Plant Medicine
![]() ![]() Shakespeare Acting Laboratory with Marcella Trowbridge ARTFARM Artistic Director Marcella Trowbridge has a special knack for opening actors up to Shakespeare's verse, and for using Shakespeare to help actors discover a deeper level of work. Participants in ARTFARM's Shakespeare Acting Laboratory will get the opportunity to work with her in an intensive, small-group setting. Shakespeare Acting Laboratory is open to experienced and aspiring actors age eighteen and over. Known as both an exceptional performer of Shakespeare and a challenging acting coach, Marcella will lead participants in a focused exploration of Shakespeare from the actors' point of view. The work will involve text analysis, scansion, developing emotional literacy and accessibility, voice and breath, physical training, and play. Students will work with Shakespeare's text as individuals, in small groups and as an ensemble. Special attention will be given to Scene Study. Marcella is the co-founder of ARTFARM and a classically trained actress who has appeared in New York, Los Angeles, Philadelphia, Key West, Sri Lanka and is currently doing work in Germany. Local audiences have seen her in many roles in ARTFARM's Shakespeare in the Grove, including Cordelia in King Lear, Beatrice in Much Ado About Nothing, Katharina in Taming of the Shrew, both Hermia and Titania in A Midsummer Night's Dream, Lady Macbeth and most recently Hamlet. For more information, or to register, contact info@art-farm.org, call (860) 346-4390. Photo below by Bill De Kine of Marcella Trowbridge as Hamlet in the 2017 Shakespeare in the Grove production of Hamlet. ResidenciesENSEMBLE CREATED NEW WORKS (Subject matter adaptable from fourth grade through college/adult)
Accessing the multiple intelligences, these workshops
generate and develop material from students' own life perspectives
(including historical and literary resources) as well as foster growth
in curricular areas. The group will select a theme and dynamically
transfer this material onto the stage.
SHAKESPEARE ALIVE! (Adaptable for most age groups)This is a residency in which an ARTFARM artist works intensively with a
group or groups of students to bring the language, characters and world
of Shakespeare to life. The residency combines active exercises and
scene work with text analysis (examining metrical structure, literary
and rhetorical devices as tools for revealing plot, emotion and
action), leading to an ‘off the page and onto your feet' approach to
the work. This is an exciting technique for bringing Shakespeare's
language, plots and characters to life for students who might otherwise
struggle with the challenging language and metrical structure and
become permanently turned off to Shakespeare. The ideal “Shakespeare
Alive!” residency begins with a performance of ARTFARM's Shakespeare's Argument for the students and culminates in a Shakespeare performance by the students for the school community. THIRTY MINUTE MIDSUMMER (Grades five and up)![]() CIRCUS ARTS AND RELATED TOPICS (Ages six to adult) ARTFARM's Circus Arts Residencies can offer your straightforward circus training (acrobatics, juggling, balancing, clowning, plate spinning, hooping, slapstick & more), training leading to a group performance, or circus training leading to a performance incorporating curricular goals. RecentResidency performances have included Mathemagical Circus, Circus History of the World, and Circus of Science. WorkshopsINTRODUCTION TO CIRCUS SKILLS (All ages)An age -appropriate introduction to juggling, acrobatics, physical comedy and
other circus skills. Can be offered as a 90 minute one-off workshop, or
extended into the Instant Circus model described below. We are currently (Fall, 2013) developing a new science-related circus workshop/residency for grades 3 - 8 called The Physics of Circus. Be in touch with us to become a Physic of Circus Pilot Site and get a great rate! INSTANT CIRCUS or CIRCUS IN A DAY
This model involves 3 teaching artists and a stage manager/costumer. It can engage up to 45 young people in an intensive day of circus arts culminating in an Instant Circus presentation for parents and friends. The morning is spent introducing the participants to several circus skills, including clowning and slapstick, acrobatics and equilibristics, juggling and object manipulation. After lunch the participants are divided into three “acts”, which will rehearse first separately, then together in preparation for the Instant Circus.DEVELOPMENTAL DRAMA (Grades K-12)A
non-performance classroom teaching technique that allows for students
to explore their curriculum, themselves and their environment through
multiple paths of intelligence that are fostered through drama.
Locomotion, emotional intelligence, sequencing, story dramatization,
and theme-based exercises are cultivated at age appropriate levels.
Physical comedy fundamentals and the creation of personal clown characters combine to open new doors of learning, communication and expression. The liberating experience can be adapted for any age group, kindergarten through adult. COMMEDIA AMERICANA (Grades 8-Adult)Taking the characters and scenarios of the Comedia Americana aimed at college students, this age appropriate adaptation is geared for adventurous high school theater programs. (*see University section) ORGANIC SHAKESPEARE (Grades 8-Adult)Dig the fertile earth of Shakespeare's world. Play with the rhythm of meter and the dynamic of rhetoric and discover how the use and placement of language reveals psychological and plot shifts, moments of emotional truth and action! Learn how to access resources, analyze text and reveal character. On your feet, into your mouths and off the page; this is how it should be done. SEEDS OF MOVEMENT (Grades 8-Adult)A Kinesthetic approach to theater, designed to cultivate organic impulses, nurture trust, communication and spatial awareness as well as develop emotional and physical literacy. |