International Festival
THEATRE METHODS 05
Between Tradition and Contemporaneity

Stacey Cervellino (USA)

Creating Work from found text
A movement workshop:
How to bring text to life

Isadora Productions, formed in early 2003 by Anna Klein and Stacey Cervellino, focuses on creating work that demonstrates the power of the spoken word through imaginative collaboration with directors, writers, actors and performing artists of all genres. As a company, we are interested in producing and creating work that is not based on concept, but content - work that is unexpectedly poetic, free from stereotype, and thought provoking.

We are dedicated to finding ways to inspire compassion, encourage creativity and cultivate new voices through the innovative development of works that highlight the common experience.

Our current project is called Becoming Natasha, based on the book The Natashas by Victor Malarek, Becoming Natasha explores the stories of 6 women who are trafficked from Eastern Europe and sold into sexual slavery for the growing global sex trade. 

Using monologues based on interviews of trafficked women from the book The Natashas, we will explore these texts through piece making and Action Theatre (Ruth Zaporah). Each of these methods explores the components of movement, sound, and text: timing, rhythm, space. 

We will build vocal, verbal, and physical performance skills, increase awareness and spontaneity.  As an ensemble, we will build a movement vocabulary together and then begin to work with the text to create short movement based performance pieces using specific directions as a framework to work within.

BIOGRAPHY

Stacey Cervellino is an actor, singer, writer, and director. She has worked with many talented artists including Austin Pendelton, Stephen Belber, Sam Weisman, and David Lindsay Abaire.

She has performed in New York and Boston in plays and musicals and has written and directed her own movement based piece called DRESS about the housewife of the 1950's - produced both in New York and Boston.

She is a teaching artist in the New York City Public School system where she teaches Shakespeare, Improvisational Movement, and basic acting. She has taught Movement workshops at Brooklyn College, at the Calhoun School, and Brandeis University.

Stacey recently directed Macbeth in Vermont as well as several movement-based pieces for the New Jersey Youth Theatre. She is a graduate of the Brandeis University MFA acting program and has studied at LAMDA in London.

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