Spymonkey are excited to offer more affordable workshops and webinars in the new year.
As a result of the success of the recent webinar ‘Fearless, Funny and Female’, which shone a light on Spymonkey’s Petra Massey, we have decided to also shine the spotlight on Artistic Director Aitor Basauri and Associate Artists Stephan Kreiss and Lucy Bradridge. These will be interview webinars looking at their comedy/career journeys.
We will be sharing some of our greatest comedy inspirations with you in a new webinar and due to popular demand, we will be also offering our in depth Arts Council England workshop once again.
As before, we ask you to consider which ticket bracket you can reasonably afford. All income made from these sessions goes directly to covering the costs of keeping Spymonkey going while we’re unable to make work or run our training in person.
If you have access needs, please let us know how we can address these to best support you to engage with the sessions, this includes captioning and BSL.
Bursary places
As before, we will build on our Brassmonkey Bursary scheme by offering 10% of spaces on this workshop programme free of charge to African diaspora people, South, East and South East Asian people or people from other ethnically diverse backgrounds, and to artists with disabilities. These sessions will be offered on a first-come first-served basis by contacting Natasha Britton on natasha@spymonkey.co.uk with details of which sessions you’d like to attend.
If you are a theatre maker who is of African diaspora, are South, East or South East Asian or from an ethnically diverse background, and you are particularly interested in making physical comedy theatre, we’d like to hear from you.
If you are a theatre-maker with disabilities and particularly interested in making physical comedy theatre we’d like to hear from you.
Workshops and Webinars
Lucy Bradridge: Designing for Idiots – Weds 3rd Feb 4.30pm (UK time)
Lucy Bradridge has been associate artist with Spymonkey for more than 20 years, working on every show the company has made, and her visual sensibility has heavily informed the company’s highly visual sense of style. In this illustrated conversation with Spymonkey managing AD Toby Park, she talks about her creative process, influences, how she came to specialise in designing for physical comedy, advice for people starting out, and what a designer looks for in making funny theatre funny. 90 mins. Cap 40 people
Tickets £12/ £15 / £20 depending on affordability
Link to book: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/lucy-bradridge-designing-for-idiots-tickets-136874139235
Arts Council England Project Grants – In Depth – Tues 23rd Feb 9.30am (UK time) With Producer Emily Coleman
*PLEASE NOTE THE DATE HAS CHANGED FROM ORIGINAL POSTING*
This session will explore each section of the application in detail using examples from Spymonkey’s successful grants, as well as a guide to uploading your application onto ACE’s Grantium portal.
“I am really happy to report that ten days after taking part in the online course I submitted our application for a (under £15,000) grant. Five weeks after that we received the news that our application for a new (covid safe online children’s series: Three Loud Knocks) had been successful. I am sure the Spymonkey course and Emily’s advice and clear communication of her knowledge paid a part in our success. I would strongly recommend this course to anyone who hasn’t attempted a ACE grant application before. Emily totally demystifies the process. It’s a great course and has proved to be great value.” Nicky McRoy – joint artistic director of Beggars Belief Collective
4 hours. Cap 20 people
Tickets £35 / £50 / £70 depending on affordability
Link to book: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/arts-council-england-project-grants-in-depth-tickets-136877703897
Stephan Kreiss: Funny & German – Tues 16th Feb 4.30pm (UK time)
The job description, for re-casting the part of undertaker Udo Keller in Spymonkey’s inaugural show ‘Stiff’, began a 20-year creative partnership between Spymonkey and Stephan Kreiss, one quarter of the Spymonkey ensemble. The Vienna-based virtuoso prat-faller, slapstickeur extraordinaire and world-class idiot will be in conversation with Spymonkey managing AD Toby Park, talking about his life in physical comedy: mime, illusion, air guitar and nosebleeds.
90 mins. Cap 40 people
Tickets £12/ £15 / £20 depending on affordability
Link to book: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/stephan-kreiss-funny-german-tickets-136878408003
Aitor Basauri: Turning points – Tues 23rd Feb 4.30pm (UK time)
Life is a series of turning points and cross roads. In this webinar conversation with Spymonkey managing AD Toby Park, Aitor talks about his childhood dream of becoming an actor, the succession of turning points that carved out his life in physical comedy and his newest dream … to become a pro surfer!
“Like in clowning, in surfing you know the outcome of your action, you will fall from the wave, the laughter will die, in the wave you will have to go back to the line up, to the break, to the peak to wait to catch the next wave. In clown you will go back to the zoom to wait for the laugh to ride it all the way to the end …To leave the audience satisfied and wanting more…”
90 mins. Cap 40 people
Tickets £12/ £15 / £20 depending on affordability
Link to book: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/aitor-basauri-turning-points-tickets-136879021839
Spymonkey Under the Influence – Tues 2nd March 4.30pm (UK time)
Spymonkey are excited to offer an exciting new webinar with Spymonkey Artistic Directors Toby Park and Aitor Basauri who take stock, with the help of some choice illustrative clips and images, on the influences on their work: from those whose practices have steered their lives such as the great clown teacher Philippe Gaulier, Spymonkey director Cal McCrystal, Swiss action heroes KKG, through to greats of physical comedy – Keaton, Normand, Marx Bros, Sellers, Python, Conway & Korman.
90 mins. Cap 40 people
Tickets £12/ £15 / £20 depending on affordability
Link to book: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/spymonkey-under-the-influence-tickets-136879914509
*We can deliver additional workshops and creative sessions to theatres, arts centres or groups of creatives as private bookings. If you know an organisation or group who would benefit from one of these sessions, please feel free to pass on our information*
If you have any questions or difficulty with your booking please email natasha@spymonkey.co.uk