Playing with Shakespeare with Jane Nichols and Dave Demke

Clowning and Shakespeare: What is the connection?

How does abandoning yourself to the absurdity and simple mindedness of your clown’s convictions, while engaging with Shakespeare's virtuosic shifts in thought and emotion, tap you into a transcendent Shakespearean experience?

The clown lives in a world that asks the actor to unleash the full size of their imagination and humanity. Shakespeare demands the same thing from the actor. This workshop proposes—through an integration of voice, movement, clown, and scene work—to give you the experience and the tools to meet those demands. Play is the method and the madness.

The workshop is intended to be fun and funny. It is also intended to leave you with tools to enhance your imagination, expand your physical vocabulary, whet your intellectual curiosity, deepen your emotional capacity, and elevate your ability to perform Shakespeare and other heightened texts. Most of all, it is intended to show you what is possible when you bring your full mind, body, and spirit to the stage.

Though not required, some familiarity with Shakespeare and clowning is recommended. The workshop is not intended as an introduction to clowning or acting.

ABOUT JANE NICHOLS

Jane Nichols is an actor, teacher, and director. Her teaching brings together skills and techniques of le jeu, physical comedy, clown, bouffon, improvisation, and mask. 

She has studied with Philippe Gaulier (Ecole Gaulier), Clive Mendes (Theatre Complicite), Ronlin Foreman (Dell’Arte International School of Physical Theatre), Michael Kennard (co-founder of Canada’s Mump & Smoot, and master teacher of the Richard Pochinko Native American mask/clown technique), Avner Eisenberg (Avner the Eccentric), Davis Robinson (author of Physical Comedy Handbook), Keith Johnstone (Impro and Impro for Storytellers), Bolek Polivka, (world-renowned Czech clown), and Merry Conway, her first and most impactful clown teacher whom she met at Shakespeare & Company in Lenox, MA.

Jane was the founder/artistic director of Crosswalk Theatre for Children in Boston, a company grounded in the teachings of British educators Brain Way and Dorothy Heathcote. Applying her knowledge of child drama, Jane created and implemented a curriculum for the Shakespeare & Company elementary and junior high school program, which continues to this day.

Jane has held teaching positions at Shakespeare & Company, the David Geffen School of Drama at Yale, Juilliard, Harvard University, ART, ACT, Brown University, the Actors Center in New York City, Stella Adler Conservatory, Emerson College, Simon’s Rock College of Bard, and University of Washington.

She has directed shows at Harvard University, Columbia University, Brown University, University of Washington, Washington Ensemble Theatre (WET), Intiman Theatre, Seattle Shakespeare Co, Seattle University, Cornish College of the Arts, and Room Circus Medical Clowning. With her company of former clown students, Logic Limited, Ltd., she devised: Desdemona’s Dream; Schaden, Freude, and You: A 3 Clown Seminar; TiVO la Resistance; New Shorts; and A Night at the Trojan Wall: A Clown version of the Iliad. With Cirque du Soleil clowns John Gilkey, Daniel Passer, and Wayne Wilson, she worked to develop and devise the cabaret Your New Best Friends.

ABOUT DAVE DEMKE

​​Dave Demke received his BA in theatre arts from Minnesota State University, and his MFA in performance from the University of Maryland. He was the artistic director of Stark Raving Theatre in Portland, OR; the associate director of training for Shakespeare & Company; and a principal dancer with the Red River Dance Company in Fargo, ND. As an actor he has appeared in productions in New York and regionally, as well as performing at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival and in Beijing, China. As a director he has worked extensively in Portland, OR, and at Shakespeare & Company in Lenox, MA. He has guest directed at Purdue University, Skidmore College, and Northeastern University. As a Designated Linklater Voice teacher he has guest taught at various universities, as well as teaching at the Linklater Center in New York and at the National Theatre of Ghana.