International Actor Training Programs

‘Backstage’ has published an article about American actors training abroad. They ask, “What makes a performer decide to study abroad and what are the benefits?” It has interviewed six actors who studied, respectively, at the Moscow Art Theater School, the Jacques Lecoq International Theatre School in Paris, the Accademia dell'Arte in Italy, Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design in London and the Odin Teatret in Denmark. Read their responses here.

Barba’s Odin Opens It Up With ‘Medea’

For those familiar (or not) with Eugenio Barba’s Odin Teatret in Denmark, there is a great article in the NYTimes about this summer’s production of The Marriage of Medea. I had a chance to see his Mythos at LaMaMa a few years ago and was blown away.

“The performances that followed — a hip-hop-flavored song-and-dance sequence, a visiting Polish group’s a cappella rendering of a Georgian funeral song, a Balinese dance solo, and a love-song duet in Chinese and Portuguese between a Nanguan opera singer and a Brazilian percussionist — were the kinds of intercultural exchange that Mr. Barba and his group have been practicing for almost half a century.”

“This summer Mr. Barba, who usually directs only his own actors and master practitioners of disciplines from Japanese Noh to classical Indian dance, invited an additional group of 33 performers from 23 countries to spend four weeks at his theater in this small town in western Jutland. Starting at 7 a.m. each day the performers took part in strenuous physical workouts drawn from Japanese and Latin American traditions.”

Read the full article here.