The Brick Launches BRICK U

The Brick launches its first education program in 2014 with BRICK U. A dedicated workshop setting with expert teachers, the program offers unique, low-cost training in crucial arts-related skills unavailable in large universities. Classes are small and take place in The Brick performance space at 579 Metropolitan Avenue, in W illiamsburg, Brooklyn. T eachers include Adam Symkowicz, Crystal Skillman, Doris Mirescu, Morgan Gould, Robert K. Gardner and Max Azulay.

Fall 2014 CLASSES:

Business for Poets

The Business for Poets workshops show how to organize your art life (as a writer, director, visual artist, musician, filmmaker, producer, independent performer, chef, fashion designer and any other artistic product/service provider) into an appropriate business entity, and to plan your financial activity to achieve stability and live through surprises. Specifically tailored to the needs of artists, the streamlined version of the highly successful 3rd Ward business planning workshops provides hands on sessions to show how to package your artistic offering, forecast revenue, control operating costs, produce and fund effective marketing & sales programs and develop financial statements to optimize profits, cash flow and value. Follow-up email, telephone and face-time coaching assures your understanding and application of workshop materials. Two sessions available this Spring (both identical).

Session 1 Schedule: Four, three-hour sessions, Monday 10am -1pm

September 8, 15, 22 & 29

Session 2 Schedule: Four, three-hour sessions, Monday 10am -1pm

October Oct 6, 13, 20 and 27
Class size: up to 12 students; (including two scholarships) Cost: $325.00/session
Materials (class notes) provided
Sun evening office hours, email coaching

Teacher/coach: Robert K. Gardner has been an incubator of technology enterprises and arts endeavors since 1970. As founder of New World technology Partners, he co-managed the launch or turnaround of development stage companies formed around government sponsored "strategic technologies", including August Systems, Verdix, Meiko Scientific, Cryptek, Phoenix Numeric and Probity Labs. He also helped in the formation and governance of several New York based arts enterprises, including Just For The Record, The Brick Theater and In The Pocket NYC, LLC. During 2012 and 2013, he trained hundreds of aspiring startup and arts business aspirants at Brooklyn's 3rd Ward Arts Innovation Center.

To purchase, visit http://web.ovationtix.com/trs/store/122/pr/57954

Contemporary Multimedia Performance Practices

An investigative laboratory in which students explore what elements can be sources of inspiration in creating a live multimedia performance. Questions are posed around the central theme of how do you make/compose something in space? Where can the thinking begin? How can we go beyond conscience choices to create greater poetry/images? Signifier and Signified are joined in a common effort to create a landscape that carries meaning. Use of space, text, sound, painting, photography and of course video will be explored. Historical and contemporary performance theory and the artists who have contributed to the development of the contemporary performance event are considered. (Stan Brakhage, Jonas Mekas, Francis Bacon, etc). Students will develop means of putting a vocabulary in motion capable of addressing the complex issues of multimedia composition in terms of spatial and temporal states. In the final week of the class, students will have the opportunity to assemble their various compositional works into a final public presentation. They will sequence the multiple pieces created into one personal human gestus. This multimedia performance will be presented to an invited public. Instructor and student- moderated discussions following the presentation will give further opportunities to learn about what has been made through the lens of public performance.

Five 4-hour sessions

Sept. 30, Oct. 7, 14, 21, 28

Tuesdays: 9am - 1pm
Price: $400
No more than 6 students per session.

