Calendar | List
Classes and workshops 🍏
Classes and workshops 🍏
All the Hats
You made a show! Now what? Learn how to find festivals and other places to perform, how to put together a tour, and, even better, how to come home with a return on your investments (ROI).
We'll examine how to make a budget that fits your needs and how to dream scalable when the numbers tell you you can't dream as big as you want. Karen will share with you her personal experiences from twelve festivals and strategies for tour profitability.
For the independent artist and producer who wears all the hats.
Movement for Clowns, Comedians & ImprovisErs
Rooted in Play, Lecoq Technique and Laban/ Bartenieff fundamentals, this class will get you laughing, sweating and give you greater awareness of your body as well as a theatrical language to articulate your comedy on stage.
Organic Standup (8-week)
Do you want to discover what makes you uniquely funny?
Have you thought about stand-up but have no idea how to start?
Are you a performer who wants an unconventional approach to stand-up?
Pandemonium Weekend
Work with Annelise Lawson, co-founder of The Pandemonium Studio in New York, and Lecturer at Yale School of Drama to keep building your skills or develop new ones. Jump into your body...open like a little flower...rediscover your playful spirit and the simple pleasure and ferocious generosity of performance.
ACCELERATOR
There is no audition process for ACCELERATOR, but this is not an introductory clown class. It is not recommended for artists who are new to live performance. It’s designed for intermediate clowns interested in expanding into mainstream spaces, stand-ups trying to add variety and sketch/character performers who want to interact more directly with an audience.
ACCELERATOR will involve developing solo work (both from scratch and/or pre-existing ideas), as well as group exercises and drills that focus on identifying games and creating clear premises for characters. Chad will also share advice on how to stage unique ideas without alienating audiences unfamiliar with clown – and staying in the good graces of producers in more traditional spaces.
SOLD OUT
The inner Idiot
Spend two afternoons diving into the joyful, ridiculous and finely tuned world of clown and physical comedy with Clare Bartholomew, one half of the multi award-winning musical comedy act Otto & Astrid. Drawing on three decades of touring and performance experience, this workshop offers a generous space to embrace your inner idiot, take creative risks, and build precision, presence and connection through embodied play.
Call it Character (Don’t Call it Clown)
This workshop takes the participant through a journey based in modern clown work to hone an electrifying performing presence, rooted deeply in who you are, that the audience can't get enough of. We will learn about your unique connection to the audience, your mission, and your special brand of vulnerable ferocity.
King of Clown
In this two-day intensive workshop and show, we will discover hone, and fully work out the man inside of you, so that you can slay the competition at being a hilarious, unique and manly king. Through the lens of modern clown and character work, we will hone your man body and character, clarify your physical and vocal expression, and get you pumped full of generally funny man juice.
Acting as Alchemy (6-week)
Acting as Alchemy is a scene study and monologue class that blends various pedagogies -- such as clown, Michael Chekhov Technique, Linklater, and more -- to expand the actor’s imagination, deepen emotional authenticity, and reignite the joy of play. It is a mixed levels course that is ideal for actors looking to shake up their process as well as clowns and comedians looking to explore text-based work.
Clown Fundamentals (4-week)
Study the fundamentals of modern clown with the artists that make the Elysian “clowning’s North American nerve center.” Use your body, hone your presence onstage, connect vividly with your audience, and create performances that are radically playful, vulnerable, strange, mischievous, gloriously dumb and beautiful.
Directing Lab
CASSIE AHIERS' Directing Lab is for bold, scrappy, and genre-defiant theater makers eager to sharpen their directorial skills. Through hands-on exercises, ensemble experiments, and class discussion, you'll step into the role of director and practice leading a room confidently while communicating your ideas effectively.
Language of Nonsense
A two-day intensive from the creator/director of STAND UP AND CLOWN, CLOWN ZOO and co-creator of RORY AND CHAD WIN COMEDY TONIGHT! Chad Damiani (aka "Clown Boss") offers this intro class for veterans and newcomers, looking to explore how clowns connect and play with audiences through joy and nonsense.
How can we get a roomful of strangers to not only go along with our joyfully dumb ideas, but also become our eager co-conspirators? A deep exploration of primal communication. It’s also a chance to be live directed by Chad in a class show!
SKETCHY TIMES (8-WEEK)
Explore the fundamentals of sketch writing and performing. Learn to identify sketch fodder from your daily life, craft sketches around original characters, hone note-giving and receiving skills and ultimately perform an original sketch show.
ALL IN - Improv Meets Clown (4-week)
Explores clown's relationship to improv through the art of being present and the willingness to play. Created for performers who are looking to be more honest and active on stage.
