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.
Intro to Voice Over with Tessa Auberjonois: Berg Studios in October!
In October, 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!
The nine Viewpoints address issues of space and time. They are nine points of awareness that a performer has at their disposal while working. They inspire rather than determine movement; they open up rather than limit choices.
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
1:30 pm to 4:30 pm PST
Friday, October 6th.
Friday, October 13th.
Friday, October 20th
Sunday, October 22nd. (This class will be held in a professional recording studio and will be from 1 to 5 pm)
Friday, October 27th.
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 October.
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.
Viewpoints Training: Freeing the Actor’s Body with Jeff Janisheski! – September at Berg Studios!
We are very excited to announce the return of Viewpoints to Berg Studios!
In September, Jeff Janisheski will lead a weekend intensive called Viewpoints Training: Freeing the Actor’s Body.
Viewpoints is a physical training method that creates deeply embodied actors. Actors who have a heightened awareness of the ensemble, the environment around them, and their own impulses. It reawakens the actor’s instincts through impulse work and play – and encourages the creation of bold,
theatrical work. It has quickly become a core part of actor training across the world.
The Viewpoints trains actors:
To build a deeply connected and collaborative ensemble.
To make bold decisions on their own and be in charge of their own process.
To allow room for surprise, spontaneity, contradiction, extremity, and unpredictability.
To extend one’s awareness and to listen with the entire body, taking in everything as raw material to use.
Anne Bogart, co-creator of Viewpoints, often said, “A director directs the play; an actor directs their own role.” Through this workshop, you will train in the tools of Viewpoints, put them into practice, and use them in scenes within the class.
The nine Viewpoints address issues of space and time. They are nine points of awareness that a performer has at their disposal while working. They inspire rather than determine movement; they open up rather than limit choices.
We will also use the Viewpoints as a composition tool: creating short, devised work out of material that students bring to class. This sharpens an actor’s skills in how to generate work quickly, embrace their own instincts and build on the impulses of the ensemble.
This workshop melds traditional Stanislavski training with this contemporary system of Viewpoints.
Through this unique combination, you will be fully equipped to tackle both the psychology and the physicality of any role.
ABOUT THE INSTRUCTOR
Jeff Janisheski trained for several years with Anne Bogart, co-creator of the Viewpoints, and associate-
produced her work in New York City.
For the past twelve years, he has led three major theatre schools, in the US and Australia. For the past
twenty years he has taught and directed in the US and abroad (in Australia, England, Japan, Korea,
Russia and Vietnam).
Jeff was Head of Acting at NIDA (the National Institute of Dramatic Art in Sydney, Australia) – the only American to run this prestigious program. In 2013, Hollywood Reporter ranked NIDA as number 8 among the top 25 theater schools in the world. While at NIDA, he introduced Viewpoints training into their
curriculum.
He is currently a Professor of Theatre Arts at California State University, Long Beach; and for four years was Chair and Artistic Director of Cal Rep. From 2008-2011, Jeff was Artistic Director of the National Theater Institute (NTI) at the Tony Award-winning Eugene O’Neill Theater Center in Connecticut,
America’s preeminent organization dedicated to the development of new plays and music theatre. From 2004-2008, he was Associate Artistic Director at New York’s Classic Stage Company (CSC) where he associate-produced shows featuring Anne Bogart/SITI Company, Alan Cumming, David Ives, David Oyelowo, John Turturro and Dianne Wiest.
Jeff holds an MFA in Directing from Columbia University. He is a recipient of the Theater Communications Group New Generations/Future Leaders fellowship. His chapter in the book, Approaches to Actor Training: International Perspectives, explores his approach to actor training which bridges Stanislavski’s system with contemporary Viewpoints training.
www.jeffjanisheski.com
When:
Saturday and Sunday
Sept 23/24
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.
Sign-up period extended! Self-Tape workshop w/ Gregory Berger: In-Person in August!
Berg Studios is excited to announce a 2-day intensive (August 19th and 20th) The Art and Technique of the Self-Tape, in-person, with Gregory Berger-Sobeck, former faculty member of The Yale School of Drama, and private coach to Lupita Nyong’o (Oscar Winner), Riz Ahmed (Emmy Winner), Winston Duke, and many others.
