Rails Comedy's The Play’s The Thing: Improvising Shakespeare with Shawn Westfall on Dec 15, 2024 at 5:00 PM

Improv Workshop

The Play’s The Thing: Improvising Shakespeare with Shawn Westfall

📅 Date: Sunday, December 15
🕙 Time: 5:00 PM - 7:30 PM
📍 The DC Arts Center, 2438 18th St NW, Washington, DC 20009

All the world's a stage, Shakespeare wrote, and, yes, that includes even our down-market improv stages. One of the most popular improv-comedy shows in the country is iO Chicago's "Improvised Shakespeare." They've wowed audiences all over the globe with their preternatural ability to improvise in the style of Shakespeare, approximating the Bard's conventions and language with such skill and competence that a few years ago even Sir Patrick Stewart, one of the most revered Shakespearean actors of our day, played in on one of their shows. Combining improv plus Shakespeare's unique language and style may seem initially daunting, but it's actually something that can readily be learned, and, once learned, it is an absolute blast to perform on stage. In this workshop, taught by veteran DC improvisor Shawn Westfall, you'll learn how to identify the tropes and plots of Shakespearean plays, pepper your improvised dialogue with Shakespearean language, and the kinds of characters who populate his tragedies, comedies, and histories.

Topics covered in this workshop:

What constitutes a Shakespeare play–that is, the aspects that make it recognizably Shakespearean
The plots, tropes, and characters of Shakespearean plays
Shakespearean language and how to approximate it while, yes, making it up (it’s surprisingly easy)
The fun strategies, choices, tactics, and moves to make your scenes look and sound Shakespearean (or, more accurately, what most audience members think Shakespeare looks and sounds like)

This workshop is useful for experienced improvisors ready to enhance their improv toolboxes with one of the most fun and rewarding (and universally recognized) parodic improv structures available.

🍎 Prerequisites

Required: completion of any advanced-level improv class from an organization or theater’s core curriculum. Encouraged: a familiarity with Shakespeare/plays in general.

🎟️ Registration

Class Registration: $60
This class is limited to 10 students max

📗 Instructor Bio

Shawn Westfall has been teaching improv for over two decades. For 13 years, he was the exclusive teacher of improvisational comedy at the DC Improv, inaugurating the first class there and forging the curriculum that eventually became the DC Improv Comedy School. Next, he cofounded, taught at, and artistically directed The Unified Scene Theater, a brick-and-mortar improv comedy space in Washington, DC. He also spent three years at Curious Comedy Theater in Portland, where he taught classes in beginning and advanced long-form improv comedy.

Shawn's been performing improv for nearly three decades at various improv theaters around the country: Loose Screws (Honolulu, HI); The Oxymorons (San Antonio, TX); ComedySportz DC, and Curious Comedy Theater. In DC, he founded and directed Bright Young Things, the first improv troupe to headline at the DC Improv. He was a founding cast member and spent four years in Washington Improv Theater's iMusical (under the direction of Travis Ploeger). He's been a member of two improvised Shakespeare troupes: The Artless Bards (which he founded and codirected at The Unified Scene Theater) and Love, Shakespeare (at Curious Comedy Theater under the direction of Kristen Schier). But it was in the long-form improv duo ShawnMikael[s], which he cofounded in 2010 and where he partnered with local DC legend Mikael Johnson, that he's enjoyed the most success, playing to audiences all over the country in numerous festival appearances and billets, racking up accolades, awards, and recognition, including selling out a monthly performance at a 70-seat venue 33 months straight.

Shawn is also the founder and primary facilitator of events for Commedia Partners, a consultancy that's brought improv as a strategy for fostering creativity, leadership, teambuilding, change management, business strategy, and organizational development on-site and off-site to various private, public and non-governmental organizations, including the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, Discovery Communications, Booz Allen Hamilton, Ogilvy, Burson-Marsteller, The Washington Post Company, GEICO, The World Bank, Chipotle, Flying Dog Brewery, the National Institutes of Health, CACI, Sol Systems, Marriott International, DowDupont, ESPN, and Facebook, among numerous others.

🍸 Location

🚗 Parking garage nearby
❌ This venue is not wheelchair accessible
👧 Age Requirement 18+

📋 Policies

All sales are final. Refunds and exchanges are offered only when a class is canceled or rescheduled.
If you have questions, please email [email protected]