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Pig Iron School for Advanced Performance Training
Dear Prospective APT Student,
Thanks for your interest in the Pig Iron School for Advanced Performance Training. We
are thrilled to open the application period for our third class and are looking for bold,
curious, theatre innovators to join us on this artistic journey. Let me share with you the
origins of the program and the core values that guide the school's path.
Pig Iron Theatre Company was forged in 1995 by a group of restless students, eager to
push the boundaries of what live performance could be. We believed that theatre was
a hybrid art form, requiring the mixing of disciplines and a collaborative process of
creation. We invited artists - to join our experiments - who shared a common set
of ideals:
• willingness to start with the seed of an idea rather than a finished vision
• excitement about a process that asks its performers, director, writer and designers to
be co-creators, co-owners and co-conspirators on the birth of a new
performance work
• desire to move the art form forward by expanding the definition of what is
possible onstage
• curiosity about the world around us
• the physical and creative skills necessary to make world-class performance
We also wanted our experiments to be accessible to a wide audience, so our process
considers the audience as a partner in the performance. Through humor, sleights of
hand, surprises, and a general yearning to break convention to stir a contemporary
audience, the Pig Iron founders relished creating performance works that drew the
audience in and offered them something unexpected.
Eighteen years later, Pig Iron, a physical theatre ensemble that plays on Philadelphia,
national, and international stages, is thriving and continues to be guided by these core
principles. We have been called “one of the few companies taking theatre in new
directions” in The New York Times, and have premiered an eclectic array of 25 original
works. They include intimate one-man shows; theatrical installations with casts of 30
actors; wild and dreamlike plays on proscenium stages; and interactive, site-specific
performances in which our audiences follow the action “in promenade.”
Pig Iron believes that the ensemble approach to making and performing theatre is a
metaphor for the ways in which humans depend on one another. Ensemble work gives
a much-needed sense of interdependence, group clarity, and shared vision. A great
ensemble invents universes and evokes worlds. In its hands, a performance becomes a
symphony of surprises.
Out of this vision, The Pig Iron School for Advance Performance Training (APT) was
born. A two-year program in physical and devised theatre, referencing the
pedagogical and artistic inquiries of Jacques Lecoq and of Joe Chaikin - among others
- as well as Pig Iron's own theatrical investigations, APT passes on the tools of Pig Iron's
trade to a new generation of theatrical inventors.
APT is a place of unconstrained experimentation mixed with rigorous training and
exceptionally high standards for performance quality. The faculty aims to push students
to discover theatre as a poetic and vital form, to forge deep collaborations with their
fellow students, and to leave with an awakened sense of the limitless possibilities of live
performance. The school's aim is not to reproduce what has already been, but to utilize
performance tools and techniques toward the emergence of each student's unique
artistic vision. This vision could land in any realm of the performing arts.
As Pig Iron continues to march into unimagined artistic territory, APT is a place for
emerging actors and directors to forge their own journeys of original ensemble creation
with all the bravery, skill, imagination, playfulness and honesty these journeys require.
Here's to the future,
Quinn Bauriedel
ADVANCED PERFORMANCE TRAINING PROGRAM OVERVIEW
APT is a 2-year diploma granting program. The focus of the school is on the individual
journey of each student as he/she encounters different territories of performance.
Beginning with the body, the school aims to train performers to be flexible, fearless,
present, passionate and disciplined. More importantly, perhaps, the school seeks to
engage with theatre creators who will utilize their performance skills toward the
development of bold, original work. The goal is to offer students the skills to develop
their own artistic voices while being grounded in the values of collaboration,
experimentation, risk, and the willingness and desire to tackle impossible problems. APT
is a space to fail gloriously, to succeed wondrously, and to develop into keen observers
of life in all of its dynamic, contradictory, rhythmic, physical, spatial, and expansive
forms. Work stems from the students’ own imaginations as they become inventors of
new worlds and translators of the human condition into vibrant performance.
YEAR 1
The first year explores the body in space and all the possibilities of corporal expression,
culminating in character work. It is both an individual and collective journey,
awakening both the inner artistic life as well as fueling a common theatrical vision. The
first year focuses on performance training, presence and artistic exploration. The
themes and territories in the first year include:
• Neutral Mask
• The poetry of the stage
• Elements, materials
and rhythms of nature
• Children at play
• Animal work
• Ordinary and extraordinary
• Larval masks
• Full, expressive masks
• Color and light
• Developing Corporeal
Vocabulary
• Site-specific theatre and
explorations of space
• Music in performance
• Choral singing
• The primitive voice
• Object manipulation and
toy theatre
• Mask creation
•
•
Entrances and exits
Physical character work
Double images
YEAR 2
The second year builds on the work in the first year and focuses on theatrical
treatments: how style and theme work hand-in-hand. The second year centers on
developing an artistic vision, on theatrical structure and performance creation. The
school culminates in public performances of student-developed work. The themes and
territories of the second year include:
Melodrama
Music-Theatre, including theatrical bands
Dance-Theatre
Commedia dell’arte and half-mask forms
Tragic chorus and contemporary tragedy
Grotesque
Clown
Cabaret, variety show, vaudeville, absurd and eccentric comic forms
Promenade performance
Pantomime
Circus acts
Texts
Individual projects
Street theatre and political
theatre
Scenes without words
Adaptations of literature
Technology and performance
PROGRAM GOALS
Pig Iron believes that the only way for theatre to stay viable as an art form — and bring
in new audiences hungry for innovation — is to re-discover the special qualities of live
performance, and to think in new ways about the role of the body and the voice
onstage. The primary goal for the Pig Iron School for Advanced Performance Training is
to expand and nourish the local, national, and international communities of forwardthinking theatre artists, and to encourage the creation of groundbreaking original work.
