Improv for Freedom - Beginner Acting Course (Dec.5 - Feb.6)

IMPROV FOR FREEDOM

An 8-session improv course for life’s changes · Freedom Drama · Montréal

This is the third course I am doing in Montréal

When we grow up, we forget how to play, dream, and imagine.
We pick the safest words, stay in roles we never chose, and save our truest feelings for later, until we are stuck in characters we don't really want to be.

This course is a rehearsal room for change. New city, new work, a breakup, a decision you keep putting off, a conversation you keep avoiding:
Here you practice it, where it’s safe to get it wrong. Along the way you’ll also improvise a monologue and do a scene.

Shy, introverted, overthinking, or small? This is your room to put on another character. The one that is open, spontaneous, and courageous. The real you, who wants to wake up.

You don’t need acting experience, and you’re enough exactly as you are.

What happens in the room
Eight weeks. The same small group. No script. We start with games that wake up your body and make you laugh, then move into improvised scenes and true stories. Later we bring in the real conversations and choices you’ve been avoiding and rehearse them, again and again. Repetition gets you out of your head and your limits, until you stop performing and start playing.

What we practice together
— Feeling at home in your body
— Flexible, creative thinking
— Honoring your needs, intuition, and creative impulses
— Meeting your fears and learning to release them through action
— Reconnecting with your own energy, inspiration and others
— Belonging to a small, supportive community that grows week by week

Eight freedoms, one per session
Belong and Trust: December 5
Play: December 12
Express Emotions: December 19
Improvise (scenes, circumstances, environments): January 9
Transform and Role-Play (unlock hidden characters in you): January 16
Perform Drama (an improvised and a short prepared monologue): January 23
Rehearse Life (a prepared scene from a real conversation or choice): January 30
Integrate and Renew (a short sharing and your next step): February 6

How we work together
— Be truthful. Speak in your own words.
— Do no harm. No shaming, no pushing, no judging. You can pass at any time.
— Honor what’s shared. Stories and secrets stay in the room.
— You’re enough. Nothing to prove and nobody to impress.
— Show up and practice. Repetition is how change happens.
— Stay curious about yourself.

Your facilitator has an MEd, 10+ years of professional acting in Ontario, and is a drama therapist in training. They completed the improv program at The Second City in Toronto and have studied Stanislavski, Chekhov, basic playback theater, and drama therapy techniques.

This is an independent course and is not affiliated with The Second City. It is for artistic and personal growth, and it is not a substitute for therapy.

📅 December 5 – February 6, Saturdays, 6:00–8:30 pm EST
(Dec 5, 12, 19,
Jan 9, 16, 23, 30, Feb 6, with a break over the holidays)

Strathearn Centre, 3680 rue Jeanne-Mance, Studio 428, Montréal (Québec) H2X 2K5

Except December 19: Les Ateliers Fichaud, 3115 Rue Ontario E, Ste 2009, Montréal (Québec) H1W 1N9

👥 A small group of up to 12 people, so everyone is seen

Full series (8 sessions): $265 CAD
Drop-in: $40 CAD per session

We recommend joining the whole course, because rapport with the group is what makes the learning go deeper.

The course runs with a minimum of 6 registered participants; otherwise it’s cancelled and fully refunded.

🔗 Sign up: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/17H9-ReyHjTLRAgU7bsczrkxgn7BnyAkKv2J1cJrwC_U/viewform

One of my favorite teachers reminds us:
“You’re only given a little spark of madness. You mustn’t lose it.”