Andrea Uppling is currently nominated for a Jeff Award for "Best Performer in a Principal Role" for her portrayal of Martha in Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf at Invictus Theatre.
ATTACKING NEW WORK: A NEW MASTER CLASS WITH SPENSER DAVIS
A class for professional actors seeking to discover the performer's part of a new-play process. In this Advanced Scene Study class, award-winning playwright/director Spenser Davis (Goodman Theatre's 2020/21 Maggio Directing Fellow; Broken Nose Theatre) will provide you with scenes from contemporary - and in some cases, still-in-development - new works, ones that require sharp dialogue skills, rich personalization, and empathy for even the most easily stigmatized characters.
Over the course of five weeks, we will discuss how to navigate receiving last-minute changes to your characters' key scenes, while sharpening the tools you can utilize to stay steady and focused, even when the script itself is still in flux. Guest playwrights, including Hanna Kime and Martin Yousif Zebari will visit class to discuss their new play development and how the actor can best support the process. Rehearsal outside of class is required.
Hanna Kime is currently a member of the 2022/23 Goodman Theatre's Playwrights Unit and previously served as First Floor Theater's Literary Manager. She was an O'Neill Finalist, and her work has also been presented or developed with Berkeley Rep, Steep Theatre, Jackalope Theatre, the New Coordinates, Broken Nose Theatre, First Floor Theater and Sideshow Theatre (where she is an ensemble member). She is represented by UTA.
Martin Yousif Zebari, he/they (Playwright) is an Iraqi-born, Assyrian-American actor and playwright based in Los Angeles. Their play Layalina received two workshops and staged readings as part of Goodman Theatre’s Future Labs and National Queer Theatre’s Criminal Queerness Festival, and most recently received a workshop production in Goodman Theatre’s New Stages Festival. As an actor, their credits include Yasmina’s Necklace and The Winter’s Tale (Goodman Theatre); Drowning in Cairo (Golden Thread Productions); For the Right Reasons (Atlantic Theatre Company); Mosque4Mosque (National Queer Theatre); Guards at the Taj (Steppenwolf Theatre).
REQUIRED: Strong theatre background and training, determined by headshot and resume, and self-tape audition. Please submit a 90-sec self-tape contemporary monologue for consideration.
Tuition: $350
5 Weeks
Upcoming Classes
Tuesdays, 1:00p-4:30p
Starts April 4
Spenser Davis
Spenser is a Chicago-based writer-director, Goodman's 2020/21 Maggio Fellow & winner of the Osborn Award.Testimonials
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Spenser (Davis) did a fantastic job with this class! With every topic, class discussion, and scene feedback session, he took the time to understand our own experiences and build upon them from his own wealth of knowledge. I feel far more prepared to jump into new work with the tools and insight gained from this class. There isn’t a component I didn’t like. From our first class where we broke down different theories, to Q&A sessions with guest speakers. I really enjoyed it! (Attacking New Work Master Class)
— Kade Cox
Spenser (Davis) is an amazing instructor who brings a wealth of knowledge and experience to the class. He brings out the best work in students and leads great discussions about the application of everything we discover together in class. (Attacking New Work Master Class)
— Isabella Isherwood
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