BERG STUDIOS WORKSHOPS
Our workshops are designed to both stand on their own and to compliment the classes and technique taught at the studio. The lessons taught in the workshops are immediately implemented and expanded on in classes. Workshops are either taught by Berg Studios instructors, or guest artist teachers invited to host workshops for our students.
Alexander Technique in Acting with Kristof Konrad: April at Berg Studios!
In April, due to popular demand, we will once again be offering the opportunity to study with one of the foremost instructors of the Alexander Technique, Kristof Konrad, in a two-day in-person intensive called “Alexander Technique in Acting”.
We are keeping the number of students to 16 so there are very limited spots for this exciting workshop. Signups are on a first-come, first-served basis.
Kristof teaches Intensive Acting in Film and Alexander Technique Workshops in New York, Los Angeles, Milan, Berlin, Toronto, and Vancouver and at his studio here in Los Angeles, Alexander Techworks. In the U.S., he has taught at the Larry Moss Studio, the Howard Fine Studio, (LA and Melbourne, Australia), and recently worked with the artists of the Royal Shakespeare Company and the Cirque Du Soleil. Past and current students include Forest Whitaker, Kenneth Branagh, Cobie Smulders,
The study of the Alexander Technique is required at the finest drama conservatories around the world, including the Yale School of Drama, The Juilliard School, ACT, the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art and the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art.
The Alexander technique is a gentle approach that aims to re-educate the mind and the body through a series of movements so the body uses muscles more efficiently. Actors trained in the Alexander Technique consistently feel more confident and free — physically, vocally, and creatively — to do their best work. The physical and imaginative freedom that can be discovered through the Alexander work can be a vital part of the actor’s craft.
WORKSHOP DESCRIPTION: Alexander Technique in Acting
All communication starts with the body. It is the point of origin for the voice, emotional life, and physical activity. It also creates and communicates meaning to the audience – our physical actions and responses are interpreted by the onlooker –and performers need to be in charge of this process.
In this workshop, actors develop an awareness of their psychophysical habits that cause tension and interfere with performance. By using principles of the Alexander Technique you will deepen the connections between your body, breath, and voice. Movement inspires this dynamic relationship by integrating all the parts of the actor’s instrument.
COURSE CONTENT:
Connecting to the body through awareness with the Alexander Technique (getting out of your head)
Freeing impulse and response patterns
Finding the breath and rhythm of the character
Recognizing the force of habit
Improving breath coordination and vocal quality
Improving our movement by learning to organize body relationships
Understanding Means and Ends
Making clear choices of intention
Infusing direction in our thinking and movement
Applying the Alexander Technique to monologues, sonnets, songs, and scenes
Learning to develop characters physically (if I believe your body, I’ll believe your character)
ABOUT THE INSTRUCTOR: KRISTOF KONRAD
was born in Poland, trained as an actor at the National Dramatic Academy in Warsaw, Poland, the Fersen Studio in Rome, Italy, and Larry Moss in the U.S. While in Poland, he studied and worked with theater and film masters JERZY GROTOWSKI and ANDRZEJ WAJDA. In the USA he worked with directors FRANCIS LAWRENCE, KENNETH BRANAGH, RON HOWARD and ROLAND EMMERICH. His credits include HOMECOMING, HOUSE OF CARDS, RED SPARROW, INTELLIGENCE, ANGELS AND DEMONS, HOTEL CALIFORNIA, INDEPENDENCE DAY, SCORPION, NIKITA, SCANDAL, BURN NOTICE, OPERATION SAMUM, ALIAS, THE AGENCY, JAG, E- RING and many others. Kristof has taught for the BERLIN INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL, GENERATION CAMPUS – MOSCOW, VERBIER FESTIVAL& ACADEMY in Switzerland and UBS VERBIER ORCHESTRA. He is teaching Intensive Acting in Film and Alexander Technique Workshops in New York, Los Angeles, Milan, Berlin, Toronto, and Vancouver. In the U.S., he has taught with Jean-Louis at the LARRY MOSS STUDIO, HOWARD FINE STUDIO, LA and Melbourne, Australia, and recently worked with the artists of the ROYAL SHAKESPEARE COMPANY and the CIRQUE DU SOLEIL. Past and current students include FOREST WITAKER, KENNETH BRANAGH, COBIE SMULDERS, JOBETH WILLIAMS, ERIC DANE, and SHARON LAWRENCE.
When:
Saturday and Sunday
April 29th and 30th
10 am to 5 pm
Where:
Berg Studios Annex
3273 Casitas Ave, #105
Los Angeles CA 90039
The Annex is our second space, just half a block from our main location!
Cost:
$300 student price (you must be currently enrolled in a scene study class to receive the student discount)
$350 non-student price
There are limited spots available. Please call or email the office if you are interested in signing up.
Intro to Voice Over with Tessa Auberjonois: Berg Studios in April/May!
Berg Studios is very excited to announce the return of our very popular in-person Introduction to Voiceover Workshop led by professional voiceover artist Tessa Auberjonois.