Elysian Class: Pandemonium Workshop- Advanced Clown (5 day)
Prerequisite: Pandemonium Workshop at the Elysian, or other training with Christopher Bayes and/or The Pandemonium Studio
Internationally renowned clown and commedia master Christopher Bayes, the founder of The Pandemonium Studio in New York, current Head of Physical Acting at Yale School of Drama, and author of Discovering the Clown, or The Funny Book of Good Acting, is coming to Los Angeles to teach a special 5-day advanced immersion workshop at the Elysian. Jump into your body...open like a little flower...rediscover your playful spirit and the simple pleasure and ferocious generosity of performance.
Elysian class: Faceoff
CLOWN BOSS Chad Damiani (STAND UP AND CLOWN, STAMPTOWN, CLOWN ZOO) brings his popular theatrical mask workshop to The Elysian! This is not a workshop focused on creating traditional mask pieces, but how mask principles can make you more physical, present and dynamic on stage. Ideal for clowns, improvisers, stand-ups and performing artists. This is about more than being comfortable in your body. It’s learning how to trust your impulses and generate material from a physical space – as well as creating deeper audience connections through play.
Open to all levels. Neutral mask provided.
SOLD OUT! Join the waitlist
Elysian Class: Pandemonium Workshop (5 day)
Internationally renowned clown and commedia master Christopher Bayes, the founder of The Pandemonium Studio in New York, current Head of Physical Acting at Yale School of Drama, and author of Discovering the Clown, or The Funny Book of Good Acting, is coming to Los Angeles to teach a special 5-day immersion workshop at the Elysian! For clowns, comedians, actors, and curious performers/non-performers of any experience level wanting to throw themselves into the thrill of pandemonium. Don’t miss a rare chance to train with Chris on the West Coast.
Over five days of radical play, we pursue the clown together in all of its messy and hilarious beauty. Learn to listen and respond with your whole body; develop a more playful and dynamic relationship with the audience, with your collaborators, and with yourself. Take a risk! Have some fun! Bring the ruckus! Let's find out what's funny about you!
Elysian Class: Language of Nonsense
This two-day intensive explores a fundamental element of clown work - communicating through The Language of Nonsense. How do we start a conversation? Build a vocabulary through movement and pattern? Establish games people will be excited to play? A deep exploration of primal communication. It’s also a chance to be live directed by Chad in a class show!
Elysian Class: Language of Nonsense
This two-day intensive explores a fundamental element of clown work - communicating through The Language of Nonsense. How do we start a conversation? Build a vocabulary through movement and pattern? Establish games people will be excited to play? A deep exploration of primal communication. It’s also a chance to be live directed by Chad in a class show!
Elysian Class: Crash course in neo-futurism
The SF Neo-Futurists are bringing their classic Crash Course in Neo-Futurism to The Elysian for one day only! Looking to expand your artistic practice and create new performances based on your own lived experience? In this three-hour workshop, you'll learn how to create original non-illusory plays based on the aesthetic principles of Neo-Futurism, turning your personal stories into theatre that's absurd, honest, and oddly affecting. Expect easy movement warm-ups, creative writing prompts, and opportunities to collaborate with other students. You'll leave the workshop with new two-minute plays to start or add to your body of performance work!
Elysian Class: Clown Lit (2-Day)
Clowns? Writing? Pfffft! Yes. You.
Writers? Doing clown? Writing as clown? Suss.
This is a class for making our words sing as loud as our bodies. This is a class for writers and comedians of all kinds who want to make a playful and fulfilling writing practice. The first session will include movement and writing exercises to loosen up our hands and brains. The second session will focus on getting our clown voice into our writing voice, and practical tips to help create unorthodox scripts for our live work. There will be a wee overnight homework assignment.
Come, let us pull our heads out of our asses.
Elysian Class: Spymonkey - Introduction to funny (1-Day)
This one day workshop is an introduction to the key concepts at the heart of Spymonkey’s Theatre of the Funny. We believe that everyone can be funny in their own unique way, and that the best theatre is one that embraces this quality in its artists. With the emphasis on supporting a space that is accessible, supportive and safe for all to laugh, we will use our favourite games and exercises as practical illustrations, to create belly-laughter – improv exercises (the sometimes scary pleasure of saying ‘yes’ to the unknown), explore practical concepts such as ‘finding the game’, the importance of complicity, or fixed point, of playing together with our friends, and of sharing that particular quality of Funny that you and only you can be.
We have taught these workshops all over the world for 30 years and we are still amazed how much fun can be had by a brand new group of people, as long as they come ready to laugh and equipped with a sense of humour about themselves and others.
