Workshops
Hone your skills or learn something new!
We offer workshops in acting, directing, improv and other stagecraft throughout the year.
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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!
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The Actor's Toolbox
Techniques for Building Your Craft
with Christopher Peak and Suzanne Schrag
Mondays, Nov 3, 10, 17, 24, Dec 1, 8, 2025
6:30 to 9:00 pm
This workshop series is designed to give actors concrete techniques to develop their craft and enhance their performances. We will explore specific ways to deepen your work physically, vocally and textually—all of which can lead to greater freedom of expression in your body, voice and intention. Develop the tools that will help you build a truthful and truly engaged performance.
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We will cover the following topics over the six sessions:
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Journey to Neutral—Finding a Starting Point Free of Pretense
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Three Vocal Channels and Dropping In—Bringing Greater Life to Your Lines
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Entrances and Exits—Coming and Going with Physical Comedy
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Geography of Thought—Taking Them with You with Your Words
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Action!—Bringing Physicality to a Script
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Free Climbing the Vowel Tree—Mapping a Vocal/Emotional Journey
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Cost: $75. Maximum of 16 participants.
Email sccactorstheatre@gmail.com or use the PayPal button to sign up.
Pre-pay to ensure your spot
This workshop is full. Email sccactorstheatre@gmail.com if you'd like to be on the waiting list.
Christopher Peak holds an MFA and BFA in Acting and Theater. He served as an Associate Professor of Theater at University of California, Davis, and taught at the Berkeley Rep School of Theater.
He has extensive movement training including Lecoq technique with a focus on mask and character work, stage combat, clowning, and a wide range of movement methodologies, including Suzuki Method, Viewpoints, Laban Movement Analysis, Alexander Technique and commedia dell'arte, where he has performed several stock characters.
Suzanne Schrag has been exploring the craft of acting for most of her life. In addition to her many years of performing and teaching with Um...Gee...Um Improv Troupe, she has studied Meisner Technique with Ian
​McRae and trained with Bay Area Theatresports, the New Actors' Workshop in NYC and Shakepeare & Company. She has also had the great good fortune to work with and learn from the many amazing theater teachers here in Santa Cruz. She is excited to share some of the favorite implements in her own acting toolbox with the wider Actors' Theatre community.
Acting Shakespeare
​with Bill Peters
Mondays, January 26 - March 16, 2026
from 6:30 to 9:30 pm
Shakespeare’s plays, besides everything else they are, are huge lumps of language that often seem like a chore to digest. Making them one’s own is often seen as a heavy duty rather than a pleasure. We will start with the idea that Shakespeare was not in the business of mystifying or boring his audiences, but that he was a master entertainer concerned with entrancing his audiences and awakening in them “the desire to listen with their entire being.”
This workshop is designed to help actors and directors master the intricacies of Shakespearian text. It is designed to serve people who have experience performing Shakespeare, as well as those who don’t. Over the course of 8 sessions, we will explore the nature of Shakespeare’s theatrical imagination, and the linguistic tools he used to create his themes, plots and characters. The work will consist of studying and performing various monologues and scenes from his collected works. This workshop will also serve to enhance the participants' responses to other styles of playwriting. The techniques we will explore in the workshop will be of use to actors, directors, teachers, playwrights and all those who are interested in unlocking the power of Shakespeare in themselves. People who are Shakespeare-phobic are particularly welcome.
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Cost: $160. Maximum of 14 participants.
Email sccactorstheatre@gmail.com or use the PayPal button to sign up.
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.
Pre-pay to ensure your spot!
The Voice of Your Life: Wellness, Ease, Strength, and Integrity
with Joanna Cazden
Mondays, April 6, 13, 20, 27, 2026
6:30 pm to 8:30 pm
Renew your expressive voice through solo and group exercises, health tips, and explorations of your vocal biography. Through these four evening sessions you’ll expand your repertoire of warmups and understand why they work; rediscover the fundamentals of technique and vocal wellness; and appreciate your personal voice as a multi-dimensional channel for art and life.
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Cost: $75
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For more information, visit: www.joannacazden.com.
"Having enrolled in the class I'm more enlightened about the anatomy and function of the human voice. I am also equipped with many exercises to maintain my vocal character."
—Vincent Meade
Voice of Your Life workshop
"Through a blend of engaging conversations, clinical and scientific information, group and individual activities, I learned more about making friends with my voice—caring, exercising and trusting its natural state. I gained practical and practicable skills. I recommend this class highly."
—Carol Geortner
Voice of Your Life workshop
Joanna Cazden, MFA, MS-CCC, is a voice specialist who has taught at CalArts, American Academy
of Dramatic Art, several CSU campuses, and teacher-training programs across the US and UK.
She is certified in Fitzmaurice Voicework and Performing Arts Medicine; and has trained with Catherine Fitzmaurice, Fran Bennett, Paul Blake, and the RSC’s Robert Lloyd. From 2001-2020, she was senior voice therapist at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center’s Voice Clinic, Los Angeles, treating injured actors and singers. Her book “Everyday Voice Care: The Lifestyle Guide” (Hal Leonard) is in wide use in arts conservatories; other publication topics include the vocal risks faced by actors in videogames and the neuroscience of vocal emotion. Also a singer-songwriter with six solo albums to her credit, Joanna is known for voice work that is holistic, practical, cross-disciplinary, and well-informed. She has resided in Santa Cruz since 2022 and has offered workshops for the Santa Cruz Jazz Society and several choral groups.
Writing Your Short Play:
Imagining, Creating & Table Reading a Ten-Minute or One-Act Play Script
with Wilma Marcus Chandler
Saturdays, April 25 & May 2, 9 & 16, 2026
11:00 am to 1:00 pm
This workshop is designed for emerging playwrights who wish to develop a short play and prepare it for performance. Join others in bringing your stories to the page and the stage!
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Topics include:
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Differences between ten-minute plays and one-acts
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Your inspirations and ideas
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Characters, settings, styles and genres
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Use of music, lighting, costumes
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The pitfalls, first reads, revisions, and more
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Cost: $60. Maximum of 15 participants.
Email sccactorstheatre@gmail.com or use the PayPal button to sign up.
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.
Pre-pay to ensure your spot!
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.