PHYSICAL COMEDY – WORKSHOP with Thomas Toppler & Richard Knight
26-27 Oct 2024
Physical comedy allows us to connect and provoke the audience's imagination from physical expressiveness, leaving the word in the background. In this workshop, based on pleasure and playfulness on stage, we will analyse basic factors in comedy such as states of tension, rhythm and space. Using elements of clown, pantomime and bouffon people will develop and explode their own comical expressive abilities. The workshop isn’t about being physically funny; its about how much fun you can physically have with everyone else. When we reach this point; we start to truly play and discover our own freedom and humanity.
SKILLS TAUGHT
The Game: Discover the game of theatre and acting. This workshop explores the principles and robust play that are the foundations for everything we do onstage. Here we begin to open the door to playing impulsively from a place of pleasure to set you on the path to artistic freedom. Finding the game.
Clown: The art of sensitivity, ridiculousness and hilarity. You will discover the power of failure and how to play the flop to find laughter and connection with your audiences.
Bouffon: The art of parody and the grotesque. You will discover how to use laughter as a means for social commentary, to perform as a pack and to craft original material.
Pantomime: The art of posture and gesture, body language. You will discover how to create strong striking comical postures and gestures, and the simplicity of comic imagery.
Rhythm: A sense of comic timing. You will gain a strong awareness of comic beats, on beat and off beats. States of
Tension: The 7 levels of tension, 3 circles of energy. You will discover when the body is lying and when it is not to use as a comic effect.
Space: How to play within a given space. You will discover that different types of spaces have different comic effects and or the space can be used as a comic effect.
WHO SHOULD DO THE COURSE? If you ever wanted a taster course in physical comedy or a refresher course or just want to play have fun and hone your skills? This course is a must for you!! This is a rare one-off course, that will never be repeated again for this low price. It has not 1 but 2 master practitioners coming together for the first time for a two-day workshop at the price of a one-day workshop with just one practitioner. If you bring someone else with you, then you will get an additional 25% off. This is a ridiculous low price for such a high quality and calibre course. How can we afford to do this at such a low price? Well, us practitioners just want to do a workshop for the fun factor as we always wanted to do one together. We are simply charging a fee, so we can cover the rental hire of the room and the flights from Austria to the UK, and most importantly we want genuine people to come to the workshop that really want to be there. We will be working with a small number of people, so book early to reserve you place!
LOCATION: Naval and Military Club Southend on Sea SS1 1DU UK
DATES: 12:00 – 6:00pm 26-27 OCT 2024 --- (sat/sun)
*Fee: 1 day = £75 2 days = £100 *Bring someone else with you to the workshop and get an extra 25% off Book early limited spaces available!
To Book please email: mimethegap@mac.com
MEET YOUR TUTORS
THOMAS TOPPLER Thomas Toppler is a musician, director and theatre teacher. He studied percussion at the University of Music and Performing Arts Graz and acting at Ècole Philippe Gaulier. As a musician, he has worked with renowned orchestras and is a founding member of The Erlkings, known for their charming, radical and respectful arrangements of German art songs. As a director, he worked for his London-based theatre company Ship of Fools theatre company. He supervises programmes by music groups including Da Blechhaufn, Louie's Cage Percussion, The Hankebrothers, Mozartwochen 2019 and directs TV commercials. He teaches stage presence at the University of Music in Vienna and teaches Bouffon and Movement at the Ècole Philippe Gauliuer. In 2022 he won the Austrian theatre prize with his Bouffon play ‘A modest proposal’ and toured with it throughout Austria and Germany. In May 2024, the new Bouffon theatre play ‘Wurst, Obst, Stirbst’ premiered at the TAG Theatre in Vienna.
RICHARD KNIGHT Richard has been performing, directing and teaching in the theatre/TV/Film for over 30 years now. In 2014 worked with Andy Serkis during motion capture work for the physical vocabulary for Ultron and Iron Man for the film ‘The Avengers: Age of Ultron’. He was also the personal mime tutor for Carey Mulligan for the feature film ‘Suffragette’, and was a physical comedy consultant for the RSC ‘Arden of Faversham’ and ‘Macbeth’. He has been a personal tutor for Ben Cohen and Kristina for ‘Strictly Come Dancing’ in 2013 as well as a Body Language expert for James May’s ‘Man Lab for the BBC, and 2017 for Michael McIntyre’s Midnight Game Show for BBC 1. He has also taught Physical Comedy at The National Theatre, was a slow-motion expert on Tim Burton’s ‘Sweeney Todd’ and has taught, performed all over the world including the Royal Family of Dubai, Qatar and Buckingham Palace. Other teaching merits, include the Royal College of Music, Royal School of Art, both Oxford and Cambridge Universities and many of the UK top Drama Schools. He currently teaches at the Comedy School in Camden, Mime, Physical Theatre, Clown, Mask, Physical Comedy and Commedia Dell’Arte. Richard originally trained at as a Drama Specialist (B.Ed), trained with Jacques Lecoq, Philippe Gaulier, Antonio Fava and graduated from LAMDA as a classical actor.