APT intends that actors and directors who graduate from the program will create new
work both inside and outside of the regional theatre circuit, and help to profoundly
influence the character and the tone of the American and international theatre.
PEDAGOGICAL APPROACH
The pedagogical approach is one of deep inquiry based on our innate curiosity about
the world around us. This curiosity fuels the student’s journey toward the discovery of
the full expressiveness of the body and voice. The school encourages students to
unlock their own creativity and nourishes true collaboration among artists. Though
students work on provocations that come from the faculty, the ultimate goal of APT is to
help students find their own artistic voices which they can follow long after they have
left the school.
EDUCATION PHILOSOPHY
The Pig Iron School for Advanced Performance Training celebrates creativity as a
dialogue between artists, and advocates a culture where actors, directors, writers and
designers work together in an improvisational framework to create characters and
plays wholly owned by creative ensembles. It asks its students to be passionate creators
of their own material and to hold their work to the highest standards of excellence. At
the heart of ensemble generated physical theatre are the core values of artistic inquiry
and practice: boundless curiosity about the human condition and the world around us;
ceaseless playfulness; unyielding attention to all of the components that create vibrant
performance and the entrepreneurial spirit that drives and sustains the 21st century
artist.
Training the next generation of theatre artists to change the face of world
theatre…
Programs Offered
Advanced Performance Training – A two year, intensive post graduate program
Summer Session – A three week training course focusing on specific topics in
professional and artistic development, including:
•
•
•
Neutral Mask, Character Mask and Red-Nose Clown
Ensemble Playmaking
Acrobatics and Movement Analysis
Winter Session –A two week training course focusing on ensemble generated theatre
An Overview of the Curriculum
APT offers several channels of exploration each week. Generally, structured courses
focus on three main arteries of ensemble and physical theatre training:
Movement & Voice. Students train their bodies and voices each week through courses
and units on movement analysis, acrobatics/gymnastics, dance, dance-theatre and
movement improvisation, movement composition and core physical training and voice
– choral singing, primitive voice experimentation and vocal expression.
Improvisation. Students work on a variety of themes, some lasting a week, some lasting
up to a month. The work involves daily improvisational practice, training the performer
to become adept at making all of the split-second choices that a creative actor must
make to deepen the connection with the audience, to advance the drama, to further
articulate the character, to build and release tension and to bring the audience on a
theatrical journey. The work on improvisation trains the performer to write on his/her
feet and to be sensitive to the moment-to-moment demands of a scene as well as the
larger arc of the performance work.
Ensemble creation. Ensemble Creation is at the very core of APT and is the synthesis of
all the other courses that are part of the program. Creation allows students to take the
vocabulary, themes, values, techniques and skills that are part of the other courses and
apply them toward creating original theatre pieces. Each week, students work in
collaborative teams to develop original pieces based around the week’s theme. This is
a chance for the students to answer artistic and technical questions for themselves. It
presents an opportunity to work through the myriad problems that the themes present,
ultimately showing the work to the faculty at the end of the week for feedback and
critique.
The journey of ensemble creation is a journey toward developing an artistic voice, not
through discussion or reading, but through hand-crafting works of theatre. The public is
periodically invited to presentations of ensemble created work generated over the
course of the year.
Seminars in Contemporary Performance. APT investigates trends in contemporary
performance, and focuses on broadening the students’ knowledge of theatre making
across the globe. Additionally, these seminars look at other artistic disciplines including
architecture, music, painting, sculpture and mixed media, film and dance to place
theatre in a larger cultural context. There are selected readings so that the students are
able to speak fluently about the roots and influences of ensemble work as well as the
direction that contemporary performance is heading.
Course Descriptions
YEAR 1
INTRODUCTION TO ACROBATICS
Acrobatics is a physical discipline that is vitally important for the physical actor. The
study of acrobatics helps the student deepen his/her understanding of the possibilities
of the body onstage. The core principles are balance, risk-taking, flexibility, strength
and movement analysis. Practically, this course helps the student to find balance
upside down and all the variations that come from the handstand. Creatively, this work
is intended to help the student see the world from a different perspective.
MOVEMENT ANALYSIS I
Movement Analysis is designed to deepen one’s understanding of movement in all its
forms and to train the body to be flexible, strong, precise, transformative, and
articulate. The course examines movement, the movement of the body but also the
movement of objects, elements, materials, animals, light, sound and the earth itself. Far
beyond a study of gestures and postures, the course examines deeper questions about
the origin of movement - the motor - the rhythmic possibilities of movement, and the
impulses that guide movement on the stage. It trains the students to become observers
of the movements of life around us.
