April 14 – May 5, 2024
Taught by Steven Rishard, a HotHouse member and Clinical Mental Health Licensure Candidate, The Emotional Landscape is an advanced scene study class for adult actors to strengthen their artistic practice, specifically focused on broadening emotional pliability and expressiveness.
In a group-work container, we will utilize different methodologies and practices to enrich what it means to engage with emotionally challenging material.Through trauma-informed practice, we will explore vulnerability, building trust quickly with scene partners; the body as a somatic tool for access into deep emotion; and how to mine the script for expressive choices in prepared auditions, cold reads, or the rehearsal room. This is a process-oriented workshop, with a growth mindset. We do not hold perfection as a goal or a standard.
Participants will leave with expanded ideas around preparation for auditions and for working in rehearsal, a stronger sense of their artistic process within various working styles, and a deeper understanding of their challenges. They will also receive practice in working with specificity, moment-to-moment work, and crafting a flexible understanding of their range. Each student will get to bring in and workshop one monologue of their choice. Selections from contemporary new works will be provided for scene work.
Dates: April 14, 21, 28, May 5
Time: 6pm – 8:30pm
Location: Wilma Theater
Price: $280
Steven Rishard was last seen at the Wilma in Kiss. Other Wilma productions include Describe the Night, When the Rain Stops Falling, Adapt!, Romeo and Juliet, The Hard Problem, and Antigone. Here in Philadelphia, his other credits include work with PTC in the shows Garbologists, and Detroit; at Azuka Theater, Boycott Esther, and The Arsonists. With the Arden Theatre, Cabaret, and Doll’s House 2. The Few at Theatre Horizon, and with Interact Theater, Straight White Men, and most recently Settlements. His New York credits include; The Bacchae for The Public Theater’s Shakespeare in the Park, In the Penal Colony at Classic Stage Company, Luz at LA Mama Theatre, and with Divison 13 Productions; Cascando, and Journeys Among the Dead at H.E.R.E Art Space, Act Without Words 1 at the Brooklyn Can Factory. TV credits include Law & Order, Treme, Law & Order: SVU, Kings, and The Americans. Film: Shelter (6 Souls), Joy D.Vee, and Hal Hartley’s Meanwhile. Look him up on Instagram @srishard for his work in visual art.
