SOFT CLOWNERY: 3-week

** Email [email protected] & Venmo @champagnetashi to reserve your spot

ABOUT:

You found your clown in "Soft Clown"-- so now how do you clown with your clown?

Soft Clownery is the artful fusion of vulnerability and laughter, where the clown’s softness becomes a powerful tool for creating transcendent theater. At this level, performers use the skills they explored in the Soft Clown to refine what makes their time on stage entertaining and emotionally impactful.

Participants will learn:

• Advanced Physicality as Expression: Delving deeper into physical expressions, participants discover how even the smallest gestures can evoke huge laughs and poignant sentiment.

• Deeper Interpersonal Connection: Techniques are practiced to establish profound rapport with the audience, fostering intimacy and understanding during performances.

• Authenticity in Diverse Scenarios: Master the art of authenticity in any situation. Whether in the spotlight or amidst chaos, weave humor into genuine connections, ensuring laughter that can transcend what is generally expected of performance.

• Crafting Multifaceted Narratives: Engaging audiences with stories that blend humor and heartfelt emotions becomes second nature. Soft Clowns learn the alchemy of storytelling, crafting tales that make audiences laugh, reflect, and feel.

• Enhanced Improvisational Techniques: Forget the quick wit of “improv” and follow your heart’s impulses. Participants refine their ability to transform unexpected moments into comedic gold."

What they say:

"Natasha’s Soft Clown™️ challenged me and began the process of liberating my most genuine inner artist. She has an uncanny ability to foster a beautiful, curious space, while also facilitating folks to take risks and explore the depths of their vulnerability/ humanity in genuinely playful ways. Equipped with the tools to bridge the gap between audience and performer, I left the workshop with a short clown piece I’m proud to put up and continue to devise."

-Alyssa

"Natasha’s clown workshop has been transformative on my acting and life journey. I have taken many acting and comedy classes at world-renowned institutions all over the world. Natasha’s class has been the most tremendous in terms of true improv, comedy, and play. I have been able to tap into the essence of not only my clown and my funny, but also my being. The vulnerability aspect has opened the door for the hidden me, that I’ve protect from the cruel world, the chance to come out and play. I was trying to find her in every class I had taken before, but couldn’t. She was my missing element on my journey and I was clueless as to how to coax her out. Natasha’s classes was a safe place where she finally came out willingly and boldly to play. Her classes helped me to find that piece I felt was missing in my art. These are big statements. Yet, they are also genuine truths that have transformed my acting, comedy, and life journey. I hope they guide. I hope they give you the courage to take the leap and sign-up for one of her classes. Most importantly, I hope they transform your life as it has mine."

-Mary

"Anytime clown comes into conversation, I find myself immediately raving about Natasha Mercado and recommending The Soft Clown Workshop. It was my first experience clowning and I left the two-day intensive feeling reinvigorated as a performer/ comedian/ clown/ person. And as a highly sensitive person, I really loved the soft approach. I mean, I have thick skin, but I am still veryyyy in touch with my thin skin. Natasha creates such a fun environment where it feels safe to be vulnerable and silly or whatever you want to be. Learning from Natasha, I’ve become a more connected, confident, and curious performer. I could go on and on, and I will if clowning comes into conversation."

-Chad

"Soft Clown was the first clown class I had ever taken and my intro to performance of any kind. I was so terrified, and found myself laughing for 2 days straight. Natasha is an incredible teacher, and I felt so held by her in how she teaches and facilitates. The class opened up so much for me in how I understand myself and relate to others, and gave me so many tools for how to make sense of the world around me. Soft clown is finding silliness and play in the real feelings that come up for you in performance, in the space, with those around you, and seeing what changes when you surrender to those feelings and let others into them. Too, we spent so much time reflecting on how things feel, what feels sticky, what we want to experiment with, and having that reflection space has made performance feel so much more accessible to me–– you mean I’m not the only one freaking the f out?! I feel like I’ve been cracked open and can let some more of myself out."

-Kenna

"Don’t be fooled - there’s nothing ‘soft’ about the feeling of putting yourself out there vulnerably in live comedy, flying without a net. Radical exposure and vulnerability in front of an audience is already difficult, but simultaneously mining humor, artfully managing physicality and staying engaged with an audience while doing so is truly no small feat. What makes Natasha’s approach to clown so original is that she simultaneously refuses to shield her students from that vulnerable exposure while creating a ‘brave space’ where those trust falls can be caught, lessons can be learned and failures integrated. Where performers can get in touch with their humility without having to fear humiliation. In Natasha’s ‘Soft Clown’, the aspiring clown gets a blend of right-sized performance challenges, direct, observant and supportive feedback, and insights/clear applications from (for lack of a better phrase) historical clown theory. Attuned to but not intimated by the actual emotional risk of Soft Clown, this is a course that helps you become a better performer, a more connected listener, and a stronger person."

-Jake

TEACHER:

Natasha Mercado is an actress, director, producer, writer and theatre arts educator— but always a clown. You can see her on Adult Swim, Amazon, HBO, TBS and stages across LA. She created “Send in the Clowns”, the first monthly clown show at the Upright Citizens Brigade Theatre and is touring her award-winning solo show “Tree” —which was called “one of LA’s Top Ten Shows” and “a must see” by Stage Raw and the Times Colonist. She is also a teaching artist for the Unusual Suspects whose mission is to champion those most needed to be heard by mentoring youth to write and perform their stories by using theater. She has virtually taught adults and children at Stomping Ground Comedy Theatre along with a workshop called “Playful Mindfulness” sponsored by the National Alzheimer’s Association to implement improv into the world of caregiving. In 2020, she was named an “Emerging Content Creator” by the National Association of Latino Independent Producers. She was a director and producer for branded events at UCB and brought customized comedy programs to groups across the country including improv, sketch, storytelling, and public speaking intensives.

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@champagnetashi

** Email [email protected] & Venmo @champagnetashi to reserve your spot

No Refunds or Exchanges.

"Tree" at Union Hall, NYC 2022

Host or Publisher Natasha Mercado