NAKED COMEDY
Workshops in hilarious vulnerability
Be more than funny. Be loved.
You’re funny. But are they on the edge of their seats, breathless to see what crazy thing you do next? They could be.
You need to strip down and get naked.
Naked Comedy demands your body, your guts, and all your fluids. We want to see how funny you can be without thinking or trying. Through play, we will explore your unique connection to the audience, the bravery required to be vulnerable, and the gratification that comes with letting go. Expose yourself (metaphorically speaking), and make people laugh.
This work is very physical. Workout wear only. No shoes, no jeans. You’re lucky you’re allowed to wear clothes.
The full workshop is $210/$190 for Institution Students (with the discount TITSTUDENT).
That includes 3 5-hour workshops (with a one-hour break) over Martin Luther King Jr. weekend with a performance showcase on the Sunday night.
The schedule is:
- Saturday, January 19th, 11am - 5pm (with a one-hour break)
- Sunday, January 20th, 11am - 5pm (with a one-hour break)
- Sunday, January 20th, 8pm - performance showcase
- Monday, January 21st, 11am - 5pm (with a one-hour break)
DEANNA FLEYSHER is a clown, teacher, and director. Trained in Lecoq-style clown, bouffon, improv comedy and physical theater, she created Foreplay, an erotic improv comedy show which ran for a year at the People’s Improv Theater in NY and was featured at the Chicago Improv Festival, and Echo, an improvised rock ballet which ran as a repertory show at NY’s Magnet Theater. She created, produced and starred in Kill Me Loudly: A Clown Noir and The Kapinski Private Eye Academy at the NY Clown Theatre Festival. As her alter ego Butt Kapinski, she has performed at Lincoln Center, Symphony Space, Galapagos, and many other joints around NY, as well as the Out of Bounds Festival in Austin and the Montreal Fringe Festival. For the past two years, she has been the director and co-writer of Red Bastard, the internationally-acclaimed bouffon show. She currently leads Naked Comedy labs in Los Angeles.
What participants have said:
What kind of performer would you be, if all you could depend on was yourself? This is Naked Comedy. All you have to play with is your transparent self and Deanna transforms that into something performable. Deanna is like a sculptor. She molds your talents, quirks and insecurities into a character you can play through. —Estela G., LA
Deanna Fleysher’s Naked Comedy workshop focuses a powerful lens on the performer’s inner and outer world, the audience’s emotional response, and the strange, often unspoken interplay between them. She is a tough, smart, inspiring teacher. —Alex B., Austin
Deanna is uncanny at drawing genuineness and comedy out of every single person. The class is engaging from beginning to end and her way of explaining the work is wonderfully precise and effective. —Andy C., Austin
Deanna creates an incredible environment of trust and honesty which allows you to really go there, to the depths, the weird, dark and zany places. She has a great eye and won't let you hide or foster old patterns. Sometimes I feel like I’m a child in front of my siblings, free to go wild. —Krista H., LA
I think one of the mistakes I made about clowning and physical comedy was this idea that simple/obvious comes down to simpleminded/stupid. Big mistake. Strip off the the words, you get into a lot of deep water. Deanna’a workshop allowed me to see translucent naked shining vulnerability of the clown in myself and in all of us, I thought it would be a fun day. It turned out to be profound. —Content K., Austin
