Monday, August 11 5:30pm - 8:30pm
(Testimonials from past Meisner students can be found at the bottom of this post)
Interviews are available with Robin Lynn Smith for Freehold's 2014-2015 Meisner Progression, a 3-quarter, 9-month training program based on the work of Constantin Stanislavski, Joseph Chaikin, and Sanford Meisner. Classes are 5-hour sessions meeting two evenings per week over each 12-week quarter. Check out the great testimonials from previous Freehold Meisner alums at the bottom of this blog post. The Meisner Progression is taught by Freehold's Artistic Director and Freehold co-founder Robin Lynn Smith.
To schedule an interview or for more information, contact Freehold at (206) 323-7499 or email us at our contact page. Please bring a resume detailing your theatrical and performance experience and be prepared to speak about why you are interested in participating in the Meisner progression. Prerequisites: Freehold's Step III: Scene Study or equivalent training and performance experience. Interviews will be roughly 15 minutes each. Tuition per quarter: $960. You can apply for our discounted rate of $795.
The Meisner class description for the 3-quarter progression is as follows:
Meisner: Foundation: Step I - Fall Quarter (Mid-September through mid-December)
Tuesdays and Sundays, 5:30 - 10:30 pm
Through cumulative exercises based on the work of Sanford Meisner, the actor learns to be habitually available to and affected by life that is actually happening in the moment, and to fully release instinctive, uninhibited responses. The class culminates in a work with text.
Meisner: Instrument: Step II - Winter Quarter (Dates to be confirmed)
Tuesdays and Sundays, 5:30 - 10:30 pm
Students continue the exercises from Foundation, supplementing them with work in personalization, preparation, and other tools in order to access a meaningful inner life and "make real" the text and imaginary circumstances.
Meisner: Text: Step III - Spring Quarter (Dates to be confirmed)
Tuesdays and Sundays, 5:30 - 10:30 pm
Applying the work from Foundation and Instrument to scenes, students focus on detailed, in-depth text and character work -- analysis, subtext, particularization, and moment-to-moment process work on scenes.
Robin Lynn Smith is a Founding Partner and Artistic Director for Freehold Studio/Theatre Lab in Seattle. She has worked for the past thirty-five years acting, directing and teaching in Chicago, Boston, Seattle, and New York where she directed Curse of the Starving Class Off-Broadway at the Promenade Theatre. She has directed in Regional Theatres and is presently directing Freehold’s Engaged Theatre Program which tours Shakespeare productions to prisons, projects, and tent cities, for which she has directed Othello, Julius Caesar, King Lear, Cymbeline, A Winter's Tale, The Tempest, and The Merchant of Venice. At Freehold she directed the award-winning production of Chekhov’s The Seagull, Three Sisters, An Altered Life, and Veronika Falling. She was an Artist in Residence at the Seattle Repertory Theatre with Dan Sullivan, and directed several productions including Marvin's Room, Frankie and Jonnie in the Claire de Lune, City of Gold, and the developmental workshop of Elizabeth Heffon’s New Patagonia. She has also directed in Seattle at ACT, On The Boards, The Empty Space, New City Theatre, Seattle Children’s Theatre, and Intiman where she was an Affiliate Artist with Bartlett Sher. She has an MFA from NYU TSOA, and she is currently on the faculty of Cornish College of the Arts. She is featured in ACTING TEACHERS OF AMERICA, and she is a member of SDC and a finalist for SDCF’s inaugural Zelda Fichandler Award. She is the 2008 recipient of the The Gregory A. Falls Sustained Achievement Award.
Testimonials from Freehold Meisner Alums
"Meisner for me was really transformational and not just for the acting but really just for the rest of my everyday life. Meisner really strives you to live in the moment and to react to things as if it is the first time, being genuine and authentic. I do some commercial work on the side and I’ve been told that there is a new quality to my acting and that is 100% related to the work from the class. There is another piece that I got out of Meisner which was unexpected which is that it actually changed the quality of my day to day life … it allowed me to be more present in my life … it makes life much more interesting." - E.J. Gong
"It was through working with Robin that I acquired one of the most important things any actor can get - an actual process on how to bring a role alive. While I've taken other classes from some extremely talented instructors that included some discussion of methods for examining text, the bulk of what I typically got was notes by the instructor as though they were directing me in a play. That is very valuable stuff, but it doesn't really give you much of a process for starting work on a role on your own, nor do you get much of a glimpse of the variety of techniques that have come to light in the theatrical world. Robin gave us tools we could use to bring the character to life in ways that went beyond what was on the printed page, and thereby make those scripted words come even more alive. And I think a huge part of that came from her making us push the limits of our imaginations for nine months. To sum up, if you're not sure whether taking the Meisner progression at Freehold is worth your time, let me help you decide: YES! Absolutely! Be grateful that the gods have aligned the planets so that you have this opportunity and grab it!" - Bob Rousseau
"What I have seen, and experienced in this class is not just ‘acting.’ It is living. It is so helpful to watch visceral reactions in my classmates as a mark of real behavior for our acting. I’ve experienced impulses and emotions that are no different from the ones I have in real life. If my partner was provoking me, insulting me, attacking me, my spontaneous responses of frustration, pain, fear … were real!" - Alexandra Gobeille
"I took the acclaimed, life-changing Meisner progression. Not only did my classmates and I walk away as better, stronger actors, but also as enriched artists. (Any Meisner alum will most likely agree with that about themselves...)." - Julie Hoang
"The Meisner Progression taught by Robin Lynn Smith was life-changing and gave me the tools to raise my acting game to a whole new level." – Henry Mark
"I'm a better actor and person because of the Meisner courses with Robin Lynn Smith - best money I ever spent. Also, I honestly believe it's gotten me acting jobs." - Anna Giles
2222 2nd Avenue, Suite 200
Seattle, WA 98121
http://www.freeholdtheatre.org
(206) 323-7499
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