Influences for our training techniques

Our physical and vocal training techniques are mostly in the form of games and exercises performed individually or as a group. The exercises are designed to get participants to explore what their bodies and minds are capable of, think more abstractly about how staging choices can be made, and to build a strong collaborative ensemble.

Over the years we have borrowed games and exercises from many sources. Some of them remain unchanged from their original form, some we have modified and added to over the years. We have invited all those we work with including guest artists, directors, and alumni to share with us any exercises or techniques they have learned that may be useful to us, so some of the exercises we use have sources we cannot specifically identify. Below is a list of some of the sources we can identify for various techniques and exercises we use:

• Augusto Boal
• Rudolph Laban
• Ruth Zaporah
• JoAnne Akalaitis
• The Open Theater
• Jaques Lecoq
• Mary Overlie
• Joan Skinner

Plays studied in past workshops

In each workshop we read and discuss several examples of successful experimental works from the past. We study these plays with an eye towards the techniques the playwrights are using to communicate with the audience, rather than for content and meaning. The amount of time we have to discuss each play limits the depth of our study of the plays.

Participants will examine more deeply the plays they choose to emulate when they make their technique choices. When choosing plays to study we look for plays in which we feel we can identify specific techniques that can be separated from the subject matter of the play.

There are many wonderful examples of experimental theater we have never used because we feel they will not work well for this process. In order for a play to be studied, we must be able to imagine how we will lead a group through writing using the techniques in the play.

We make special effort to provide a variety of different techniques within the set of plays chosen. We pay attention to the diversity of the playwrights represented, including playwrights from a variety of gender identities, cultures, and time periods.

Below is a list of the plays we have studied in past workshops. We are always looking for new plays to add to this list.

• The Dadaists:
  • Tristan Tsara: “The First Celestial Adventure of Mr. Antipyrine, Fire Extinguisher”
  • Georges Ribemont-Dessaignes: “The Mute Canary”
• Antonin Artaud: “Description of a Physical State”, “The Spurt of Blood”, “Eighteen Seconds, a screenplay”, “Paul the Birds, or The Place of Love”, “There is No More Firmament”
• Bertoldt Brecht: “The Elephant Calf”, “He Who Says Yes”, “He Who Says No”
• Peter Handke: “Self Accusation”, “Prophecy”
• Lee Breuer: “A prelude to Death in Venice”, “Red Horse Animation”, “Red Beads”, “The B Beaver Animation”
• JoAnne Akalaitis: “Dressed Like an Egg”
• Harry Kondoleon: “The Brides”
• Adrienne Kennedy: “A Lesson in Dead Language”, “A Rat’s Mass”, “Motherhood 2000”, “The Owl Answers”
• Samuel Beckett: “Not I”, “Footfalls”, “Rockaby”, “That Time”, “Come and Go,”
• The Open Theater:
  • Susan Yankowitz: “Terminal”, “1969 Terminal 1996” 
  • Jean Claude van Itallie: “The Serpent”
• Richard Foreman: “Vertical Mobility (SOPHIA=(WISDOM): Part 4)”, “Pandering to the Masses: A Misrepresentation”, “Penguin Touquet”, “PAIN(T)”
• ntozake shange: “boogie woogie landscapes”
• The Symbolists:
  • Rachilde: “Madame La Mort”, “Pleasure”, “The Crystal Spider”, “The Transparent Doll”, “The Painted Woman”
  • Ramon del Valle-Inclan: “Dream Comedy”
  • Oscar Wilde: “Salome”
  • Stanislaw Przybyszewski : “Visitors”
• Gertrude Stein: “A Circular Play”, “Not Slightly”, “Do Let Us Go Away”, “For the Country Entirely”, “Turkey and Bones and Eating and We Liked It”, “Every Afternoon”, “Reread Another A Play . . .”
• Maria Irene Fornes: “The Danube” 
• Heiner Muller: “Despoiled shore – Medeamaterial – Landscape With Argonauts”, “Explosion of a Memory”, “Hamletmaschine”, “A Letter to Robert Wilson”, “Heartpiece”
• Joan Schenkar: “The Universal Wolf”
• The Futurists:
  • F.T. Marinetti: “The Founding and Manifesto of Futurism”
  • Giacomo Balla: “Disconcerted States of Mind”
  • Paolo Buzzi: “The Futurist Prize”, “3nomial Voices Whirlpool Destruction”
  • Francesco Gaugiullo: “Detonation”
  • Remo Chiti: “Words”
  • Fortunate Depero; “Colors”
  • Guglielmo Janelli & Luciano Nicastro: “Synthesis of Syntheses”
• Harold Pinter: “Trouble in the Works”, “That’s All”, “That’s Your Trouble”, “Applicant”, “The Black and White”, “Night”, “Silence”, “Landscape” 
• Jerzy Grotowski: “Akropolis” (Treatment of the Text article by Ludwig Flaszen) & excerpts from Akropolis by Stanislaw Wyspianski
• Caryl Churchill: “The Skriker”, “Far Away”
• German Expressionism:
  • Oskar Kokoschka: “Murderer the Women’s Hope”, “Job”
  • Walter Havensclaver: “Humanity”
• Jean Cocteau: “Wedding on the Eiffel Tower”
• Suzan Lori Parks: The America Play
• Betsuyaku Minoru: “The Little Match Girl”, “A Corpse with Feet”
• David Greenspan: “Jack” 
• Charles Mee: Orestes 2.0
• Marita Bonner: “The Purple Flower”
• Umehara Takeshi:  “Mutsugoro (Mudskippers)”
• Gao Xingjian: “The Other Side”, “Ballade Nocturne”
• Laurie Carlos: “White Chocolate for My Father”
• Tawfiq al-Hakim: The Tree Climber
• Chiori Miyagawa: Awakening
• Mac Wellman:  “Antigone”
• Young Jean Lee:  The Appeal
• Ulla Ryum: “Dream and Darkness” 
• Goat Island: “It’s an Earthquake in My Heart”
• Sarah Ruhl: Melancholy Play
• Dael Orlandersmith:  “My Red Hand, My Black Hand”
• Sonia Sanchez: “Dirty Hearts” 
• Jon Fosse:  Death Variations
• Will Eno: “The Bully Composition”, “Oh, The Humanity”
• Diane Glancy: “The Woman Who Was a Red Deer Dressed for the Deer Dance”