Exploration in Status w/ Elana Fishbein
Saturday, February 15th
12:30pm-2:30pm
$45.00 per workshop
Exploration in Status
In this workshop we'll explore the ways in which a common understanding of status and power can enrich our improv scenes. Utilizing tone, body language, and attitude we'll aim to alter our character's status in relation to one another, as well as the environment itself. Exercises will teach participants to work together to establish and shift the status dynamic between characters, like children on a see-saw. Together we'll attempt to dismantle cliche portrayals of high and low status in order to subvert expectations for comedic effect.
2 Hour Workshop
All experience levels are welcome.
Students needing financial assistance can reach out to contact@savifest.com.
Elana Fishbein is an improv teacher and performer based in New York City. She has designed curricula and facilitated improv workshops for corporations, non-profits, and educational institutions all over the United States and beyond. Elana’s targeted, experiential sessions aim to help students expand their ability to communicate, collaborate, empathize, and lead through radical respect and elevation of each other’s ideas.
Elana is an instructor and Director of the Youth Program at the Magnet Theater in New York City. She can be seen performing with the Armando Diaz Experience, Magnet Theater TourCo, and her solo improv show, Pepita (Best of the Fest, San Diego Improv Festival). She has been featured at the Boston, Charleston, Chicago, Eau Claire, Edmonton, Omaha, Philadelphia, and Women in Comedy Festivals, among others. Her two-woman play, Sisters Three, was a New York Times Critics’ Pick.
Elana has written and performed for The Truth Podcast (Radiotopia), Story Pirates Podcast (Gimlet), and appeared on BBC America’s Almost Royal, as well as in the original musical comedies Girl Camp and Nightfall on Miranga Island. She is a member of Story Pirates, a non-profit arts-in-education organization that takes stories written by kids and adapts them into hilarious sketches and songs. She is the co-creator of two professional development workshop series for teachers: “Beyond Winging It: Improv in the Classroom” and “Play.” Elana is featured in the documentary short, LMAO, about the therapeutic potential of laughter and comedy.
Elana holds an M.A. in Educational Theater from NYU and B.A. in Drama from Vassar College. Her favorite succulent is jade.
SAVI FEST is sponsored by: Second Beat Improv Theater and Improv Utopia.
