Lookingglass Offers Gglassclass Online Featuring New Virtual Class Offerings

Lookingglass Theatre Company announces gglassclasses online, where students from Kindergarten-12th grade will learn from experienced Lookingglass Ensemble Members and Teaching Artists virtually, while creating collaborative performances and building specialized skills. During this challenging time, Lookingglass is committed to continuing to engage with students, inviting them to keep curious, to imagine, and to play while at home. Registration and additional information is now available at https://lookingglasstheatre.org/gglassclass/.

Classes will be approached through Lookingglass' unique artistic lens of storytelling. Through the process of crafting original works of art, teachers will guide students as they work with their peers during class, while also inspiring offline creative work.

Lookingglass offers a free glimpse of the Lookingglass online class experience weekly with Lookingglass Live. Fifteen-minute workshops posted every Tuesday at noon, geared specifically for kids and teens, are available online. These free workshops are available on the official Lookingglass Facebook page or at the following direct links: Make Believe Workshop (Pre K- Grade 2), Beginner Yoga Workshop (All Ages), and Physical Comedy Workshop (Grades 4-8).

gglassclass online offerings are as follows:

Documentary Theatre

Instructor: Héctor Alvarez

Grade Level: Grade 9-12
Days Offered: Mondays and Fridays, 4pm-5pm
Dates: May 11, 15, 18, 22, 25 and 29 (6 Classes)
Tuition: $100/session

Students will use their imaginations to transport back into the history of the 'City of Broad Shoulders!' Dive into the dramatic structure of a play, while exploring Chicago's history. Using research, interview techniques, and creative writing, students will create a new short piece of documentary theatre to be premiered online! Lookingglass has utilized this technique in plays like Her Honor Jane Byrne, Eastland, and The Great Fire.

Héctor Alvarez is an actor, director, and theater critic from Spain. He has worked as a teaching artist with Lookingglass Theatre, Chicago Shakespeare Theater, Chicago Youth Shakespeare, Victory Gardens, Congo Square Theater, the International Center of Theater of the Oppressed (Rio de Janeiro, Brasil), and Actijoven (Madrid, Spain). His Chicago theater credits include Malaga, Or The Inner Ear (co-director), Yerma (translator, ensemble), The Ghoul Exhibition (one man show), Macbeth (Malcolm), all at Theatre Y, and Short Shakespeare: A Midsummer Night's Dream (assistant director). He has studied non-Western theater traditions in China, Japan and Indonesia, and in 2008 received a Watson Fellowship to research community-based performance in Latin America.

Character Study

Instructor: Lawrence Grimm

Grade Level: Grade 9-12
Days Offered: Tuesdays and Thursdays, 3pm-4pm
Dates: May 12, 14, 19, 21, 26 and 28 (6 Classes)
Tuition: $100/session

In this class, students will get to re-envision themselves into new and well-known characters! Students will participate in the process that professional actors use to create in-depth characters. Participants will use the tools and exercises of archetype, objective, secret, and imagined experience, to craft a unique character. Students will create and perform for each other an originally written character-based monologue and make them feel as if we were right on Lookingglass' stage!

Lawrence Grimm has appeared in the Lookingglass productions of The Naked King, 1984 and The Brothers Karamazov. As a founding ensemble member of A Red Orchid Theatre his credits include: Small Mouth Sounds (Jeff Nomination - Ensemble), 3C, and Trevor (Jeff Nomination - Actor) among many others. Other Chicago area credits include: Hannah and Martin at Shattered Globe (Jeff Nomination- Actor), The Tempest (Chicago Shakespeare Theatre), 2666 (Goodman Theatre), My Name is Asher Lev (Timeline Theatre), The Glass Menagerie at Raven Theatre (Jeff Award - Actor). Film credits include: Captive State, Welcome to Me, Perfect Manhattan, Cicero in Winter. Television credits include: The Red Line, Chicago PD, Chicago Med, Late Night with Conan O'Brien. Larry has a Masters in Education from De Paul University and served as a fulltime English and Drama teacher for three years at Adlai Stevenson High School and four years at the Chicago's first public high school for the Arts, Chi-Arts.

Adaptation

Instructor: Ensemble Member Thomas J. Cox

Grade Level: Grade 6-8
Days Offered: Mondays and Wednesdays, 3pm-4pm
Dates: May 11, 13, 18, 20, 25 and 27 (6 Classes)
Tuition: $100/session

Train with a Lookingglass Ensemble member! In this class, students will act as writers, directors, and performers collaborating to explore and create performance adapted from literary texts. Participants will experiment with different styles of adaptation in rotating small groups, exploring Lookingglass method of creating work like Lookingglass Alice, Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, and The Steadfast Tin Soldier. Each week students will share a brand-new adaptation of a classic work in a virtual presentation.

