Pleasure to Play - Melbourne & Sydney, 2024

Exploring complicité, clown state and intra-cultural training.

Melbourne Actors Guild, Melbourne & ReadyMade Works (Ultimo), Sydney


Our work explores the intersection of an intracultural methodology directed by Kristine Landon-Smith and working from a clown state in the work of Fabio Motta. We come together as practitioners who believe in the mantra coined by Philippe Gaulier, the pleasure to play.

This master-class explores the principles of having the pleasure to play at any given point of rehearsals or performance through:

  • Finding self in the creation of work and upholding the idea that one’s unique personality is valuable currency in the making of any work

  • Finding complicité with a scene partner and the audience

  • Exploration of the clown state

This master-class explores complicité, clown state and intra-cultural training using a texts from Shakespeare and Chekhov.

It works on the principle of coming to self as its first port of call. While many methodologies prepare actors to find their character, this workshop asks you to find yourself first. We believe that in doing so, the actor transforms and is then able to go anywhere. This unique workshop forensically examines what the actor needs to do in order to play well in every moment on stage, on screen, whether in scene, monologue, rehearsal, performance or audition.

The master-class will reveal to the actor how to stay present and connected not only with a scene partner but also with the audience. Kristine Landon-Smith and Fabio Motta will take you through a series of games, improvisations, text and clown exercises that will increase an actor’s sensitivity and awareness by bringing one’s authentic self to your performance and consequently experience the pleasure to play.

Who is this for?

Actors at any point of their career. Beginners, intermediate and advanced career artists can all participate and the facilitators are experts at working with varying degrees of experience and expertise within the cohort.

The breakdown of sessions is as follows:

  • Play: learning complicité through games

  • Improvisation: holding the openness and complicité with each other found in games and threading this through to improvisation

  • Text work and scene work: holding the open complicité found in games and improvisations and threading this through to text work

  • Clown work: Utilising the above effortlessly in clown work to extend one’s understanding of how to forge a complicité with the audience

Session Dates

Melbourne: 12th - 16th Nov, 2024

Sydney: 7th - 9th Dec, 2024