IN PERSON CLASS

In the long tradition of people gathering midday for coffee, cake, and conversation, this 5-part class is an opportunity to approach text as professional actors and directors do during “table work,” the deep dive that happens during the first days of rehearsal. Participants will read scenes aloud, explore characters, motivations, and tactics, play with different interpretations and directions, and then enter a broader conversation about how the content resonates with us, what it says about the time period in which it was written, and how plays both reflect and shape ideas and culture.

Hester Kamin is the Education Programs Manager at Theater J. She’s a graduate of Carnegie Mellon University, Ecole Jacques Lecoq, and the Fred Rogers Institute and has served as Director of Education of six theaters around the US and as Co-Artistic Director of touring Drama Ties Theatre in Paris. Hester has also directed and choreographed more than 200 shows with professional actors and students around the world and been honored with the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists National Award, the Academy of Paris Award for Contribution to Arts and Culture, and, most recently, an Art Works Award from the National Endowment for the Arts for her play about Holocaust survivor Sabine Van Dam, In Flight. Hester is a member of Actors Equity Association, the Society of Stage Directors and Choreographers, and the Dramatists Guild of America.