CLASSES
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CLASSES 🍎
CHEKHOV IN L.A.
CHEKHOV IN L.A.
Any fool can endure a crisis. It’s this everyday living that will kill you.
-Anton Chekhov
A scene study class designed to immerse performers in the tragicomedic world of Anton Chekhov’s plays, breathing the text into wild life with laughter, tears, and unabashed spontaneity. Working on Chekhov’s layered, nuanced, and emotionally rich characters empowers actors with the skills to excel in any and all works of psychological realism, on stage and screen alike.
A rare chance to study Chekhov’s deeply moving and incredibly funny vision of the human comedy with master acting teacher Anya Saffir, who has taught Chekhov for twenty-five years in New York City and across the globe, and directed productions at the Moscow Art Theater, NYU Tisch School of the Arts, Harvard/American Repertory Theater, the Atlantic Theater Company, Atlantic Acting School, and beyond. We are thrilled to host her first workshop on the West Coast here at the Elysian.
This eight-day intensive is an acting class for performers wishing to push their work forward to the next level of artistry, employing deep script analysis work and an organic, embodied approach to live performance.
Practical Aesthetics, a simple, common-sensical, and clarifying approach to acting, will be our primary acting technique in the room. Our world-building will be guided by dramaturgy and historical context to provide greater understanding of given circumstances. Actors bring their scenes into class twice, with time for rigorous table work as well as free exploration on our feet. Actors versed in Practical Aesthetics- as well as those that are not!- are all welcome. Anya will cast students in scene work from the four full-length masterworks—The Seagull, Uncle Vanya, Three Sisters, and The Cherry Orchard—or the short vaudevilles The Bear and The Proposal.
Emphasis is placed on creating an ensemble based on trust, support, and the freedom to fail in a non-hierarchical, experimental, warmly humane, and yet rigorous environment.
REQUIREMENTS:
A pre-registration interview is required for anyone who has not previously worked with Anya or The Elysian.
Ample time for outside-of-class rehearsal: Several weeks before beginning of the course students will be cast in a two-person scene, allowing them ample time to dive into preparatory work- on their own and with their scene partner. Please only consider joining the intensive if you have the time to rehearse with a partner in the month before the class begins, and in between the first and second work session of your scene. Actors can expect to spend a minimum of 8 hours of outside-of-class preparation for Week 1, and a minimum of 4 hours rehearsing for Week 2. (More detailed instructions about what and how to prepare for Day 1 will be shared as we get closer to the start date).
Required Texts:
Students will be provided with quality translations of all four masterworks (The Seagull; Uncle Vanya; Three Sisters; The Cherry Orchard) in pdf. form upon acceptance into the class.
The workshop will be capped at 16 students, with a waitlist.
CLASS:
Monday - Thursday’s: July 8, 9, 10, 11 & 15, 16, 17, & 18 from 11AM - 2:30PM
COST: $700
ABOUT THE INSTRUCTOR
Anya Saffir is a theater director, writer, and educator based in and hailing from New York City. Directing credits include Much Ado About Nothing at the American Repertory Theater Institute, Brecht’s The Caucasian Chalk Circle at Theater for a New City (ITBA Award for Outstanding Off-Broadway Show; New York Innovative Theater Award for Best Original Score), Hamlet with Orpheus Productions (three New York Innovative Theater Award nominations, including Outstanding Director), American Sojourns: Three Plays by Thornton Wilder at The Moscow Art Theater, Romeo and Juliet at The American Theater of Actors, a new translation of Anton Chekhov’s The Seagull co-developed with translator Moti Margolin, Pierre Corneille’s L’Illusion Comique at The Abe Burrows Theater, The True Story of the Three Little Pigs at Classic Stage Company, Chekhov’s Three Sisters for Muse Theater, numerous Atlantic Theater student productions including 12th Night, Pericles: Prince of Tyre, As You Like It, Our Country’s Good, Mad Forest, The Winter’s Tale and Uncle Vanya, and new works by Kate Robin, Jerome Hairston, Mike Dowling, and Tom Donaghy. With frequent collaborator-composer Cormac Bluestone, Anya co-wrote and directed an operetta of Marjorie Williams Bianco’s classic story, The Velveteen Rabbit, which premiered at Atlantic Theater Company and was nominated for an Off-Broadway Alliance Award Nomination for Best Children’s Play. Anya was co-director and story editor of the fiction podcast It Makes a Sound, and a recurring contributor on Shakespeare topics for NPR’s The Takeaway. She has taught and directed B.F.A. and M.F.A. actors at Tisch School of the Arts at NYU, Brooklyn College, Penn State, and The Center for Advanced Theater Training at Harvard University, with a special focus on Shakespeare and the plays of Anton Chekhov. She has taught master classes in Practical Aesthetics in Sydney, Australia, and annually at La Teatrería, and Foro 37: Teatro Boutique, Mexico City. Anya has worked with hundreds of actors as an acting coach, helping them to prepare roles for Broadway, off-Broadway, film and television.