TEACHING ARTIST
To teach is to learn, one is always feeding the other.
I started directing when I was in Smith College, coaching classmates in their scene work, which led to directing full mainstage productions.
Directing feeds my teaching, or is that the other way around? I love working with younger artists and being part of the process that helps them grow as performers.
I enjoy devising new plays, whether from deconstruction or creating from improvisation. I am especially drawn to those plays and musicals with historical or social context.
I work hard. I love being part of a creative team where we work together to produce wonderful play!
Teaching
As a teacher I think it important to keep up my own development as an actor and director.
My training has included studying Meisner at the Neighborhood Playhouse (Ron Stetson). I have been studying and practicing Suzuki (SITI Company) and Viewpoints (Mary Overlie/Anne Bogart) for over 10 years. My experiences continue to inform my training. Practicing Viewpoints has reinvigorated and changed everything about how I approach my work and teach theatre. My work with SITI company has only confirmed my belief that theatre should be collaborative and inventive.
Workshops can be adapted for either teacher development workshops, or for the student.
Is there a workshop idea that you don’t see? Let’s collaborate and come up with the workshop that will address the needs of your classroom.
Coaching
Interested in honing your own skills on the stage? Need help preparing a stronger audition for film? I am available for individual acting coaching as well. Let’s connect to find out how we can work together.
Workshops
Personal Narrative Storytelling
A three-four-hour long skill building workshop where participants will be given an overview of the elements of the personal narrative, including generating ideas for a story, as well as learn and practice various storytelling techniques. The workshop can include tips on taking the usual 5 minute narrative and expanding it to an hour long performance. All participants will have an opportunity to develop and then present their story for specific feedback.
Diving into the Deep End
You already are an amazing storyteller but what treasures can you find in the bottom of your ocean to enrich, enliven, and elevate your story? This class offers the storyteller opportunities to practice ways to polish stories using and reinventing the tools of visualization, theatrical and literary elements. Typically a four to six week class offering, with classes three hours long.
BEST SERVES: Storytellers, writers, and solo show artists.
Viewpoints from classroom to rehearsal
Viewpoints gives the teaching director a vocabulary they can use to help the young actor work more creatively and effectively using their whole instrument. After this workshop, teachers will be able to bring into their own classroom, and rehearsal process, ways to teach and guide students to build ensemble, create a stronger stage picture while helping the student actor to be more comfortable in using their bodies as a way to build and create character.
Viewpoints/ the basics
The practice of Viewpoints helps the young actor find those hard-to-reach characters without leaning on caricature, teaching the young actor to create physical over emotional character. Specifically tailored to high school theatre, students learn the basic Viewpoints: Tempo, Spatial Relationship, (Time and Space), Kinesthetic Response, Repetition, Shape, Gesture, Repetition, Architecture and Topography.
From story to play
An excellent way to learn more about teaching the monologue, this workshop goes through the process of building a piece from personal story to performance.
Devising deconstruction
Understanding deconstruction gives the theatre person a stronger sense of what it is to create theatre. It isn’t just the final performance, it is all the ideas that are explored that create that performance. From the shards of deconstruction rises the deviser and a new theatrical idea is born. This workshop gives concrete ways to teach abstract ideas to the constructionist student.
“Francesca is a tireless worker who is incredibly passionate about her courses and her students. She works collaboratively with teachers as well as community members to determine the best resources for students…she truly is one of the pillars of our award winning fine arts department.”
“Francesca breathes life into her classroom…she has this gift to make everyone believe in themselves. She sees the inner strength in people and knows how to make it come alive.”
“I’ve worked in many communities and, quite simply, in the areas of both ability and passion, Francesca is in the top percentage of artist-educators nation-wide…One step in her room and it becomes evident that her stage is more than just a high-school class, but a top-notch training program led by an indefatigable teacher.”
“Francesca creates curriculum that engages students, instill creative thinking and a passion for learning. If you talk with her students, they would speak of her ability to nurture self-confidence, creative and intellect.”