VOICE I
Our socialized voice is very limited in its expressiveness because it is rarely required to
move beyond a very thin band of pitch, tone, breath and articulation. The course
intends to crack open the socialized voice to discover the enormous potential that lies
within. Through exercises designed to uncensor the voice, to make sounds that one
might think are ugly, wild, frightening or other-worldly, and to expand the range of what
is vocally possible, the student is enabled to have control of and use the voice as a
creative tool toward original performance. Often, the physical and vocal work are
aligned so there is considerable synergy between voice and movement. An additional
component of this course is choral singing. Through a vocal and ensemble training
regimen taught to us by Teater Slava in Sweden, choral singing focuses on developing
a strong voice through physical exertion and resistance, finding the roots of the voice in
the core body as well as from the ground beneath us.
IMPROVISATION I
The Improvisation course focuses on the fundamental skill needed for devised theatre
or actor-generated theatre: the skill of writing on one’s feet. The course is an artistic
journey winding through a variety of performance territories intended to train the
student to become a fearless, curious, dynamic theatre-maker. The course begins with
an examination of the poetic possibilities of theatre, then continues through the Neutral
Mask and observations of the drama of nature. Subset courses in Improvisation include
Jeu (play), Measures (an examination of rhythm and space) and Open Canvas (a
devising technique), the work moves toward an exploration of masks and an actor’s
transformation and finally on to character, theatrical treatments, ordinary and
extraordinary dramatic states and dance theatre work.
CREATION I
Creation is at the very core of APT and is the synthesis of all the other courses that are
part of the program. Creation allows students to take the vocabulary, themes, values,
techniques and skills that are part of the other courses and apply them toward the
making of original theatre. Students are placed into groups of various sizes and will
create an original work of theatre each week during the course of the program. The
themes are offered by the faculty each week but otherwise the process toward
presentation is led by the students who work collaboratively in response to the faculty
provocation. The finished pieces are shown on Fridays for faculty evaluation and
feedback. The course is meant to give the students an opportunity to wrestle with the
question of how to construct a vibrant, engaging piece of theatre in a collaborative
ensemble. The journey of this course is a journey toward developing an artistic voice,
not through discussion or reading, but through hand-making theatre. Failure is an
ingredient in artistic discovery; the ultimate goal of the course is to engender rigorous
and precise working methods for creative and collaborative theatre artists. The course
will culminate in public performances of works at the ends of Term 2 and Term 3 and
created during the course of the year.
CONTEMPORARY ART & CULTURE SEMINAR
This course looks at contemporary art beyond the world of performance, encouraging
connections across disciplines and in a variety of critical lenses. For example, the course
may focus on how sculpture and performance mutually influence one another, or how
poetry, paintings and theatre possess symbiotic qualities. The questions raised spark a
rich, ongoing conversation regarding the specific contributions that ensemble-devised
theatre play in art and society.
YEAR 2
ACROBATICS
Advanced Acrobatics continues the work begun in Introduction to Acrobatics. The
course trains students to have physical virtuosity that they can utilize in their creation
projects. While the core principles of this course remain the same as in the first year balance, risk-taking, flexibility, strength and movement analysis – the Advanced
Acrobatics course is intended to offer students a movement palette so that they can
become movement inventors rather than simply movement executors. There continues
to be considerable work on the handstand but the focus will move from stillness towards
kinetic acrobatics, sequences, partnering and eventually acrobatic numbers that can
be incorporated into clown routines.
DANCE THEATRE & CORE PHYSICAL TRAINING
Dance Theatre & Core Physical Training continues the work begun in Movement
Analysis; though in this second year course, the emphasis is on using the body as a
creative tool toward creation. Additionally, the course offers a daily physical training
regimen that is intended to increase core strength and to help prepare the body for a
healthy and long physically active artistic career. It is intended that this core physical
practice becomes part of the student’s regular routine. As in Movement Analysis, this
course demands physical presence and a body that is flexible, strong, precise,
transformative and articulate. The daily core physical training involves exercises culled
from yoga, Pilates, Alexander technique and Feldenkreis. Much work explores the
physical language onstage and the possibilities for expression. Some of the assignments
work with music, others with silence. We define dance-theatre as the intersection
between character and story on the one hand with gesture and corporal expression on
the other.
VOICE & MUSIC– YEAR 2
The Voice & Music course Year 2 is both a deepening of the vocal work done in Year 1
as well as an exploration of music for live performance, including cabaret. Beyond
continuing to train the performer’s voice, the course also addresses creating musical
ensembles to support theatrical work. Individuals with specific instrument skills are asked
to work with those instruments. Other are given training on a variety of instruments
including piano, drums, tuba and xylophone, among others. When appropriate, the
Voice & Music course aligns with the Improvisation and Creation courses.
IMPROVISATION II
The Improvisation II course continues the work of Improvisation 1; though in year 2 the
work focuses on exploring theatrical styles. The course begins with music, looking at the
various possibilities of music onstage and the inherent power in music. We look at
melodrama, music theatre and ultimately commedia dell’arte and half-mask work. We
explore boundary – pushing art and street art in a Performance Dares and add an
additional module on Text and the Physical Performer. We continue in Trimester 2 with a
study of the grotesque, satire (stemming from the ancient Greek satyr plays) and
tragedy. Finally, the 3rd Trimester looks at clown, comic forms and the absurd.
