(A note from Marcia Kimmell, Creative Director of The Next Stage)

For Friends of The Next Stage and people interested in the expansion of their own
personal, as well as group, creativity – I am an actor, director, acting coach and teacher.
 
I am the director of The Next Stage, which is a theater in San Francisco that
offers enlightening and light-hearted workshops in improvisation and acting.
 
I love what I do passionately.
 
I have seen amazing transformations happen to people as a result of the work they have done with me.
 
In fact, I am one of the people who has been affected, profoundly, by this work. At The Next Stage we enter into a safe space in which we practice how to play like children.
 
As we progress, the play becomes increasingly sophisticated.
 
Improvisation is also basic to the work I do with professional actors, directors and writers in traditional “scripted” plays and film.

Over the 35 years I have been leading groups of such a wide variety of humans that I find it quite remarkable. The common denominator for all of us is “play.”
 
It is built into being human that the way we learn is through play.
 
Our up-tight, puritanical society frowns on adults “playing” and discourages kids from their God-given right and ability to learn and create. This is tragic and my school is dedicated to giving people a place to come out and pick up where they left off as children.

Our most creative work is done in the spirit of play.

I have worked with 5 year old emotionally disturbed children, as well as geniuses. I've worked with elders and professional actors in training at the American Conservatory Theater.

Lately, I have been teaching film directors at Film Arts Foundation.

Years ago I taught in the first Drama Therapy Program on the West Coast (now at California Institute for Integral Studies, CIIS). Various school districts have hired me to train classroom teachers in the use of drama and play as an educational tool.

Whether I am working with highly motivated and dedicated artists or with new-comers who are terrified to get on stage, fearing they will “make a fool of themselves,” I know how to gently guide people
through whatever blocks them from creative self-expression.

I have had the good fortune to have had several master teachers who were among the greatest innovators in theater of the 20th Century or I studied with their students.
 
The techniques I have learned and put together in my own unique way combine the Theater Games of Viola Spolin, mother of the improvisational theater movement in the U.S., with whom I studied for 3 and 1/2 years; as well as the Stanislavski System of Psycho-physical Actions which is his later, post-“Method” work.
 
Both of these great innovators realized that acting is the ability to find moments improvisationally, as we do in life. I studied the “System” with Phil Bennett, here in San Francisco. Phil was a protege of Sonia Moore, who studied with Stanislavski and Vahktangoff at the end of his career.
 
Relatively few American theater artists are well trained in this way of working. Americans became enamored with the “Method,” even though Stanislavski evolved beyond it. Another influence in my work is Joseph Chaikin of the Open Theater in New York.
 
With Murray Paskin and Tessa Loehwing I learned the “Sound and Movement Series” that is a spin-off of Spolin's famous “Mirror Game.”

The Sound and Movement Series is the basis for Improvisational Story Theater and "Emotional Jazz" --
a transformation game that is like creating poetry and flying with a partner. Improvisational Story Theater work has also led me to explore archetypes from myths and fairy tales. We also develop our personal stories as heroic, mythical journeys.

When I work with actors and directors on "scripted" monologues we learn
the Stanislavski System AND we also use Theater Games as the rehearsal techniques they were originally designed to be.
 
The result is actors are able to come up with choices that are brilliant and surprising to them because they have been found in the moment and are inspired.

I am writing all this to you because I want to let you know that I am currently putting together a new Theater Games Workshop for total beginners.
 
It is a great opportunity for the serious actor, as well as for the person who just wants a place to play and learn about themselves in a light-hearted way.
 
People often have preconceptions about what an "acting class" is like.
 
My class is so much fun and different from any traditional acting class I have taken. We play games together. No one has to get up and “act.”
 
Theater Games help beginners, as well as up-tight professionals, get over the crippling self-consciousness while learning to be focused and highly “conscious.”
 
Anyone can do this. It is not about talent or being a “good actor.”
The new class will be on Tuesday nights, 7:30 - 10 PM. It will be held at my theater studio, The Next Stage, which is in Trinity Episcopal Church at Bush & Gough Streets in San Francisco.
 
The class is filling up. Interested people can come to the first class and take it to
see if it is right for them.
 
I also have an Intermediate Group on Saturday mornings, 10 - 12:30,
Performance Level Improvisation on Thursday evenings, 7:30 - 10
and a class for Actors & Directors in which I teach the
Stanislavski System and other improvisational techniques
through “Monologue Study.”

The Next Stage is growing this year. We are starting a new “Professional
Training Program” for people who have been working with me who want
to learn to teach/coach Theater Games.
 
We will be offering different workshops for Adults, for Kids and for
Kids & Adults Together. It's a blast playing with kids. They learn
from the adults and the adults learn from the kids.
 
We will also be available to various groups and businesses to come in
and use improv Theater Games as a medium for teaching people to
work in creative, non-competitive teams.

Enough!

If you've gotten this far you are probably interested enough to give me a call.

Lucky you!

You can reach me at: 415/826-6505.

If you tell another person about this class and they end up taking it,
I will give you one session of the workshop for free, as an incentive to
pass on the word to friends you know who would love this.

Looking forward to hearing from you and playing!

Be well,
 
- Marcia Kimmell, director of The Next Stage