Modules and Workshops

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Cabaret
The period of cabaret study involves each student creating performing material that is very personal with an emphasis on writing, composing, and staging songs. This study pushes the limits of the student’s creativity in areas not otherwise explored, like stand-up comedy, magic, burlesque, and other more or less obscure areas of performing.

Commedia Dell’Arte

Although the commedia dell’arte, the Italian comedy, is today a dead form, the study is important historically because it is the source of our modern western performing arts. The important aspect in the actor’s development is the level of play demanded. Someone once described commedia as circus with a plot, and indeed commedia is at its best when the level of energy is at circus level. The students are obliged to push their own abilities to the level of the fantastic discovering another dimension of themselves in the process.

For us at The Commedia School, it is important that the students create performance level material in each of these styles. Shows in each style are staged in the school studio and often are later performed in other venues in Copenhagen or at festivals in Denmark and abroad. These performances confirm for the students the attractive power of popular theatre styles.

We take only 12 participants

Level: You have experience and have done physical theatre before

BOUFFON playing with the SHADOW

Enjoy being bad, bold and brilliant

8 days workshop 18. – 24. October 2025

Workshop Overview

In this workshop, we will playfully explore the Jungian ‘Shadow’—the ‘unsafe’ or ‘undesirable’ parts of our personality banished from our social persona. Much like the Bouffon, who have been outcast to the ‘Swamps of the Unwanted,’ these parts of ourselves pop up at inopportune moments to shake up our lives and reveal our hypocrisies. Bouffons are uniquely positioned to mock everything and everyone, joyfully disrupting the status quo. Why not start with ourselves?

Workshop Details

In this three-day practical workshop, you will:
– Liberate reserves of energy through play and pushing boundaries.
– Mine your personal shadow for Bouffon material.
– Work with levels of parody from the subtle to the extreme.
– Revel in the pleasure of mockery.
– Experiment in Bouffon chorus.
– Understand how physical transformation and the power of disguise allow exploration of the shadow aspect of our artistic expression.
– Create a body mask.
– Practice using sophisticated rhythms, manipulation, and surprise to empower your Bouffon.
– Try out storytelling and devising in a Bouffon chorus.

Schedule:
– all days from 9 – 15

Registration and fees
– Standard fee: 600 Euro (4.500 kr.)
– Early bird before 1st August: 500 Euro (3.750 kr.)

There is only 8 spots. Your spot is reserved once Commedia School receive your payment.

Payment: A non-refundable deposit of €150 is required upon acceptance of the application form. The remaining balance must be paid at least 3 weeks prior to the event.

CLOWN AND STORYTELLING
Intensive Spring module February 2026

This module also includes the workshop “”Performing Objects” with Krepsko – See Commedia events

STORYTELLING
The students will discover the fundamental nature of theatre, telling stories whether literary and verbal or gestural and non-verbal. By telling stories, the students learn to connect in a profound way with the public and develop the sensitivity necessary to hold the audience’s attention and take them on a journey through the story.
Everyone loves a charming story, and the students discover their own unique charm while creating their own stories. This style of telling stories draws on the student’s creativity physically building images using movement, pantomime, acrobatics, and voice working individually and in groups.

Many theatre groups have launched their careers in this style.

THE CLOWN- THE ART OF FAILING
As the student encounters the phenomena of the clown, they develop freedom of play while discovering their comic character, and their unique way of making people laugh. Working with the solitude of the clown provides them a sense of being centered in themselves on stage and in touch with their immediate circumstances. They develop the ability to play with the surprises that invariably occur during performances. Working with the naiveté of the clown exposes each student to the basic human condition and their own vulnerability. They discover that their personal vulnerability is what makes them interesting on stage. During this study, the students will have several opportunities to perform their clown numbers and shows with diverse audiences in Denmark and abroad. This year we plan to play both at festivals in Denmark and abroad.

This is an exciting and intense three-month study that will develop those wanting to work in theatre and expand the skills of those already involved with theatre.

Performing Objects

This is an introduction to Object Theatre, from various perspectives: playing with an object, anthropomorphizing an object, as well as being an object. What stories do we tell with our choice of an object or the way we might use it?