CREATION II
Creation 2 is an extension of the first year’s course. It remains the synthesis of all the
other courses that are part of the program. Year 2 Creation intensifies the
collaborations of Year 1 and enables students to dive deeper artistically and to make
far more complex, nuanced and rich theatrical pieces. The goal of Creation 2 is to
prepare students to create work that can stand on its own outside of the school
context. Thus, the public showings that are integrated into Year 2 are meant to raise
the stakes of the creation and learn from the encounters audiences. As in Year 1,
Creation allows students to take the vocabulary, themes, values, techniques and skills
that are part of the other courses and apply them toward the making of original
theatre. In year 2, individuals begin to explore artistic affinities so the creating of
individual groups is less random than in Year 1. The themes for Creation are given out
on Fridays and presentations take place the following Friday. The end of each trimester
is a time to re-visit work for public showing. Thus, a part of the course is about finishing
pieces and preparing them for the audience. Creation is still led by the students who
work collaboratively in response to assignments and show the finished results of the work
on Fridays for faculty evaluation and feedback. The journey of Creation Year 2 is a
journey toward opening up theatrical possibilities, exploring the breadth of theatrical
expression and style and ultimately toward helping students create their own
provocations and inquiries, processes of creation, and methods for self-evaluation and
feedback. In this way, the course is a preparation for creating original work well after
they have left APT.
The course culminates in public performances of final projects called, Dares.
CONTEMPORARY PERFORMANCE & THE ARTISTIC LIVELIHOOD
This course continues the work of the Contemporary Art Seminar in Year 1 but in Year 2
the focus is more practical. Individual sessions focus on the professional non-profit
theatre world; how to make a sustainable life in the theatre and how to produce one’s
own work. Through guest speakers and Pig Iron associates, students hear from working
professionals about their artistic and administrative processes to begin to become
conversant with specialists: dramaturges, designers, writers, production and stage
managers, producers, and presenters. There are multiple video showings to move
thinking forward from the 5-10 minute Creation pieces presented each Friday to longer
dramatic structures. Considerable discussion time focuses on full-length pieces and the
dramaturgy of a full-length work. There is also a portion of the course dedicated to
theatre history and to theatrical reference points from the Classics to Shakespeare to
Chekhov. The work in seminar consistently connects to the classroom work in creation
and performance.
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Faculty
Gabriel Quinn Bauriedel (School Director, Improvisation, Acrobatics & Creation) is a co-
founder and Co-Artistic Director of the OBIE Award-winning Pig Iron Theatre Company. Since 1995,
Quinn has been one of the leading artists with the company, co-creating nearly all of the company’s 25
original works of theatre and touring them to venues and festivals in Brazil, Germany, Scotland, England,
Romania, Poland, Peru, Italy, Ukraine, Lithuania and Ireland, among others. Additionally, Quinn and Pig
Iron regularly present their work in New York City and have toured throughout the States including
engagements in San Francisco, Washington, DC, Princeton, Providence, Cambridge, Atlanta, Tampa,
Logan (Utah), among others. He has directed, designed and performed with the company since its
inception. Quinn received an Outstanding Direction Barrymore Award nomination for Welcome to Yuba
City, which was nominated for 6 Barrymores including Outstanding New Play and Outstanding Overall
Production. Quinn received an Outstanding Choreography Barrymore for his collaborative work on
Cafeteria and also won for Outstanding Ensemble for Mission to Mercury. The company has been
recognized as “one of the few groups successfully taking theatre in new directions” by the New York
Times who also named Chekhov Lizardbrain, in which Quinn performs and was one of the co-creators, as
one of the Top 10 Productions of 2008. Pig Iron has been named Theatre Company of the Year by the
Philadelphia Weekly, City Paper and Philadelphia Magazine. Welcome to Yuba City was featured on the
cover of American Theatre magazine in February 2010, as was The Tragedy of Joan of Arc (January,
2000) which Quinn directed. Quinn was a Henry Luce Fellow in Bali, Indonesia in 2000-2001 where he
served on the faculty of the State College of Indonesian Arts and studied Balinese dance, mask work and
music. In 2002, he and his Pig Iron co-artistic directors (Dan Rothenberg and Dito van Reigersberg) were
named Pew Fellows in Performance Art. In 2007, he received one of 6 national Fox Foundation Actor
Fellowships.
Quinn has taught courses in acting and movement theatre since 2001 at Swarthmore
College. Additionally, he has been on the faculty of the Headlong Performance Institute since its
inception in 2007 and has taught at Princeton University since 2005. Quinn has taught workshops at the
Alternative Theatre Festival in Budapest, Les Kurbas Theatre in Lviv, Ukraine, Princeton University,
Stanford University, UVA, Wesleyan university, Utah State, Georgetown, American University, and
UPenn, among other workshops. Additionally, he has taught professional theatre training workshops in
Philadelphia, New York, and San Francisco for the past 12 years.
Quinn is a graduate of Swarthmore College and Ecole Jacques Lecoq. He has done additional training
with Giovanni Fusetti, Theatre de la Jeune Lune and Joe Chaikin.
