Time: 10:15 - 11:15

 Great ideas can come from anywhere. How can a group listen for, explore and heighten an idea into something new? Drawing from various physical ensemble theatre techniques including Chicago-based improvisation games, Théâtre de 

Complicité, Lecoq and Viewpoints, director Annie Ryan leads a workshop that promises to wake up the body and sharpen the mind. Developed over the last decade with her ensemble, this work teaches the basic principles of organic ensemble collaboration. Come play! 

Biography

Annie Ryan is a theatre director, actor and teacher based in Dublin. Originally from Chicago, Annie trained as an actor at the Piven Theatre Workshop and New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts. She was part of New Crime Productions in Chicago in the early ‘90s, where she was introduced to the style of Commedia dell’Arte that has become the trademark of her theatre company, The Corn Exchange. Founded in Dublin in 1995, The Corn Exchange has won international acclaim for its unique style and energy. Productions include Streetcar, Big Bad Woolf, Baby Jane, The Seagull, Car Show (Judges Award Irish Times Theatre Awards 1998, Observer’s Top Ten Theatre Shows 2000), Foley by Michael West, Lolita (Best Supporting Actress, Best Costume Design Irish Times Theatre Awards 2002), Mud by María Irene Fornés (Best Production Irish Times Theatre Awards 2003), Dublin by Lamplight (Best Ensemble, The Stage, Edinburgh 2005) and Everyday, both by Michael West in collaboration with the company and Cat on a Hot Tin Roof by Tennessee Williams. 

 Outside of The Corn Exchange, Annie directed Fool for Love by Sam Shepard for the Abbey Theatre, Come and Go for the Beckett Festival at the Gate Theatre and the Barbican and Rudolf the Red for The Ark. Her upcoming production is Freefall, in collaboration with Michael West for The Corn Exchange in the Dublin Theatre Festival this autumn. She has performed in theatre and film in the US and Ireland and is developing two films with her company, both from story lines from her last devised play Everyday. 

 Annie teaches The Corn Exchange’s techniques of ensemble-based physical theatre and Commedia dell’Arte to professional actors, young people and corporate clients throughout Ireland as well as in Europe, the UK, the US and most recently for the Maisha Film Lab in Kampala, Uganda. 

 Note: This session is one of a choice of sessions running in the same time slot . For more information please refer to the schedule.