Training with Fiasco
Joy. Empowerment. Rigorous Text Work. Access.
Since our founding in 2009, Fiasco Theater has had a dual-part mission — equally valuing both artistic productions for audiences alongside education programs that provide exemplary classical training and give actors agency and access in what is, traditionally, a hierarchical and exclusionary system.
The three founding co-artistic directors of Fiasco met as actors in graduate school, and found a shared passion for examining how actor training and collaboration can work best, and what makes for effective and exciting rehearsal. As a company, we began this work with the Free Training Initiative – a 3-week, part-time program we offered annually (until the disruption of the COVID-19 pandemic) and with workshops and masterclasses ranging from a day to a week or more. In 2019, we began offering full-time training via the 6 Week Conservatory, which offered a robust financial aid program to all with need and allowed any early-career actor to apply without an application fee. We are thrilled to be offering the 9 Week Conservatory now, and eventually plan to expand the conservatory into a 1-year program.
WHAT MAKES TRAINING WITH FIASCO UNIQUE?
In Fiasco’s actor-driven, text-centric approach to rehearsing and making theater, students learn to create a rehearsal process that centers their joy and maximizes their artistic agency.
-
Building on our own training and Fiasco’s decade of work with Royal Shakespeare Company’s Cicely Berry and Andrew Wade, we give students tools to create unique performances based on the rhythm, sound, and meaning in Shakespeare’s language, as well as applying these same tools to modern texts, particularly those written by women and writers of color.
-
Plays are made in the rehearsal room. But most acting classes assign students to rehearse on their own and then evaluate the performance they bring back. This is product-oriented and skips the process, which is the actor’s entire job. We give students the tools to know when they are rehearsing in the most dynamic, powerful, personal way possible. This puts them in charge of their process and gives them agency as artists.
-
The current business model for training in NYC often places a severe financial burden on students. We endeavor to make excellent training available to all talented, passionate students, not just those privileged to afford it.
-
The current culture of training actors has long insinuated that making art means either suffering or starving. We reject this. Pleasure is a key component to us – it matters as much as skill and technique in order to create joy for an audience and to sustain a life as an artist. And joy is tangibly linked to our priority of affordability and access. It is impossible to pursue growth through joy if being in class means you cannot pay your rent.
-
Our core faculty have studied at the highest level in their fields and have all been actors in Fiasco productions, so understand and appreciate our approach. Students have the opportunity to see faculty perform in Fiasco productions/readings (for free) - a unique opportunity to see teachers put beliefs into practice, and to engage in dialogue between teachers and students as fellow artists, mutually learning from one another.
Testimonials
MEET & HEAR FROM ALUMNI!
On September 13, 2022, Fiasco held a Zoom Q&A panel with faculty and alumni from our 2019 and 2022 Conservatories. Photo of 2019 6 Week Conservatory Alumni & Faculty by Emma Dickson