Gregory will lead you on an exploration of the practical and creative application of on-camera acting and how to translate that to your self-tapes, merging the imagination with the technical. The fact of the matter is that the British and Australians are dominating the American market. Their advantage is that those actors are trained in a deep artistic tradition and are able to bring that training right into the technical aspects of working in front of the camera. Gregory believes it’s long past time to level that playing field!
Using the same technique and experience that he brought to his on-camera acting class at The Yale School of Drama, Gregory will help you reveal your own powerful imagination and make it palpable, visceral, and transferrable to the rigors and restrictions of creating a self-tape.
All three days will include practical “dos and don’ts,” the technical and artistic requirements of creating effective self-tapes, as well as rigorous and creative script analysis. In this workshop, you will also:
Tape and submit a self-tape prior to the first class.
Receive personal and detailed instruction from Gregory.
Discuss the technical requirements of creating a self-tape such as a background, lighting, wardrobe, and the use of a camera or phone.
The objective of this workshop is to release the actor’s imagination through technique, cultivating authentic behavior on camera. Gregory encourages the actor to illuminate the text with bold provocative choices rather than illustrating the mundane, or predictable. Working this way allows the actor to move past any blocks, or fears, enabling the actor to truly reveal their private selves on an audition tape.
ABOUT THE INSTRUCTOR: Gregory Berger-Sobeck is a graduate and former acting faculty member at the Yale School of Drama, in addition to teaching bi-coastally both in Los Angeles and New York. Additionally, he has taught workshops all over the world including in London, Paris, Sydney, and Tahiti.
Gregory’s many regular private coaching clients include Oscar winner Lupita Nyong’o (Us, Black Panther), Emmy winner Riz Ahmed (The Night Of), Winston Duke (Us, Black Panther), and Portia Doubleday (Mr. Robot) among many others.
Mr. Berger opened The Berg Studios in Los Angeles in 1998, where he is the artistic director and master acting teacher. Berg Studios alumni have been Emmy Award Winners, Emmy Award Nominees, acted on Broadway and have had multiple series regular and guest star roles on television. Mr. Berger has also been voted Best Acting Class, Best Classical Class, Best Monologue Coach and Private Coach by Backstage Magazine.
Prior to Yale he trained at The Circle in the Square Theatre in New York City. He has studied with such legendary teachers as Paul Mann, Michael Howard, Kim Stanley, Nikos Psacharopoulos and Earle R. Gister. His New York stage credits include Come Back to the Five and Dime Jimmy Dean, The Flowing Peach, Romeo and Juliet, The Admiral Bashful, The Shrewing of Blanco Posnet, Molly, Andrew After Dark, Much Ado About Nothing, Faust, and The Colonization. Regional credits include work at the Yale Repertory Theater and The Yale School of Drama: A Midsummer Night’s Dream, King Lear, King John, Measure for Measure, Three Sisters, and A Ride Across Lake Constance, to name a few. Among his directing credits are Dolores and Sisters at the Company of Angels and the west coast premiere of John Ford Noonan’s POPPS.
To find out more about Berg and Berg Studios please visit our website.
WORKSHOP DETAILS:
When:
August 19th and 20th, Saturday and Sunday, from 10 am to 5 pm
Where:
The Berg Studios
3245 Casitas Ave, #104
Atwater Village, Los Angeles,
90039
Cost:
Students: $350
Non-Students: $400
To receive the student discount, you must be currently enrolled in a Studio Technique (scene study) class at Berg Studios.
In order to secure a spot in this amazing workshop, contact the office (M-F 10am to 5pm 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.
In-Person Voice and Speech Intensive with Joby Earle: August at the Berg Studios
This August, 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 Earle 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:
Mondays
12 pm to 4 pm
August 7th, 14th, 21st, 28th
Where:
The Berg Studios Annex
3273 Casitas Ave
Suite 105
Los Angeles (Atwater Village), CA 90039
Cost:
$280 for 4, four-hour classes
There are limited spots available. Please call or email the office if you are interested in signing up.
Alexander Technique in Acting with Kristof Konrad: August at Berg Studios!
In August, 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
August 26/27
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.