Instructor: Doris Mirescu is a Romanian born director. She is also the founder of New York based theatre company Dangerous Ground. Her most recent productions include Paris Belongs to Us and L'Amour Fou based on Jacques Rivette' s 1961 and 1969 films (part of 3 by Rivette at The Brick Theater)... But the Next Morning, a multimedia site- specific art installation inspired by Jacques Rivette's 1974 film Ce?line and Julie Go Boating and It's Too Late, a multimedia site-specific art installation dedicated to Jean Eustache's film The Mother and The Whore (both at Scapegrace, Brooklyn). Other credits include From Dawn Till Night, a multimedia adaptation of Rainer Werner Fassbinder's 1978 film, In a Year with 13 Moons (2010 undergroundzero festival at PS122), John Cassavetes' Husbands (Under the Radar Festival at the Public Theater) and 3!, a multimedia experiment based on Fassbinder's 1979 film The Third Generation (PS122 as part of the 2009 undergroundzero festival- Prize for Best Production). Ms. Mirescu holds a Summa Cum Laude Master of Arts in French Literature from Paris-IV Sorbonne as well as an MFA in Theatre Directing from Columbia University. She has taught Advanced Acting and Directing at the School of Visual Arts in New York and served as an adjunct in the Pima program (Performance and Interactive Media Program) at Brooklyn College (www.dangerousgroundproductions.com).

To purchase, visit http://web.ovationtix.com/trs/store/122/pr/57960.

Genre Writing for Playwrights

A class and writing group for writing genre plays. (Sci-fi, Mystery, Western, Clown, etc.) The goal is that students outline and write a new full length genre play over the course of 8 weeks. After the eight weeks, the Brick will host a reading of each play. Special guests/expert visitors likely. (Crystal Skillman, genre playwriting genius and Morgan Gould, Literary Manager at Playscripts confirmed.)

Schedule:
Eight three-hour sessions, Thursdays 11am-2pm. Sept 11, 18, 25, Oct 2, 9, 16, 23, 30.

Class size: up to 8 students Cost: $400

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Teacher/coach: Adam Szymkowicz's most well-known genre plays include Hearts Like Fists (Comic Book Parody, NY Times Critic's Pick, LA Times Critic's Choice) and Clown Bar (Noir, Clown, NY Times Critic's Pick.) He has also written a cowboy comedy version of Hamlet, a lesbian pirate play and some 30 other plays. He is very white but once wrote for an African American sitcom. Adam studied playwriting at Columbia University and The Juilliard School. His plays are published by Samuel French, Dramatists Play Service, Playscripts and Original Works.

To purchase, visit http://web.ovationtix.com/trs/store/122/pr/57957.

Writing Through Improvisation

Interested in writing and performing? It is a vastly useful tool to be able to write for yourself as an actor. In this class, we will study, and learn the fundamentals of character-driven improv, and then use it to influence writing. The characters, conflicts and situations we see in improvised scenes will lay the foundation for written ones.

Schedule:
Four Three Hour Sessions. Wednesdays 10am-1pm. September 10, 17, 24, October 8

Class size: up to 12 students Cost: $325
Materials: (class notes) provided

Syllabus:
1. We delve into character-driven improvisation, as well as discuss the kinds of scenes and characters we want to explore. Students are assigned to write a scene based on, or inspired by, a scene from class. 2. Students bring in scenes and we perform and discuss them. Students are assigned to write a monologue inspired by performance in class. 3. We perform and discuss monologues, and do more performance in which we emphasize character and conflict. Students are asked to pair off and prepare character-driven performance for homework. 4. Students perform with their partners, and we explore the characters and scenes.

Teacher/Coach: Max Azulay has been writing and performing comedy for as long as he can remember. By the time he graduated from High School, his odd adolescent obsessiveness had yielded a long filmography of extremely low-budget films and videos, and sporadic paid work writing comedy. In the following years, his work has been featured at the LA Comedy Festival, on The Onion, Channel 101, Splitsider.com, Funny or Die, The Nerdist, and at the Upright Citizens Brigade. His production company, Dial Tone Pictures, is currently working on producing their first feature film.

To purchase, visit http://web.ovationtix.com/trs/store/122/pr/57958.
All classes take place at The Brick, 579 Metropolitan Avenue, Brooklyn, NY 11211.

For more, visit http://bricktheater.com/?type=page&id=32 or contact info [at] bricktheater.com.