Emmanuelle Delpech (Improvisation & Creation) was classically trained at Ecole Superieur
d’Art Dramatique de la Ville de Paris, and studied physical theatre at Ecole Jacques Lecoq. She also
trained at the Fratellini Circus School and with clown teacher Ami Hattab. She holds an MFA in directing
from Temple University. Emmanuelle has performed in Paris and throughout Europe in such productions
as Lettres a Stalingrad (dir. by Laurent Terzieff). A member of Pig Iron Theatre Company for eight years,
Emmanuelle has been a performer and co-creator of such critically acclaimed productions as Gentlemen
Volunteers, Flop!, Hell Meets Henry Halfway (Barrymore nomination for best supporting actress) and
James Joyce is Dead and So Is Paris, for which she won a Barrymore Award for Best Supporting Actress
in a Musical. She performed in Interact Theatre’s world premiere of Feast of the Flying Cow and other
Stories of War and co-created and performed Madame Douce-Amere, a wordless duet at the 2005 Live
Arts festival (for which she received an Independent Foundation grant), which was been produced by
1812 Productions at the Walnut Street Theatre in October 2006. She received a Philadelphia Theatre
Initiative grant to direct Oedipus at Colonnus, set in a skate park with a chorus of skateboarders, for the
2008 Philadelphia Live Arts Festival. In 2012 she directed Bang, a hit of the Philadelphia Live Arts
Festival. Emmanuelle has taught Clown at University of the Arts, Moliere and Racine at Swarthmore
College and organizes clown workshops in Philadelphia for professional or non-professional actors. She
currently teaches a 2 semester Lecoq Techniques Class at Temple University for undergraduate and
graduate students.
Sarah Sanford (Movement Analysis & Creation) studied at École Jacques Lecoq prior to joining
Pig Iron for Shut Eye in 2001. Since then she has appeared in PITC creations including The Lucia Joyce
Cabaret, Hell Meets Henry Halfway, Love Unpunished, 365 Plays/365 Days, and Welcome to Yuba City.
In addition to her Pig Iron work she has performed with BRAT Productions, the Lantern, the Wilma, the
Arden, Theatre Exile, Mauckingbird, and in Jo Strømgren's The European Lesson. Sarah has also
performed with Toronto-based Volcano (The Four Horsemen) in Vancouver and Victoria, B.C. She
recently brought her original piece Appetite, a collaboration with Toronto dance and theatre artists, to
Philadelphia. In 2012 she co-created and performed in Bang, a hit of the Philadelphia Live Arts Festival.
Sarah is a recipient of the 2010 Otto Haas Emerging Artist award and was recently named Philadelphia
Magazine’s “Best of Philly: Up-and-coming Theatre Artist.” She has taught courses at Swarthmore
College and has participated in Princeton University’s Atelier program. Sarah has taught professional
workshops through Pig Iron since 2004.
Geoff Sobelle (Acrobatics & Jeu) is co-artistic director of rainpan 43, a renegade absurdist outfit
devoted to creating original actor-driven performance. He has been a company member of Pig Iron
Theatre Company since 2001. Geoff was awarded an Independence Foundation Fellowship and grants
from the Philadelphia Theatre Initiative to create all wear bowlers (Innovative Theatre Award, Drama Desk
nomination), machines machines machines machines machines machines machines (Obie award for
design and Top 10 productions of 2009, The New Yorker magazine), and Flesh and Blood and Fish and
Fowl, which won a Fringe First Award in Edinburgh. All wear bowlers toured to festivals and theatres
around the world including the Sydney Opera House, Berkeley Rep, La Jolla Playhouse and the Studio
Theatre in DC. He has been nominated for three Barrymore Awards and was named Best Theatre Artist
2004 in Philadelphia Magazine. Geoff received a 2006 Pew Fellowship in the Arts and is a 2009 Creative
Capital grantee. He is a graduate of Stanford University, and trained at L'École Jacques Lecoq in
Paris. He has taught with Pig Iron since 2002 and led an Atelier, curated by Toni Morrison, at Princeton
University. Along with Trey Lyford and Steve Cuiffo, Geoff co-created Elephant Room which premiered at
the Philadelphia Live Arts Festival in 2011 and has toured to St. Ann's Warehouse in New York City,
Arena Stage in DC and the Mark Taper Forum in LA.
Dito van Reigersberg (Choral Singing, Cabaret, Open Canvas) Dito van Reigersberg, a co-
founder and co-artistic director of Pig Iron Theatre Company, has performed in almost all of Pig Iron’s
productions since 1995, including the OBIE-winning original pieces Hell Meets Henry Halfway and
Chekhov Lizardbrain. A graduate of Swarthmore College, he trained at the Neighborhood Playhouse and
the Martha Graham School of Contemporary Dance. Most recently for Pig Iron was Duke Orsino in
Twelfth Night during the 2011 Live Arts Festival and Okada/Thoreau in Zero Cost House in the 2012 Live
Arts Festival. He has also created and performed for Headlong Dance Theatre, Nichole Canuso Dance
Company, Azuka Theatre Company, Act 2, and Mauckingbird Theatre Company. He is a Barrymore
Award recipient for Best Ensemble for Mission to Mercury (Pig Iron) and a nominee for Best Actor in a
Musical for Hedwig (Azuka), and has been named a Pew Fellow (2002) and a Knight USA Fellow (2010).
