Led by Michael Breslin and Patrick Foley of Fake Friends
July 31 – August 6
Drawing from a variety of performance traditions, from method acting to reality television, Embodied Writing seeks to expand students’ entry points into creating original and contemporary work. The workshop is based on Michael and Patrick’s process of devising original performance that they have been developing for the past four years with their company Fake Friends, and it will help students approach generating material through physicality, improvisation, and clown. The workshop draws on influences from Mary Overlie’s Six Viewpoints, Michael Chekhov technique, Chris Bayes’s clown training, Stanislavski’s actor training system, and Bertolt Brecht’s concept of alienation—as well as the rehearsal and performance practices of contemporary ensembles like the Wooster Group, Half Straddle, and Elevator Repair Service.
Students will then learn how to transfer material discovered through these exercises into compositions, both in the physical space and intellectual space: collaging bodies, images, songs, found texts, original texts, improvisations, and video. Underpinning it all will be a practice (which will be repeated periodically during the workshop) of self-scripting, writing from a place of autobiography.
Placing different performance modalities into conversation with one another is integral to our work. The friction between modalities is a central tenant of our dramaturgy and performance style. To that end, we will also engage with more recent traditions of content-creation such as TikTok, reality television confessionals, ASMR, lip-sync videos, makeup tutorials, etc.
The goal of the workshop is to create a laboratory in which students are given the tools to make work that feels deeply personal and unique to their contemporary experience growing up in our mediated era. Thus, we tailor the workshop to the specific bodies and identities that come into the space. By the end of the workshop, we love to have students share either solo pieces or collaborative pieces that they have generated, which we will then respond to and suggest directions and resources for further development.
Cost
Now through May 1 (Early Bird Rate):
– Workshop with standard double-occupancy room: $720
– Workshop with single room: $1,080
Starting on May 2:
– Workshop with standard double-occupancy room: $800
– Workshop with single room: $1,200
Multiple Workshop Discount (5%) is available for participants taking more than one workshop.
Register Today
There are three steps to register:
1) Make a deposit via Eventbrite to reserve your slot in the workshop via.
2) Fill out an application via a Google Form. Applications include the submission of a resume and headshot.
3) Read the General Info page to learn everything you need to know about workshops at the Barn.
Michael Breslin
Michael Breslin is a writer and performer whose play Circle Jerk, co-written with Patrick Foley, is a 2021 Pulitzer Prize finalist. With Foley, he is a creative director of Fake Friends, a theater and media company who also recently developed and produced the acclaimed internet show This American Wife, which was featured in the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, and more. They are commissioned by Ars Nova, Seaview Productions, and FourthWall Productions. The duo is developing two television shows. Recently, he executive produced and co-wrote the book to Ratatouille: The TikTok Musical, which raised $2 million for the Actors Fund.
Patrick Foley
Patrick Foley is an actor and writer working in theater, film, and TV. His play Circle Jerk, co-written with Michael Breslin, is a 2021 Pulitzer Prize Finalist. With Breslin, he is a creative director of Fake Friends, a theater and media company credited with pioneering digital theater, who recently developed and produced This American Wife, which was featured in the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, Vanity Fair, and ArtForum, and named as one of the “Best Performances of 2021” by the New Yorker. He executive produced and co-wrote the book for Ratatouille: The TikTok Musical, which raised $2 million for the Actors Fund. Foley and Breslin are commissioned by Seaview Productions, FourthWall Productions, and Ars Nova, where they are resident artists. They are developing two television projects.
About Fake Friends
Fake Friends is a Brooklyn-based theater and media company led by Michael Breslin and Patrick Foley. Cat Rodríguez and Ariel Sibert are core members. Fake Friends mix and remix original text with material drawn from modern drama, pop culture, method acting, technology, and dance, pastiching from performance forms like reality TV and capital-R Realism. Through thick and thin, Fake Friends push personal, political, and theatrical boundaries, negotiating the screens and prosceniums that dominate our daily lives. Before the pandemic, they worked with screens on stage. Their work has been presented by Ars Nova, NYTW Next Door, the Prelude Festival, Exponential Festival, Little Theater, and more. Beginning in June 2020, they began experimenting with the stage on screen. Circle Jerk, a critically-acclaimed live-stream hybrid theater experience produced with Caroline Gart and Jeremy O. Harris, was named a Pulitzer Prize finalist in Drama and Best of 2020 by Vulture (Helen Shaw), Exeunt (Best COVID live streams, Nicole Serratore), The Playlist (Kyle Turner), and The Miami Times (Juan Barquin). The work was nominated for a Drama League Award 2021 in “Outstanding Digital Theater, Individual Performance.” Their next digital work was This American Wife, which live-streamed from a mansion in Great Neck, New York. Juan A. Ramírez for the New York Times profiled the show as “a semi-improvised, high-concept dialectic on identity and ‘realness.’” Charles McNulty called it “an ingenious hybrid of stage and screen” in the LA Times. Michael Schulman named it as one of “The Best Performances of 2021” in the New Yorker. Fake Friends has previously taught workshops at Yale College, Wesleyan University, Queens College, and Hamilton College. They have been guest lecturers at Columbia University, Amherst College, and The University of Chicago.