Description

Faculty: Michael Fields & Debbie McMahon
Dates:  Sundays: October 6, 13, 20, and 27, 2024
Time :  10am–12pm Pacific  (Time Zone Converter)
Cost:  $250 

Once the most popular entertainment in Europe, Grand Guignol is an exciting theater form that begat current thriller and horror films. Rarely taught, this “theater of laughter and terror” explores our fascination with the macabre, playing with the violation of society’s taboos. Grand Guignol is wildly physical and intensely psychological. It was filled with gruesome special effects (often closely
held
secrets) that so terrified the audiences that a medical doctor was on hand for every performance to treat those who passed out from shock.

We will explore the form’s expressive physicality through exercises, view film clips, discuss its history, and show you how to make your own special
effects to share with the class. 

Debbie McMahon is a theatrical director, deviser and performer, and Artistic Director of Grand Guignolers.  With the Guignolers she creates and directs critically-acclaimed productions which utilize new blends of traditional physical theater genres—melodrama, commedia dell’arte, clown, Grand Guignol, dance, vaudeville and puppetry—in a 1920’s Parisian event-like atmosphere.  She graduated Dell’Arte School of Physical Theatre after earning an M.A. in Performance Studies at NYU. Debbie is a Producer for Directors Lab West. She taught and directed as Associate Professor of physical theater at USC, has been a movement coach for numerous productions and has clowned with Cirque du Soleil.

Michael Fields was one of the original Dell’Arte Company members and a teacher of Melodrama with a penchant for horror. As a member of Dell’Arte’s performing ensemble for over 40 years, and its founding producing artistic director,  Michael has been a recipient of San Francisco, San Diego Critics Circle and Los Angeles Critics awards for Performance and Writing. He has co-authored and performed in over 40 Dell’Arte productions and was past president of International Theatre Institute/USA and a member of the TCG board of directors. He has taught various physical theater forms and community engagement practices at CalArts, the Dutch National Theatre School, and Teater Studio in Stockholm, among many others. He has directed productions around the world, including the National Theatres of Denmark, The Netherlands and Sweden. He was also the director of CSSSA (California State Summer School for the Arts). He recently started his own producing group called LONGSHADR (www.longshadr.com).