His alter-ego Martha Graham-Cracker is famously ‘the tallest drag queen in the world” -- her monthly
cabaret series at L'Etage in Philadelphia has been running for over 6 years. He has been named a Pew
Fellow and a Knight USA Artists Fellow.
Dan Rothenberg (Measures & Text and the Physical Performer) is a founding member and co-
artistic director of the Pig Iron Theatre Company. Dan has directed almost all of Pig Iron's original
performance works, including Poet in New York, Gentlemen Volunteers, Isabella, Pay Up, The Lucia
Joyce Cabaret, and the OBIE Award-winning Hell Meets Henry Halfway and Chekhov Lizardbrain. In
2001, Dan co-directed Shut Eye with Joseph Chaikin. Other projects include creation of audio works to
accompany the paintings of Alexandra Grant at MOCA in Los Angeles, improvisation research with
Headlong Dance Theatre and Miguel Guttierez, and ongoing collaborations with Stockholm's Teater
Slava and the alt-comedy group The Berzerker Residents. In April 2010, Dan directed the English-
language premiere of Toshiki Okada's Enjoy for Play Company in New York. In 2010, Dan Directed and
co-created Cankerblossom in the Philadelphia Live Arts Festival. In 2011, he directed Twelfth Night which
garnered 10 Barrymore Award nominations, including Outstanding Direction and Outstanding Overall
Production of a Play. He directed Zero Cost House, Toshiki Okada's play about Thoreau and 3/11 in
Japan, for the Philadelphia Live Arts Festival. It will subsequently tour to Under The Radar in New York
City and Boston, Georgetown University, The Ringling International Arts Festival in Florida and the TPAM
Festival in Tokyo. Pew Fellowship in Performance Art (2002), United States Artist Knight Fellowship
(2010). In late 2012, Dan will direct As You Like It for the Acting Company.
Jean-Rene Toussaint (Voice: Stemwerk Intensive Module) is a French actor, director, and
internationally recognized theater/voice teacher. He is the founder and director of the Stemwerk
International Centre for the Voice in Rotterdam (The Netherlands), founded in 1988. Here Jean-Rene
offers guided vocal exploration for individuals, couples, and groups, as well as certification in his methods
for aspiring voice teachers and theatre artists. In recent years, he has also established a center for
summer intensive voice retreats in Avanos, Turkey. His unique voice work is the result of 25 years of
research and development, stemming mainly from working with deaf adults and children and from
extensive world travel researching the primitive
voice. His particular technique is based essentially on the
movement of the body, on delineating the difference between 'voices to be' and 'voices to do', and
listening based on bodily perception. He has directed theater groups and theater schools in France and
the Netherlands since 1975 (in France 1975-1987; in the Netherlands 1988-2005) He has collaborated
with artists such as Jerzy Grotowski, Robert Wilson, Annick Nozati and companies such as Theatre du
Radeau, Theatre de Feu, The Living Theater, Bread and Puppet Theater and The Roy Hart Theatre,
among many others.
Adrienne Mackey (Voice) is the founder of Swim Pony Performing Arts, a company dedicated to
works that are loud, strange and never seen before on earth! In the spring of 2010 she directed
SURVIVE! - a 22,000 square ft. choose-your-own adventure installation exploring how humanity
understands the universe and man's place within it. In Fringe Arts 2011, along with co-creator Catharine
Slusar, she premiered LADY M - an all-female take on Macbeth called "a peppery, satisfyingly complex
dream-theater stew" by Citypaper - to Philly stages. In 2012, she received a Knight Arts Challenge for
"Outside the (Black) Box" to weave the arts into non-traditional spaces including The Giant Squid (a
collaboration with Philly based Berserker Residents) which performed in science lecture halls across the
Philadelphia area. The following year brought a second Knight Arts Challenge "Cross-Pollination" which
will combine creators of different genres into original and surprising short performances. Most recently
Adrienne directed "The Ballad of Joe Hill" presented as part of the curated 2013 Fringe Arts Festival and
boasted a completely sold out run and a profile on NPR's Radio Times. Adrienne is a recipient of the
prestigious Independence Fellowship, a former Live Arts LAB fellow and New Edge Resident and creator
of more than 10 original theatrical works since 2005. Watch for her newest collaboration with Drexel
University as part of the Mandell Professional Residency in early 2014.