This is a five-class intensive designed to introduce the actor to this specialized, expanding, and seriously fun aspect of our craft. We will explore the creative process of reading copy and begin to learn to identify the demands and techniques of voice acting for commercials, audiobooks, video games, and animation.
Students will record on their own using whatever technology and equipment they have available, and we will examine and share knowledge about how to best optimize your resources at home. A microphone is not required, but recording capabilities, even on a smartphone are necessary for the class.
We will discuss the business nitty-gritty of voice-over: where the opportunities are, demos, internet audition platforms, agencies, and technology and equipment for self-recording.
Classes will be held in-person, including one class where all students will record in a professional voice-over studio. You will leave that session with your recording!
Instructor:
Tessa Auberjonois started her voice-over career soon after graduating from the Yale School of Drama and has consistently worked as a voice-over artist while also performing on stage and screen. In 2017 Tessa was nominated for a Behind the Voice Actors Award for best-featured actress in a television series. She is trained in Linklater Technique and International Phonetics and has taught Voice and Speech privately as well as at Berg Studios, AMDA, Cal Arts, LACC, and the Sag-Aftra Foundation. Tessa has been the voice of several national campaigns, including Princess Cruises, Glade, White Castle, FEMA, and many others. She’s voiced video games, re-voiced starring roles in feature films with major directors (and signed NDA’s saying she can’t tell you what or who) and narrated audiobooks. Tessa Auberjonois has appeared on On the Verge, The Affair, Shameless, Lucifer, I’m Dying Up Here, Modern Family, Law & Order(s), ER, and many other shows as well as feature and short films. On stage, she has performed in many classical and contemporary plays Off-Broadway and at theatres across the country such as the Kirk Douglas and South Coast Repertory, Hartford Stage, Yale Rep, and The Shakespeare Theatre of D.C. among others. Awards & Nominations include the 2020 Ovation Award nomination for Best Lead Actress, the 2018 Lunt-Fontanne Award, Best Actress in a play 2017 OC Weekly, Nominated for Best Female Guest Star for a TV Voiced Performance 2018 from Behind the Voice Actors, Sermoonjoy Fund, and Fox Foundation Fellowships, and the Oliver Thorndike Award for excellence in acting upon graduation from The Yale School Drama, where she trained, as well as LAMDA. She has taught and coached voice and speech, dialect and accent work, and voiceover to actors at many programs in LA and privately as well as being currently on faculty at AMDA.
DATE and TIME: 1 pm to 4 pm PST
Friday, April 14th.
Friday, April 21st
Friday, April 28th
Sunday, April 30th (this class will be held in a professional recording studio and will be from 1 to 5 pm)
Friday, May 5th
WHERE: The Berg Studios Annex
3273 Casitas Ave
Suite 105
Los Angeles (Atwater Village), CA 90039
Cost: $300 student rate
$350 non-student rate
To receive the student discount, you must be enrolled in a Studio Technique (scene study) class at Berg Studios for the month of April.
In order to secure a spot in this amazing workshop, contact the office (M-F 10 am to 5 pm PST) to put down a deposit (50% of tuition) today. Due to the nature of this workshop, deposits are non-refundable. Based on the structure of this workshop, the purchase of individual days is not possible.
Improv at Berg Studios! A five-week course with Drew Horton
Berg Studios is excited for the return of IMPROV class in April/May!
This 5-week course is for actors that want to increase their confidence, playfulness, and ability to incorporate their imaginations into the work.
Leave your scripts at home because this class will be completely improvised fun! If you have ever shown up to an audition feeling scared, constrained, tight, overwhelmed, or just not confident… Then this class is for you!
Improv veteran Drew Horton will lead you on a hilarious exploration that is designed to cultivate confidence building, creativity, getting out of comfort zones, and a lot of laughs!
Week 1: The Basics of Improv
-Ice breakers
-Confident committing
Week 2: Creation and Imagination
-Worldbuilding
Week 3: Listening
-Observing and reacting
-Nonverbal communication
Week 4: Emotion
-Wants and needs
-Emotional choices
Week 5: Characters
-Adapting a new point of view
-Becoming someone else physically and vocally
About the Instructor:
Drew Horton is a working actor who lives for improv. He has trained with UCB, Groundlings, and The Improv Space. Drew is a frequent mainstage performer at UCB, and performs a monthly improv show with his team “Dub Set” at The Pack Theater. He credits much of his on-camera success to the confidence that he built from improv class!
WORKSHOP DETAILS: All participants must be fully vaccinated!
When: Sundays from 1 to 4 pm PST
April 2, 9, 16, 23
May 7
Where: Berg Studios Annex
3273 Casitas Ave, #105
Los Angeles CA 90039
The Annex is our second space, just half a block from our main location!
Cost: Student Price: $300
Non-Student Price: $350
Please note, to qualify for the student price you must be enrolled in a Studio Technique (scene study) class for the whole month of October.
