commedia Dell' Arte and toured with "La Compagnia I Gesti" and the Swiss circus "Schaubude". In Italy she taught physical comedy skills at Teatro Studio and acted in films, theater and television. Settled in the US, Ms. Goell tours her solo clown opera, Opening Night Carmen", and teaches at Celebration Barn Theater in Maine, Roving Classical Commedia University, and at Dell'Arte International in California. She has directed and taught Guest Artist residencies at Boston University, University of Connecticut and Colby College. Ms. Goell and her husband Avner Eisenberg have developed a pedagogy in Clowning and Eccentric Performance which they teach at the Celebration Barn. Her only West Coast workshop this year, don't miss this unique opportunity.

I have to thank Teresa McCartney who got us the community center where she lives, which gave us a place to "play" ... and of course Julie for doing the workshop. (Granted, she got paid for it, but still, it was great she could work this into her schedule.)

¹ Totally Unaccredited

The Workshop (a very short recap)
Julie taught a good workshop, with quite an amazing amount of information crammed into a three hour time slot. After introductions were made, Julie got everyone to do some physical warm-ups so that they wouldn't be completely sore after this was over.

The workshop focused heavily on physicality -- from poses found in the woodcuts (there are 8 standard poses) and moving from one to another, to walking, and more. After quite a bit of this, Julie played a tape of a scene from a Commedia in Italian. You didn't have to really know what was being said, but it was interesting to listen to the voices as the argument in question grew to a crescendo, and such. Finally, Julie introduced the masks that she brought, and talked about each. The last thing that was done was to talk about entrances and exits as cameos -- the basic idea is that a character enters and poses, takes a big deep breath that can be seen in the audience, before actually starting to talk or move or do any business on stage. The actors did some improvisational bits of introducing characters, and then exited, with another cameo -- pausing, looking at the audience, taking another deep breath, and exiting.

When she started her wrap-up I could tell that folk had really been into it when Tim Converse (SCA: Juan Santiago) stepped over to me and said "That wasn't three hours, was it?" and I looked at my watch, and ... yep, it was.

We took care of the money issues (paying Julie for the workshop -- she was cool -- there were more people than she expected, so she cut $5/per person off the fee!), and then made plans to go meet up for dinner -- I think pretty much everyone involved went to dinner, and Julie's husband and son met us at the restaurant. It was a fun afternoon, and it was good to chat with folk outside of the workshop.

Oh, and before it was over, Julie got folk to write down names/email addresses to keep an email list so folk could stay in touch, and share what individuals are doing.

I know that for the GSP it was good to work with and see other people's work, and I hope it goes the other way for the other folk who attended. All in all, I know I learned a lot, even though it may have looked like I was just running around trying to take photos, and I know members of the GSP came away from this workshop with a bunch of interesting ideas stuffed into our heads. (And for us, the timing is good, as we're about to get ready to do another Commedia ourselves ...)

Photos
I took a ton of photos. Unfortunately, when downloading them from the memory card to my computer, I managed to do something stupid that I hope I never repeat, and managed to delete most of the photos from the memory card without saving them to the hard drive (I watched the copy process happen to the hard drive, and so I am totally befuddled what happened in there ...). The small amount of photos below are all that I managed to save, they are from the last part of the workshop, with people doing cameos and improvisational bits in masks. Sorry folks ... I had hoped to have more ...

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