Allen J. Kuharski (History, Theory, & Practice of Ensemble Physical Theater) is Chair of the
Department of Theater at Swarthmore College, where he holds the Stephen Lang Professorship in
Performing Arts and teaches directing, performance theory, and theater history. Since 1995, he has been
director of the Swarthmore Project in Theater, which provides in-kind grants for performance residencies
for Swarthmore theater alumni and their collaborators, which included Pig Iron Theatre Company in their
early years. He co-founded and co-directed Swarthmore’s semester-abroad program for theater and
dance students in Poland, whose alumni include the members of Philadelphia’s Green Chair Dance
Group. Allen trained as a set designer at the University of Wisconsin at Madison and was a Fulbright
Scholar in Scenography to the Warsaw Academy of Fine Arts, where he studied under the Polish painter
and performance artist Józef Szajna. Allen was active for ten years as a set designer for theater and
opera. He completed a doctorate in the director/scholar program in the Department of Dramatic Art at the
UC-Berkeley, where he wrote the first dissertation in any language devoted to the theatrical work of
Polish writer Witold Gombrowicz. Allen has served as Associate Editor and Performance Review Editor
for Theatre Journal. His articles, reviews, interviews, and translations from Polish and French have been
widely published in the U.S., Great Britain, Poland, France, Norway, Austria, and the Netherlands. His
translation of Ionesco’s Rhinoceros (done with George Moskos) has been widely performed in the U.S.,
and his English-language version of Teatr Provisorium & Kompania Teatr of Lublin’s adaptation of
Gombrowicz’s novel Ferdydurke received a Fringe First in Edinburgh and has been widely performed on
tour both nationally and internationally. As a performance curator, he has co-commissioned Pig Iron’s
Shut Eye (2001; done in collaboration with Joseph Chaikin) and Hell Meets Henry Halfway (2004; text by
Adriano Shaplin; winner of an OBIE Award in 2005), as well as The Riot Group’s Hearts of Man (2006;
written by Adriano Shaplin), along with American tours and residencies by Teatr Provisorium & Kompania
Teatr and Polish choreographer Jacek Łumiński and his company Silesian Dance Theatre. Allen has
received the Order of Merit for Polish Culture (2002) and the Stanisław Ignacy Witkiewicz Award (2006;
given by the Polish chapter of the International Theatre Institute/UNESCO).
Charlotte Ford (Performance Dares) is a Philadelphia-based theatre artist who creates avantgarde slapstick performance art that celebrates sublime stupidity with joyful abandon. She has toured her
original work to the Traverse Theatre as part of the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, the London Barbican as
part of the London Mime Festival, and the Paris Maison de Métallos as part of Festival Paris Quartier
d'éte. Original, collaboratively devised work includes Chicken, Flesh and Blood & Fish and Fowl (Fringe
First, Edinburgh, 2010, short-listed for Total Theatre Award) and the upcoming 2012 Philadelphia Live
Arts debut of a new project with Emmanuelle Delpech, Sarah Sanford and Lee Etzold that explores
female sexuality and the funny/sexy divide through clown, Bang. She has also collaborated in
creating/performing original work with Pig Iron Theatre Company (Welcome to Yuba City - Barrymore
nominations: Outstanding Supporting Actress, Outstanding Ensemble), Emmanuelle Delpech (Raymond),
Lucidity Suitcase Intercontinental (Red Eye to Havre de Grace, Flamingo Winnebago), Rainpan43
(Machines Machines Machines Machines Machines Machines Machines) and New Paradise Laboratories
(Don Juan in Nirvana). She has performed with 1812 Productions (Cherry Bomb - Philadelphia Weekly's
"Best Supporting Actress in a Musical"; An Evening without Woody Allen), Theatre Exile (Gruesome
Playground Injuries, That Pretty Pretty or the Rape Play, Red Light Winter - Barrymore nomination,
Outstanding Supporting Actress - Mr. Marmalade - Barrymore nomination, Outstanding Ensemble), the
Arden (Robinhood), the Lantern, Pennsylvania Shakespeare Festival, the McCarter, and Brat
Productions. She is a two-time recipient of the Philadelphia Theatre Initiative grant, the Independence
Foundation fellowship, and the 2008 & 2009 Leeway Art and Change grant. She is a 2013 recipient of the
F. Otto Haas award. She holds a BA from Bryn Mawr College and an MFA from the London International
School of Performing Arts.
Nichole Canuso (Dance-Theatre) is the artistic director of Nichole Canuso Dance Company. She
has been a company member of Headlong Dance Theater since 1997 has performed and collaborated
with Theater Exile, Karen Bamonte Dance Works, Group Motion Dance Company and Pig Iron Theatre
Company with whom she co-created and toured the three-woman clown play Flop. In 2008 Canuso
performed with Bill Irwin in The Happiness Lecture at the Philadelphia Theater Company. Canuso’s
dancing, choreography and study have taken her to France, Scotland, Poland, Japan and across the
United States. Her work has been supported by The National Endowment for the Arts, The Knight Arts
Foundation, a Bessie Shoenberg First Light Commission, The Leeway Foundation, the Independence
Foundation, Dance Advance (a grant program funded by the Pew Charitable Trusts and administered by
the University of the Arts), The Pennsylvania Council on the Arts, Philadelphia Cultural Fund and the
Ellen Foreman Memorial Award. Choreographic residencies include fellowships at Maggie Allesse
National Center for Choreography (FL), Millay Colony for the Arts (NY), The New Edge Residency (CEC,
Philadelphia), The Swarthmore Project (Swarthmore College, PA), The Choreographers Project (Susan
Hess Dance Studio, Philadelphia) and the Indiana University of Pennsylvania. Nichole's pieces have been
produced numerous times by the Philadelphia Live Arts Festival and Philly Fringe. Her work, As the Eyes
of the Seahorse was co-produced with the HERE Arts Center (NYC) in December 2010. Her collaboration
with Dito van Reigersberg, Lars Jan, and Mike Kiley, Takes, premiered at the Philadelphia Live Arts
Festival and subsequently toured to 3LD in New York and the Kelly Strayhorn Theatre in Pittsburgh.
