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 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 intuitive explorations of your vocal identity. Over four sessions you’ll learn easy warmups; review why breath use is both important and individual; understand your vocal cords and how to keep them healthy; and appreciate your voice your voice as a multi-dimensional channel for both artistic expression and personal life.
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Cost: $85
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For more information, visit: www.joannacazden.com.
"I learned to make friends with my voice—exercising, caring, and trusting its natural state."
"Joanna is deeply intuitive, full of experience, passionate, and grounded in her approach. She created a safe, expansive space in class that helped me reconnect with my voice in ways that felt both powerful and healing. I gained not just vocal tools, but a deeper sense of self-trust and authentic expression."
Voice specialist Joanna Cazden, has become known in the Santa Cruz area for her holistic philosophy, up-to-date information, and engaging teaching style.
As a coach and voice therapist certified in Performing Arts Medicine and Fitzmaurice Voicework for actors, a singer-songwriter-musician who has appeared with Pete Seeger and Holly Near as well as local jazz and choral ensembles, and a longtime student of meditation and alternative health, Joanna combines deep knowledge of the vocal instrument with practical insights for artists and public speakers at every level of experience. She worked at a voice rehab clinic in Los Angeles for nearly 20 years and has taught at CalArts, American Academy of Dramatic Art, specialty programs across the US and UK, and several CSU campuses. Her book Everyday Voice Care: The Wellness Guide for Singers, Actors, and Talkers is now in its 2nd edition (Bloomsbury, 2025).
Check out Joanna's book for valuable information about how to care for your voice!
Available HERE.
Two Movement & Dance Workshops
with guest artist Billy Siegenfeld
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Standing Down Straight ®
Wednesday, April 22, from 2 to 3 p.m.
Standing Down Straight® (SDS) is a voice-and-movement training method developed by Billy Siegenfeld, founder of the theatre company Jump Rhythm®. This approach emphasizes gravity-directed relaxation, allowing individuals to do performative or everyday tasks with reduced strain and heightened efficiency—to find power in relaxation to prevent strain and injury.
Swing Dance Workshop
Wednesday, April 22, from 3:30 to 4:30 p.m.
This workshop explores swing dance through the lens of Standing Down Straight®—finding power in relaxation and letting gravity do the work. Instead of applying muscular force, we’ll practice: releasing unnecessary tension, organizing around the skeleton, and allowing movement to happen with less effort and more ease. Dancers and non-dancers alike are welcome in this workshop to learn simple swing rhythms and partner movement while applying gravity-directed alignment, shared momentum, and efficient use of energy. Through partner and group exercises, we’ll discover how Standing Down Straight® makes swing dancing feel more sustainable, connected, and joyful.
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Cost: $30 each, take both workshops for $50
Maximum of 15 participants.
Email sccactorstheatre@gmail.com or use the PayPal button to sign up.
Register for Standing Down Straight Workshop
Register for Swing Dance Workshop
He teaches in Northwestern University’s theatre department. His technique is guided by an anatomically fact-based approach to moving and vocalizing, whether onstage or in daily life, that explores using voice-and-body to produce speech-song-motion out of the health-giving, bouncingly-relaxed rhythmic behavior we do when kids, don’t do in schoolrooms when adolescents, and, if willing, can discover the delight of doing again when adults.
He received an Emmy® Award for the percussive, scat-sung theatre-movement he made for the documentary Jump Rhythm Jazz Project: Getting There as well as his performance in it. He has acted, danced, and sang in off-off-Broadway shows and in the Broadway production of Singin’ in the Rain. Learn more at www.jumprhythm.org
Billy Siegenfed iis a rock and jazz drummer; a rhythm-charged actor-dancer-singer; and the founder, director, and movement-maker, of the theatre company Jump Rhythm®.
Register for Both Workshops
for a $10 Discount
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.
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.
This workshop is now FULL.
If you'd like to be on the wait list, send an email to:
sccactorstheatre@gmail.com
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!
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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
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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!
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.