The Berkshire Fringe

Whether you’re a seasoned professional or have never set foot on stage, our Workshops offer a unique opportunity to experience something you’ve never tried before!

Each workshop is crafted by Berkshire Fringe artists and provides a fun, collaborative and hands on approach to experiencing the creative processes. Open to participants of all backgrounds and levels of experience — ages 16-96!

Workshops are held in the Daniel Arts Center and are always free and open to the public.

Space is limited and early registration is recommended. Call 413-320-4175 to reserve a spot.

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How To Get Disowned By Your Family Without Really Trying

With Deen, writer and performer of Draw the Circle
Saturday, August 14 at 1:30 pm at the Daniel Arts Center

If you write well, with honesty and integrity, there’s a good chance you’re going to piss someone off — and that someone is probably someone you care about. But if you can take the heat, you might be able to tell a true story. In this workshop, we’ll chat about the basics, like: “What’s the difference between a solo show and other plays?” and “All I did was write about my sister’s divorce, I don’t understand why she won’t talk to me anymore.” Come prepared to write and participate as we delve into the nature of secrets.

Deen’s play, …TANK & HORSE, was also presented at The Berkshire Fringe in 2007.

Dancing for Everyone

with Rebecca Pappas, Choreographer of MONSTER
Sat July 31st, 1:30pm at the Daniel Arts Center

Dancing for everyone is an opportunity to let loose, have fun and love dancing. Beginning with an anatomical warm up meant to connect and strengthen, Dancing for Everyone will go on to explore basic movement sequences and skills in a fun low pressure environment. We will work on dance “basics” like extending, leaping, turning and musicality. Sometimes we will improvise and occasionally we will sing. I am interested in creating an environment where a wide variety of people can enjoy themselves, raise their heart rates, engage their minds, and experience their own bodies in new, exciting and powerful ways.

Slips, Trips, Slaps and Falls

With the PI CLOWNS
Mon Aug 2, 1:30pm at The Daniel Arts Center

Join the clowns of Pi as we reveal the secrets of our comedy. We will explore the basics of clowning by learning how to trip and slip. We will also slap each other silly. It will be a fun time so bring your friends and family.

Eco Action Event

With the Anthrolopogists
Saturday, August 7, 1:30pm at The Daniel Arts Center

Over the course of 90 minutes, community members, neighborhood residents, environmental advocates and experts, and theatre artists will join forces for a theatrical brainstorming session in response to the growing climate crisis.

What concerns you about climate change and global warming?
Are you encountering barriers to making environmentally healthy choices?
Do you wish your neighborhood could be more “green”?
Can you imagine a cleaner, healthier environment in your own neighborhood?

These are just a few of the questions that we’ll be asking each other at the workshops!

Community members will have the opportunity to participate in three ways:
• engage in a conversation about the challenges we face taking action to protect the
environment in our borough and neighborhood
• observe, as audience members watching actors from The Anthropologists invent
scenes and characters inspired by the conversation
• take on the role of actors and playwrights themselves and joining the actors on the
“stage” to rehearse for reality!

The Anthropologists create an environment in which all participants function as “spect-actors”: citizens who watch
the theatrical event with a critical eye and have the opportunity to act by sharing thoughts, feelings and ideas — even
joining the actors to change the course of events! Everyone is invited to participate to whatever degree they feel
comfortable. We hope to inspire people to see an opportunity for change or action in their own lives.

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Summer 2009

Collisions/Collaboration – a movement workshop

Taught by Alissa Cardone of The Disappearing Woman, this workshop focuses on generating ideas and harvesting material. Working with text and movement will provide a strategy for establishing points of contact when working in collaboration. Very relevant for performers seeking collaborative methods and novices interested in experimenting with creative brainstorming.

Alissa Cardone is co-founder of Kinodance Company, a collaborative intermedia performance group creating stage performances, installations and films. She has been collaborating with musicians, visual and media artists, dancers, filmmakers, painters, and performing artists for over ten years.

Creating Theatrical Moments Through Live Sound Action

How Elephants Mourn – An Experiential Workshop

Taught by Eliza Ladd, creator of Elephants and Gold, this amazing workshop is rooted in sculpture and percussion and developed through the sensibility of the actor, Live Sound Action is a multi-disciplinary form for composition, choreography, sound design and the writing of original performance.

Writing for Performance

Lamda Award nominee, Dan Bernitt, writer and performer of Phi Alpha Gamma, leads a writing workshop to help participants uncover, discover and recover the stories contained inside the only thing we ever really own: our bodies. Stretch marks, scars, broken bones and wrinkles reveal our hearts, minds and lives.

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Summer 2008

Movement & Choreography

Taught by acclaimed solo artists Alexandra Beller, creator and performer US, this workshop focused on creating dance theater from real-life experiences. After a generous warm-up, each participant created a series of movements that expressed important events in their lives. Experimenting with tempo and rhythm, groups of individuals presented their pieces unison to create duets, trios, etc.

Physical Comedy

The funny folks from Under the Table Theater, creators of The Only Friends We Have, returned to teach this workshop exploring finding humor in everyday activities. After an exciting warm-up of death scene tag, participants experimented in groups with tempo and rhythm to find humor in mundane tasks. They then used different levels of exaggerated gestures to create physical comedy ‘bits”.

Writing for the Stage

Taught by members of Lynx Ensemble, creators of StellYY, this workshop focused on creating monologues for characters based on photographs from magazines. Each participant was encourages not only write a monologue from the perspective of the person in the picture but those who may encounter that character. Participants shared their work with the group.

Summer 2007

Writing Theater from Everyday Life

Taught by writer and solo performer Amy Salloway, Kiss Me Already, Herschel Gertz! This workshop focused on writing for a solo show by cultivating theatricality out of events in everyday life. Participants wrote about what had happened to them that day and through a series of exercises heightened what seemed to be mundane into original comedy monologues.

Comedy and Parody

Taught by outrageous songsters Fiely A. Matias and Dennis Giacino of LOUNGE-ZILLA!,this workshop focused on exercises that create comedy from parody.

Poetry, Song and Voice

Taught by Adrienne Mackey, director of Recitatif. This workshop focused on vocal technique. Through exercises that accessed and strengthened the voice, participants used song and poetry to create character and drama for the stage. Adrienne worked with participants individually and in small groups to release each person’s unique voice.

Summer 2006

Up Close & Personal: Partnering Techniques in Physical Theater and Dance

Taught by Cory Nakasue and other members of the dance theater company SPINE
The workshop focused on technical and creative aspects of creating partnering sequences on stage. The workshop began with a half-hour Pilates warm-up and partner stretches. Participants were lead through a series of physical partnering techniques. Everyone learned the proper execution of various catches, falls and supports. Then, based on the techniques covered, participants composed their own phrases and presented them.

Comedy & Physical Play

Taught by Matt Chapman & Josh Matthews of Under the Table Ensemble Theatre
This physical comedy workshop explored the theory and technique behind the ridiculous, absurd and sublime. These qualities were examined by employing the “Take” (a comedic response to an action) as well as through playing games in which rules were followed and broken.

Physical Listening!

Taught by Stephen Buescher and other members of the theatre ensemble Workhorse
The workshop opened with a rigorous group warm-up that focused on the individual and group awareness necessary to prepare the physical and vocal capacity of the performer. In order to respond in subtle and expansive ways the actor/ensemble must begin with a receptive body. The class focused on the body’s receptivity through physical partnering and how to sustain and extend the physical intention through space.