KC Chun-Manning (Alexander Technique) is certified as an Alexander Technique teacher
(M.AmSAT) and her practice interweave the Alexander Technique, developmental movement, somatics
and postmodern release technique. The intersection of her dance and Alexander practice has also
included guest artist teaching at Drexel University, West Chester University, nEW Festival, Trinity
College, Denver University, Aspen Dance Connection, Bucknell University, the Cancer Support Center in
Philadelphia and for breast-feeding moms at the North Suburban Hospital. She serves on the dance
faculty at Temple University, and will be joining the faculty at Bryn Mawr College in Spring 2013. She has
danced professionally for such artists as Kim Olson/sweet edge, Maedée Duprès, Sara Hook, Cynthia
Oliver and Guillermo Ortega Tanus, and is currently working with Susan Rethorst and with Pasión y Arte
Flamenco Co for PIFA 2013. KC received her MFA in Dance from the University of Illinois at UrbanaChampaign in 2004, and is the Artistic Director of the pickup company, Fresh Blood. Fresh Blood has
presented choreography at the 2012 Norristown DanceFest, 2011 Cool New York Dance Festival, 2011
Fringe Festival, the University of Colorado at Boulder, Aspen Dance Connection, the Packing House
Center for the Arts, the Dairy Center for the Arts, the Brooklyn Arts Exchange, the Merce Cunningham
Studio and the 2006 DUMBO Dance Festival. She has additionally coached gymnastics for competitive
and recreational programs throughout Philadelphia, Manhattan, Boston and West Hartford.
Aaron Cromie (mask design) is a Philadelphia based performer, director, mask & puppet designer,
writer and teacher who has collaborated with such companies as the Philadelphia Shakespeare Theatre,
Arden Theatre, The Philadelphia Orchestra, The Shakespeare Theatre (DC), Rogue Theatre (AZ), Studio
Theatre (DC), Pearl Theatre (NYC), Shakespeare Theatre (DC), Wilma Theatre and Philadelphia Theatre
Company (Bill Irwin's The Happiness Lecture), 1812 Productions, Pig Iron Theatre Company and Folger
Theatre, where his puppets are included in the Folger Shakespeare Library's permanent collection and
two commissions for the American Philosophical Society. His original work has appeared in the
Philadelphia International Festival of the Arts, Philadelphia Live Arts/Fringe (now FringeArts) and the
Capital Fringe Festival. He has toured nationally with The Buddy Holly Story and Internationally with The
European Lesson with Jo Strømgren Kompani of Norway. Aaron teaches for the University of the Arts,
Pig Iron Theatre's APT program, is co-founding faculty of the Headlong Performance Institute and has
guest taught for Bryn Mawr College, The University of Maryland and Drexel University. Aaron is the
winner of five Barrymore Awards and has received grant support from the Jim Henson Foundation, is a
two-time Independence Foundation Fellow and Independent Artist grant recipient from the Pew Center for
Arts and Heritage (with his artistic partner, Mary Tuomanen, for their upcoming show The Body Lautrec).
The two were recently selected as Artists-in-Residence for the 2014 Eugene O'Neill Theatre Center
National Puppetry Conference. He has studied at the Ecole Jacques Lecoq, The Antonio Fava School
(commedia dell'arte) and is a graduate of the Dell'Arte International School of Physical Theatre. His online
portfolio of design and performance work can be found at www.aaroncromie.com
Tuition and other specifics
Diploma in Advanced Performance Training
Upon completing the program, students will be awarded a professional diploma in
Advanced Performance Training.
Program Length
The two year program will consist of six trimesters that are ten weeks in length. Each
week will schedule 26.5 – 27 clock hours of class time; the total program will consist of
1590 clock hours of instruction.
Tuition and Fees
• Tuition is $12,000 for year 2014/15 and $12,500 for 2015/16.
• A materials and activities fee of $175 is charged at the beginning of year one.
• A materials and activities fee of $200 is charged at the beginning of year two.
•
There is one $75 fee, due with an applicant’s submission.
2014-2015 School Calendar
1st Trimester
Oct. 6, 2014 - Dec. 12, 2014
Scheduled Holidays: 11/27 &11/28 Thanksgiving,
nd
2 Trimester
Jan. 5, 2015 – Mar. 13, 2015
Scheduled Holidays: 1/19 MLK Day, 2/16 Presidents’ Day
rd
3 Trimester
Mar. 30, 2014 – Jun. 6, 2015
Scheduled Holiday: 5/25 Memorial Day
2015-2016 School Calendar
4th Trimester
Oct. 12, 2015 – Dec. 18, 2015
Scheduled Holidays: 11/26 & 11/27 Thanksgiving, 11/28
5th Trimester
Jan. 11, 2016 – Mar. 18, 2016
Scheduled Holiday: 1/18 MLK Day, 2/15 Presidents’ Day
th
6 Trimester
Apr. 4, 2016 – Jun. 10, 2016
Scheduled Holiday: 5/27 Memorial Day