Workshops
Hone your skills or learn something new!
We offer workshops in acting, directing, improv and other stagecraft throughout the year.
Note: If registering through PayPal isn't your thing, you can always pay at the first class. However, you do need to contact us to sign up in advance, so we can manage the numbers. Thanks!
Improv for Actors @ Scratch Studio
with Ian Dyer
Sundays, May 17, 24, 31 & June 7, 2026
10:00 am to 12:00 pm
Held at Scratch Studio, 02B Potrero St., Santa Cruz
Bring a fresh electricity to your performance on a night-to-night basis. This 4-week workshop series is designed for actors at any level who want to find more of a spark in their scenes, monologues and shows. While improvisation will be heavily featured this is not a traditional improv class. We will work with scenes and monologues, learning techniques and skills that allow these performances to feel fresh every time. If you’ve ever felt that your performance was wooden, or that you can’t figure out how to make your scene feel alive, then this workshop is for you!
Cost: $50 (cheaper rate negotiable--no one turned away)
Maximum of 20 participants.
Email iansdyer@icloud.com to sign up.
Ian’s acting background with improv is extensive, having trained and performed for over 20 years in Boston and New York. While performing, Ian also regularly coached improv teams, taught workshops, and participated in festivals across the country. Ian considers improv absolutely fundamental to his experience of acting. Later this year, you can see Ian in Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? at Mountain Community Theater, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead at Actors' Theatre, Street Theater with Renegade, and Henrymania with Gay Innocent Heartless.
Ian Dyer is a local actor most recently seen in Misery at Actors' Theatre and Midsummer Night’s Dream at MCT, and the director of Matt & Ben, the inaugural production from Good Egg Productions, which he co-founded.
The Outer & the Inner Audition:
A Workshop on Auditioning
with Wilma Marcus Chandler
Saturdays, August 22, 29 & Sept 5, 2026
11:00 am to 1:00 pm
This workshop will help you prepare for auditioning, inside and out!
Topics include:
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Selecting your monologue
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Cold readings
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Preparation
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Outer work: presentation, appearance, character interpretation, emotional range, tempo and vitality
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Inner work: handling fear, finding yourself in the work, breath and silence, the inner character, and the offering
Cost: $60. Maximum of 15 participants.
Email sccactorstheatre@gmail.com or use the PayPal button to sign up.
Wilma Marcus Chandler is a playwright, theatre director, and teacher. Her many books on theatre scholarship, directing, stage combat, and scene study have been published by Smith & Kraus, Inc.
She is Emerita Chair of Theatre Arts at Cabrillo College, Aptos. She is the founder of the on-going annual 8 Tens @ 8 Festival at Actors' Theatre and was the Festival's artistic director for many years. She is the founder and producer of the In Celebration of the Muse writers' festival and co-founder of the National Festival of Women's Theater and My Kin Talk, a Jewish Readers' Theatre Company. To date she has written, directed and/or produced over 100 productions and literary festivals in the Bay Area.
Pre-pay to ensure your spot!
She is Emerita Chair of Theatre Arts at Cabrillo College, Aptos. She is the founder of the on-going annual 8 Tens @ 8 Festival at Actors' Theatre and was the Festival's artistic director for many years. She is the founder and producer of the In Celebration of the Muse writers' festival and co-founder of the National Festival of Women's Theater and My Kin Talk, a Jewish Readers' Theatre Company. To date she has written, directed and/or produced over 100 productions and literary festivals in the Bay Area.
Wilma Marcus Chandler is a playwright, theatre director, and teacher. Her many books on theatre scholarship, directing, stage combat, and scene study have been published by Smith & Kraus, Inc.
Bill Peters is a professor emeritus at San Francisco State University where he taught playwriting, acting, directing and Shakespeare performance for many years.
His directing credits include projects at the Manhattan Theatre Club, The Denver Center, Indiana Repertory Theatre, Jewel Theater in Santa Cruz, and the Magic Theatre in San Francisco. He has directed many times for Actors' Theatre's 8 Tens @ 8 Festival.