There are limited spots available. Please call or email the office if you are interested in signing up.
In-Person Voice and Speech Intensive with Joby Earle: March/April Berg Studios
This March/April, Berg Studios is excited to announce a new Voice and Speech Intensive taught by the Yale School of Drama’s Joby Earle!
Voice work is a path to bringing our homework into a living, breathing reality. Through the techniques of Linklater and Fitzmaurice, we will develop a practiced awareness of our breath, voice, and selves, and unlock immense performative potential.
Whether it be on set, on location, or in a theater, actors must have ready access to a free and open means of expression.
In this class, we will learn tools to help gently dismantle the psychophysical habits that inhibit our full expression. We will then learn new habits that support our work, ideas, and creativity in any performative medium.
Exercises will be introduced that gently coax tension to release and give us new consciousness of how our own, personal voice works. We will then move to text to see how these new tools can be put to immediate and practical use.
Voice work helps release your performance from the clutches of your conscious control. It lets your passion and talent take over. Through diligence and regular practice, we will experience a free breath, voice, and self while performing.
Workshop Description: VOICE & SPEECH
Introduction to Physical Awareness, Anatomy of breathing
Re-Approaching Sound
Support and Sending
Resonation and Amplification
Articulation
Warm-up/individual text work
Warm-up/into individual text work
Self-led warm-up with coaching, individual text work, closing
For a long while now, Berg and the instructors here at the studio have worried about a serious lack of vocal training among our students. This lack of training is not just about volume, to be sure. Without the ability to fully utilize their voice, no actor can be counted on to express themselves in the dynamic, creative way our industry demands.
Indeed, the purpose of vocal training, a standard element of all conservatory acting programs throughout the world, is to free the actor’s habitual patterns of tension. This allows the vocal instrument to express character via the actor’s imagination and engage the listener with language written by another but spoken as our own. Similar to building new muscles at the gym, vocal work takes sustained and intentional practice, which gradually leads to a shift in the actor’s use of their voice as the vehicle of emotion. This class focuses on relaxation, body and breath work as the foundation for free expression, and will consist of some active floor and movement work.
ABOUT THE INSTRUCTOR: Joby Early has performed at Lincoln Center, Playwrights Horizons, Yale Rep, South
Coast Rep, A.R.T., The Berkshire Theater Festival, The Huntington Theater, Center Theater Group, and The Geffen Playhouse. His television credits include The Blacklist, The Exorcist, and The Good Fight. He holds a BFA from NYU;s
Tisch School of the arts and an MFA from the Yale School of Drama. He has been teaching actors since 2006 and has taught at Columbia, NYU, Yale as well as at the City College of New York. His background as a voice teacher is based on the combined works of Kristin Linklater and Katherine Fitzmaurice as taught by master teachers Walton Wilson and Grace Zandarski. He has also studied with Andrew Wade, former head of voice at the Royal Shakespeare Company
WORKSHOP DETAILS:
When: Fridays
12 pm to 4 pm
March 17th, 24th, 31st
April 7th
Where: The Berg Studios Annex
3273 Casitas Ave
Suite 105
Los Angeles (Atwater Village), CA 90039
Cost: $280 for 4, four-hour classes**
Improv at Berg Studios! A five-week course with Drew Horton
Berg Studios is excited to offer a brand new IMPROV class in January/February!
This 5-week course is for actors that want to increase their confidence, playfulness, and ability to incorporate their imaginations into the work.
Leave your scripts at home because this class will be completely improvised fun! If you have ever shown up to an audition feeling scared, constrained, tight, overwhelmed, or just not confident… Then this class is for you!
Improv veteran Drew Horton will lead you on a hilarious exploration that is designed to cultivate confidence building, creativity, getting out of comfort zones, and a lot of laughs!
Week 1: The Basics of Improv
-Ice breakers
-Confident committing
Week 2: Creation and Imagination
-Worldbuilding
Week 3: Listening
-Observing and reacting
-Nonverbal communication
Week 4: Emotion
-Wants and needs
-Emotional choices
Week 5: Characters
-Adapting a new point of view
-Becoming someone else physically and vocally
About the Instructor:
Drew Horton is a working actor who lives for improv. He has trained with UCB, Groundlings, and The Improv Space. Drew is a frequent mainstage performer at UCB, and performs a monthly improv show with his team “Dub Set” at The Pack Theater. He credits much of his on-camera success to the confidence that he built from improv class!
WORKSHOP DETAILS: All participants must be fully vaccinated!
When: Saturdays from 1 to 4 pm PST
January 28th
February 4th, 18th, 25th
March 4th
Where: Berg Studios Annex
3273 Casitas Ave, #105
Los Angeles CA 90039
The Annex is our second space, just half a block from our main location!
Cost: Student Price: $300 / Non-Student Price: $350
Please note, to qualify for the student price you must be enrolled in a Studio Technique (scene study) class for the whole month of October.
There are limited spots available. Please call or email the office if you are interested in signing up.