Bil - Ever the Student

Fresh from our newly-redesigned website comes some info on Dream Theatre's most ambitious undertaking besides a ten-show season: school.

DREAM THEATRE SCHOOL

Dream Theatre is now offering classes with Artistic Director Jeremy Menekseoglu. Drawing from techniques originally developed at the Moscow Art Theatre, classes cover the basics of the Dream Theatre Style, such as Ground/Grand Gesture, the Four Actions, and more. Students will learn skills from the Russian, Greek, and British theatrical traditions - developing their physical, analytical, and vocal techniques through practice, discussion, and observation.

Enrollment includes one free, personalized evaluation with Jeremy Menekseoglu. Classes are three hours long and held once a month on Saturdays. Individual classes are $20; packages of 6 classes are available for $100 dollars (packages include a student voucher entitling the holder to 10 free shows in our 2011-2012 season*). To enroll in your first class and schedule an evaluation, email dreamtheatreclasses@gmail.com with your name and phone number.

*Does not include Theatre of Women, Special Events, or Opening/Closing.

Having been acting almost exclusively with Dream Theatre since 2008, I can personally vouch for Jeremy Menekseoglu's teaching abilities.  I am 100% certain I'm a better actor because of the Dream Theatre style.  I can't recommend a class with him highly enough.

I also can't recommend Dream Theatre as a company highly enough.  It's a wonderful group of people – hard working and incredibly passionate about putting on a good show.  Any knowledge and experience an actor can get at Dream Theatre will help in any avenue.  I guarantee it.  If you're serious about acting as an art form, take this class.  Jeremy will not just teach you things about the style; he'll teach you how to make your own discoveries, and therefore you will continue to learn long after the class is over.

If there's one thing I want to say about the Dream Theatre style to differentiate it, it's this: acting goes up, not down.  If you want to raise your mind and body up to a higher level of art instead of bringing a character in a play down to a lower state of being, come to Dream Theatre.  This is where actors play.

If you're not interested in acting but would like to see some acting in action, I recommend coming to see a show!  "Downward Facing" is now playing, and will be through February 20.  Audiences have been telling us that this show seems familiar, but – true to the spirit of Dream Theatre Company – also lets them make a discovery or two.

Playwright to Playwright: Mishelle Apalategui (3 of 3)

What do you need your Audience to come away with?

Now? Appreciation. Not for me, but for the human condition. I kinda hate that term, it seems so…so…clinical? But no matter what, looking at us in a social, cultural and personal way is bound to make us realize that we all are so similar. I want to show that we are all capable of the same stupidity, the same bravery, the same clumsiness, and that it is possible and beautiful to just be honest about it. Be honest about the fact that we are all fuck ups, we are all romantics, we are all sometimes leaders and sometimes followers. I feel like I am constantly trying to prove that all emotions are valid and justifiable though they may not be completely understood. And I want people to laugh about it, then unwittingly go home with something in them that they didn’t realize they had inside of them before. But it was always there. It’s never not been there. It just took a bit of unfettered observation to rustle it up.

How does Downward Facing reflect your style?

I wrote it without pretense, plot or style in mind. It just happened. It started with two people simply talking, about what? I didn’t even know and it turned into four amazingly complex relationships that are, albeit modern and possibly passé in a matter of years, honest and real. It is confessional and poetic and made up of literal pieces of my life that I have hidden very very well. Its sneaky and accessible when you want it to be. Like me.