Shakespeare By The Sea Festival

St. John's, Newfoundland & Labrador, Canada
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Workshop - Saturday and Sunday, May 22-23
The 2010 casts prepare for the season

Janine Pearson and Ian Watson from the Stratford Shakespeare Festival will be visiting next weekend to facilitate voice and text workshops for our 2010 company. We are pleased to provide these workshops to our current casts free of charge, as a reflection of the value we place on mentorship, our appreciation of our volunteers, and our desire to support our actors in their artistic development.

All cast and company  members will participate on Saturday, May 22nd. The company will be divided into two groups. Each group will do either voice with Janine Pearson or text with Ian Watson in the morning from 10am to 1pm, and then switch instructors in the afternoon for a 2-5pm session. While one group is gaining tools for the "on-going journey of working with heightened language of Shakespeare," the other will discover how to be vocally "open, free, and to fill a space without straining" their voices.

Call time for Saturday, May 22 at Holy Cross Junior High is 9:30am - please wear clothing that will allow free and creative movement, and wear flat shoes.  There will be an hour's break for lunch and we will finish by 5pm.

Directors will assign specific cast members to the work taking place on Sunday, May 23 - please check with your stage manager to see if and when you are called for that day.

Instructors

Janine Pearson

Janine Pearson is in her 21st season at the Stratford Shakespeare Festival where, as Head of Voice and Coaching, she coordinates a team of specialist coaches who serve the acting company in meeting the physical and vocal demands of staging the plays in repertory. She also teaches for the Festival’s Education and Conservatory programs. During her tenure Janine was also Head of Voice and, finally, Associate Artistic Director of the English section of National Theatre School of Canada (Montreal). She is presently on the Advisory Council of Ryerson University’s Department of Theatre and Dance and the Board of Directors of Toronto’s Centre for the Arts. She has taught and given workshops across Canada, in the U.S. and in London (England) to actors, singers, educators, politicians, clergy and business people. Most recently, she worked with the Academy at Soulpepper (Toronto) and serves as a dialect/dialogue coach on a new CBC series, The Republic of Doyle. Upcoming: she looks forward to returning to teach at HB Studio (New York). Janine holds an ADVS from the Central School of Speech and Drama (London); a B.Music and a BFA from the University of Regina and an Associate Diploma in Singing from the University of Alberta (Edmonton).

Ian Watson

A native of Winnipeg, Ian studied at the Vancouver Playhouse Acting School under David Latham. Ian was part of The National Arts Centre’s English Theatre Company from 1981-1984, under Artistic Director John Wood, performing major roles in over 11 productions. He was a member of the Stratford Festival’s Acting Company for four seasons (1984, ‘86, ‘89 and ‘90), appearing as Puck, Firk, Lennox, and Sylvius, among others. He has also performed with Carbone 14, Manitoba Theatre Centre, The Grand Theatre, Centaur (Montreal), Persephone (Saskatoon), The Piggery (North Hatley, Qc.) and Theatre Lac Brôme, among others.

From 1996 to 2001 Ian was a text teacher at the National Theatre School of Canada, coaching and assisting on productions and teaching Shakespeare to all three acting years. From 2001 to 2006, he was a text teacher and coach with Stratford’s Conservatory for Classical Theatre Training, under principal David Latham. He now is a guest instructor there under the current Principal, Martha Henry. He also teaches for the Festival’s Education Department, and will be a guest instructor on the Festival’s new Michael Langham Director Workshop this coming season.

Ian is a frequent acting teacher at the University of Waterloo and a regular Shakespeare instructor at George Brown College. He is also a part-time faculty member at Ryerson University’s Department of Theatre and Dance, where he teaches Shakespeare to both 2nd- and 4th-year acting students.