The workshop will be playful experimentation with object theatre in practice, by executing various creative tasks using everyday objects, found material and elementary puppetry.

The course will be led by Linnea Happonen, MA (Prague Academy of Performing Arts, Department of Alternative and Puppet Theatre), also a graduate of the Commedia School, Copenhagen. She is the artistic director and co-founder of the theatre group Krepsko, founded in Prague in 2001. The performances of the group emphasize visual expression, are mostly nonverbal, and incorporate object theatre, puppetry, and other disciplines. Linnea has traveled with her performances worldwide in theaters and festivals in 30 countries and received numerous awards with the shows. She has also co-operated with other groups and artists, such as Akhe (RUS), and Robert Wilson (USA), among many others.

Time (the dates is not finalised yet, but a 4 day weekend in March 2026)
Friday (17 – 20)
Saturday (10 -15)
Sunday (10- 15)
Monday (10 – 14)

Price:
Earlybird: 1.850 DKK (before the 15th January 2026)
Regular: 2.050 DKK

Payment: A non-refundable deposit of €150 is required upon acceptance of the application form. The remaining balance must be paid at least 3 weeks prior to the event.

The focus of this workshop is to design a full or half mask that will have an instant visual impact on stage, and clearly communicating its intentions. We work with the traditional Venetian mask making technique. After an introduction to the functions and requirements of a theatre mask, every participant will learn to create a papier-mâché mask, built in a negative plaster mold which is taken from a form modelled in clay.

The lessons involve
– Theory: The history and sociocultural functions of masks.
– Introduction to artistic skills, handcrafts and materials
– Design of a mask
– Clay model
– Plaster mold and papier-mâché
– Surface treatment, painting, special finish, fitting of the mask

Teachers:
Finbarr Ryan, Ireland – mask making, performing the mask

Price: 2.250 kr (300 Euro) including materials

Open for all levels.

12 participants

Monday – Friday: 9 til 15

Location: Tuborgvej 60, Hellerup Copenhagen

Payment: A non-refundable deposit of €150 is required upon acceptance of the application form. The remaining balance must be paid at least 3 weeks prior to the event.

This module will include the basic developmental foundation upon which the succeeding studies are based:

-Awareness through movement

-The play

-Mime

-The importance of mask play in the actor’s development

-Mask making

-Acrobatics.

This module ends with a mask performance resulting from the study of many different masks each with their specific importance to the actor.

Masks teaches the student awareness and control of the movement and gesture. The masks demand that the student becomes aware of the essential gestures as well as aware of those not essential and thus distracting. The mask enlarges the performer to a higher level of projection and playing.

The module includes an intensive one-week mask-making workshop with master mask makers giving the students experience designing and constructing their own masks.

This is an exciting and intense three-month study that will profoundly develop those wanting to work in theatre and expand the skills of those already involved in theatre.

To apply, simply write a letter where you tell us about your past experiences, especially those related to theatre, and why you wish to attend the school. Include a photo, a CV, and two letters of recommendation from people who know your work in the performing arts.

The Commedia School provides a limited number of scholarships for applicants outside of Schengen countries, who cannot obtain work permission during their stay in Denmark. If you are eligible and want to apply, please mention this in the application.

3 month module – Melodrama, Tragedy, and Shakespeare ending with Buffoon.

Time: 9. September till 6. December 2024

The buffoon is the more intelligent and darker cousin of the clown, but unlike the clown, whom we laugh at, buffoons form a gang and laugh at us. Buffoon is an extreme state of play, a mime gone wild. Combined with the surreal and deformed shapes of the Grotesque, it amplifies the absurd expression.

A gang of Buffoons is a shapeshifting chorus of wild creatures, who mirror society by playing the games that we all play. The imitation becomes mocking and the mocking will trigger the community to review its own ethics. As a theatrical territory or genre, Buffoon has a unique poetic potential because it allows the performers to explore and play with hotspots of the community and provoke laughter, outrage, political and social awareness, and a shared reflection on the ethical dilemmas that any human community has to face. The tragic space, the fantastic level of play, the foolish logic, and the direct contact with the public are part of the play of the buffoon.

Students will perform Buffon & Grotesque in contact with an actual audience and discover how to confront the public about sensitive current social issues in an effective and yet not destructive manner.