Language of Nonsense w/ Chad Damiani (2-Day)
A two-day intensive from the creator/director of STAND UP AND CLOWN, CLOWN ZOO and co-creator of RORY AND CHAD WIN COMEDY TONIGHT! Chad Damiani (aka "Clown Boss") offers this intro class for veterans and newcomers, looking to explore how clowns connect and play with audiences through joy and nonsense.
How can we get a roomful of strangers to not only go along with our joyfully dumb ideas, but also become our eager co-conspirators? A deep exploration of primal communication. It’s also a chance to be live directed by Chad in a class show!
The Pandemonium Workshop (6-day)
A weeklong immersion in Clown with internationally renowned director, teacher, clown and commedia master Christopher Bayes, the founder of The Pandemonium Studio in New York, current Head of Physical Acting at Yale School of Drama, and author of Discovering the Clown, or The Funny Book of Good Acting. Jump into your body...open like a little flower...rediscover your playful spirit and the simple pleasure and ferocious generosity of performance.
The Pandemonium Workshop (6-day)
A weeklong immersion in Clown with internationally renowned director, teacher, clown and commedia master Christopher Bayes, the founder of The Pandemonium Studio in New York, current Head of Physical Acting at Yale School of Drama, and author of Discovering the Clown, or The Funny Book of Good Acting. Jump into your body...open like a little flower...rediscover your playful spirit and the simple pleasure and ferocious generosity of performance.
Language of Nonsense w/ Chad Damiani (2-Day)
A two-day intensive from the creator/director of STAND UP AND CLOWN, CLOWN ZOO and co-creator of RORY AND CHAD WIN COMEDY TONIGHT! Chad Damiani (aka "Clown Boss") offers this intro class for veterans and newcomers, looking to explore how clowns connect and play with audiences through joy and nonsense.
How can we get a roomful of strangers to not only go along with our joyfully dumb ideas, but also become our eager co-conspirators? A deep exploration of primal communication. It’s also a chance to be live directed by Chad in a class show!
All The Hats (1-Day/Info Session)
You made a show! Now what? Learn how to find festivals and other places to perform, how to put together a tour, and, even better, how to come home with a return on your investments (ROI).
For the independent artist and producer who wears all the hats.
Language of Nonsense w/ Chad Damiani (2-Day)
A two-day intensive from the creator/director of STAND UP AND CLOWN, CLOWN ZOO and co-creator of RORY AND CHAD WIN COMEDY TONIGHT! Chad Damiani (aka "Clown Boss") offers this intro class for veterans and newcomers, looking to explore how clowns connect and play with audiences through joy and nonsense.
How can we get a roomful of strangers to not only go along with our joyfully dumb ideas, but also become our eager co-conspirators? A deep exploration of primal communication. It’s also a chance to be live directed by Chad in a class show!
Playing Yourself (8-Week)
Kickstart the creation of the show that only you could dream up. Generate new material from prompts that unpack your memories, your stories, your opinions, your quirks, your obsessions, and your big ideas, and maybe even your unsent email drafts–in order to turn them into performance-worthy gems. Find the incredible thing waiting to be discovered inside the personal collection of seemingly-random material and ephemera you already have.
Improv: Fast and Loose, Slow and Steady (8-Week)
An improv class for anyone who wants to learn to be more present, become a true active listener and be free on stage. And anyone who loves to have fun.
All The Hats (1-Day/Info Session)
You made a show! Now what? Learn how to find festivals and other places to perform, how to put together a tour, and, even better, how to come home with a return on your investments (ROI).
For the independent artist and producer who wears all the hats.
Language of Nonsense w/ Chad Damiani (2-Day)
A two-day intensive from the creator/director of STAND UP AND CLOWN, CLOWN ZOO and co-creator of RORY AND CHAD WIN COMEDY TONIGHT! Chad Damiani (aka "Clown Boss") offers this intro class for veterans and newcomers, looking to explore how clowns connect and play with audiences through joy and nonsense.
How can we get a roomful of strangers to not only go along with our joyfully dumb ideas, but also become our eager co-conspirators? A deep exploration of primal communication. It’s also a chance to be live directed by Chad in a class show!
MOVEMENT FOR COMEDIANS, CLOWNS & IMPROVISERS (2-Day)
Critically acclaimed, award-winning Clown & Bouffon, Eric Davis leads you through a masterclass of movement to help you create dynamic comedy.
Rooted in Play, Lecoq Technique and Laban/ Bartenieff fundamentals, this class will
Get you laughing, sweating and give you greater awareness of your body as well as a theatrical language to articulate your comedy on stage.