Thomas J. Cox is a founding Ensemble Member, and has appeared in many productions including: Her Honor Jane Byrne, 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, Cascabel, The Jungle, The Odyssey, 1984, The Old Curiosity Shop and Peter Pan (A Play). Regionally, he has appeared at Goodman Theatre, Steppenwolf Theatre Company, Northlight Theatre, The House Theatre of Chicago, Court Theatre, The Gift Theatre, Victory Gardens Theater, and Milwaukee Repertory Theater. His TV/Film credits include: Brotherhood (Showtime), Chicago Fire (NBC), Since You've Been Gone (Miramax). Thomas has taught with a variety of organizations including Actors Gymnasium, Piven Theatre Workshop, Indiana/Purdue University in Fort Wayne, and DePaul and Roosevelt Universities. Recently, he has served as an adjunct faculty member in the Departments of Theatre at Northwestern University and at the University of Illinois at Chicago.

Physical Theatre

Instructor: Micah Figueroa

Grade Level: Grade 3-5
Days Offered: Wednesdays and Fridays, 3pm-4pm
Dates: May 13, 15, 20, 22, 27 and 29 (6 Classes)
Tuition: $100/session

or

Grade Level: Grade 6-8
Days Offered: Wednesdays and Fridays, 4:30pm-5:30pm
Dates: May 13, 15, 20, 22, 27 and 29 (6 Classes)
Tuition: $100/session

In this class, participants will explore how we naturally use our bodies to speak without words. Using the rich history of physical theatre, we'll look at techniques we've used as humans since we started telling stories. Drawing from mime, clown, puppetry, and slapstick comedy we'll create original routines students can use later to make their whole family laugh!

Micah Figueroa is Chicago-based teaching artist, actor, director, and choreographer. As an actor, Micah's Lookingglass' credits include Moby Dick (original production, and at Alliance Theatre, Arena Stage, and South Coast Repertory), Thaddeus and Slocum: A Vaudeville Adventure, 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea and Lookingglass Alice. Micah has worked with Walkabout Theatre, Erasing the Distance Theatre Company, First Floor Theatre, 20% Theatre Company, and Redmoon Theatre in Chicago. As a teaching artist, Micah has been fortunate to work with students ranging from kindergarten through college investigating and expanding their physical limits for nearly eight years. Specializing in physical theatre, Micah strives, to inspire students to communicate with their entire bodies and to safely eliminate "I can't" from their vocabularies.

Puppetry

Instructor: Ensemble Member Kasey Foster

Grade Level: Grade 3-5
Days Offered: Tuesdays and Thursdays, 3pm-4pm
Dates: May 19, 21, 26 and 28 (4 Classes)
Tuition: $80/session

Students will imagine how to bring household objects to life in this introduction to puppetry class. We'll create our own puppets from home, as well as acquire the skills needed for becoming a great puppeteer. A music video featuring our new skills will be created by the class!

Movement and Dance

Instructor: Ensemble Member Kasey Foster

Grade Level: Grade K-2
Days Offered: Mondays and Wednesdays, 2:30pm-3pm
Dates: May 11, 13, 18, 20, 25 and 27 (6 Classes)
Tuition: $60/session

Keep your young person moving with fun music and disco, ballet, and funk basics, all resulting in a virtual dance recital. Students will move along with us to take a break from the day and get into the routine of creative movement.

Kasey Foster is an Ensemble Member at Lookingglass, where she has performed in: The Little Prince (Fox), Moby Dick (Fate/Sea), Treasure Island (Mrs. Hawkins/George Merry), and 20,000 Leagues Under the Seas (Professor Morgan Aronnax). Kasey has performed regionally with Arena Stage, Alliance Theatre, South Coast Repertory, Berkeley Repertory Theatre, and locally with Adventure Stage Chicago, Blair Thomas & Co., Chicago Children's Theatre, Collaboraction, Dog n' Pony, Redmoon Theater, Red Tape Theatre, Theater Wit, and Trap Door Theatre. As a singer, Kasey performs with and manages local bands: Babe-alon 5, Old Timey, Grood, and This Must be the Band, appearing at venues throughout the city and across the country. In addition to producing her original works, she produces an annual performance series called Dance Tribute, with up to 80 local performers/artists on stage.

For more information or to register for classes, visit https://lookingglasstheatre.org/gglassclass/.

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