BOUFFON 1 (4-Day)
A Satiric Ensemble of Mocking Madness and Mayhem!The World laughs at the Clown, but the Bouffons laugh at the World! Unleash your inner Bouffon in an explosion of fun and comedy gold.Imagine a wild-eyed pack of Players, ecstatic to mock anything and everything. Ridiculous, confronting and poetic, this Satyric chorus teeters on the seesaw of fun and uncomfortable truth. To begin this journey, we focus on the role of “The Player”.
Language of Nonsense w/ Chad Damiani (2-Day)
A two-day intensive from the creator/director of STAND UP AND CLOWN, CLOWN ZOO and co-creator of RORY AND CHAD WIN COMEDY TONIGHT! Chad Damiani (aka "Clown Boss") offers this intro class for veterans and newcomers, looking to explore how clowns connect and play with audiences through joy and nonsense.
How can we get a roomful of strangers to not only go along with our joyfully dumb ideas, but also become our eager co-conspirators? A deep exploration of primal communication. It’s also a chance to be live directed by Chad in a class show!
The Simple Clown (3 Days)
The simple clown is simply you without all the know-how and wherewithal, left only with hope and an unrelenting pursuit of play amidst the unknowns of the audience, and the world around you.
2025 Edinburgh Fringe Festival Info Session with John Norris
Curious about Fringe? Do you have a show and want to see if it’s a good idea to bring it over? Why does it seem like everyone is doing their shows in Scotland for a month? What’s the point? Is costs HOW MUCH?!
If you're thinking about bringing your work to Edinburgh in 2025 or 2026, NOW is the time to start planning and making some decisions.
John Norris (creator of Fringe hits Mr. Chonkers and Underground Monk Show and youngest child of three) leads an info session that will explain what Fringe is, what to expect, detailing the pros and cons, and some best practices on what makes someone have a successful Fringe experience. Followed by a Q+A
Entrances and Exits: Led by Corey Podell and John Norris (2-Day)
Frequent collaborators John Norris and Corey Podell will share tools and methods from their language of collaboration, helping you translate ideas and impulses into character and story, and direct and shape material. A clown/performance workshop with an emphasis on lots of stage time, exploring creation, presence, and connection.
Drama for Comedians
A dramatic scene study class focused on the craft of storytelling for funny people yearning to sink their teeth into a dramatic theater role.
Language of Nonsense w/ Chad Damiani (2-Day)
A two-day intensive from the creator/director of STAND UP AND CLOWN, CLOWN ZOO and co-creator of RORY AND CHAD WIN COMEDY TONIGHT! Chad Damiani (aka "Clown Boss") offers this intro class for veterans and newcomers, looking to explore how clowns connect and play with audiences through joy and nonsense.
How can we get a roomful of strangers to not only go along with our joyfully dumb ideas, but also become our eager co-conspirators? A deep exploration of primal communication. It’s also a chance to be live directed by Chad in a class show!
LAST CHANCE TO STUDY WITH THE CLOWN BOSS!
BOUFFON 1 (3-Day)
A Satiric Ensemble of Mocking Madness and Mayhem!The World laughs at the Clown, but the Bouffons laugh at the World! Unleash your inner Bouffon in an explosion of fun and comedy gold.Imagine a wild-eyed pack of Players, ecstatic to mock anything and everything. Ridiculous, confronting and poetic, this Satyric chorus teeters on the seesaw of fun and uncomfortable truth. To begin this journey, we focus on the role of “The Player”.
CLOWN RITUALS: THE PLAN & THE PLAY (4-Day)
Develop Clown Relationships and create pieces through mindfulness, looping and Ambushes- from Creator of Red Bastard and multiple Cirque du Soleil Shows.
Language of Nonsense w/ Chad Damiani (2-Day)
A two-day intensive from the creator/director of STAND UP AND CLOWN, CLOWN ZOO and co-creator of RORY AND CHAD WIN COMEDY TONIGHT! Chad Damiani (aka "Clown Boss") offers this intro class for veterans and newcomers, looking to explore how clowns connect and play with audiences through joy and nonsense.
How can we get a roomful of strangers to not only go along with our joyfully dumb ideas, but also become our eager co-conspirators? A deep exploration of primal communication. It’s also a chance to be live directed by Chad in a class show!
MOVEMENT FOR COMEDIANS, CLOWNS & IMPROVISERS (1-Day)
Critically acclaimed, award-winning Clown & Bouffon, Eric Davis leads you through a masterclass of movement to help you create dynamic comedy.
Rooted in Play, Lecoq Technique and Laban/ Bartenieff fundamentals, this class will
Get you laughing, sweating and give you greater awareness of your body as well as a theatrical language to articulate your comedy on stage.