Physical Theater Festival
2026 Workshops
Physical Theater Festival is pleased to offer workshops with visiting and local artists during the festival. Hone your skills, add to your artistic toolbox, pique your curiosity, and meet physical theatre practitioners in an engaging setting.
Activating Your Story with Partner Acrobatics
Thursday, June 4th, 10 a.m.- 1 p.m. | Taught by Sierra Rhoades Nicholls & Kevin Flanagan
Location: Wirtz Center Chicago @ Abbot Hall 710 N Lakeshore Drive, Chicago IL 60611
Immersive and participatory. This workshop is for everyone! No prerequisites or prior experience with partner acrobatics necessary. We will explore different modes of partner and group acrobatics together as well as build tools for placing acrobatics into theater for enhancing storytelling. After a thorough and fun warm up, the workshop will begin with some simple counterbalances and weight sharing exercises, we will then use those building blocks to move into slightly more complex acrobatics. We will show you our versions of certain skills and then ask you to expand upon them. The workshop will end with group exercises where we use the tools and skills learned to start to infuse acrobatics into storytelling.
Workshop Fee: $55
From Neutral Mask to Melodrama
Friday, June 5th, 10 a.m.- 1 p.m. | Taught by Fernando Castro
Location: Wirtz Center Chicago @ Abbot Hall 710 N Lakeshore Drive, Chicago IL 60611
For: Multi-level practitioners of physical theatre, dance, circus, clown, and related disciplines.
This workshop proposes a practical journey that moves from a state of neutrality to the expressive amplification of melodrama, integrating fundamental tools from Jacques Lecoq’s pedagogy with the experience of the Physical Theatre Company (CTF) in the creation of the work Los Regalos.
The work begins with the use of the neutral mask as a tool to refine stage presence, identify unnecessary tensions, and train economy and balance in movement. Through this device, participants explore a state of availability, listening, and openness to space, prior to conflict, which allows them to strip away expressive habits and expand the clarity of gesture.
The workshop then moves into physical melodrama improvisations performed with the neutral mask, compelling participants to investigate how to tell a story without words, relying exclusively on the body, rhythm, and the composition of actions. In this process, participants explore how the body’s first language is that of emotions. This investigation draws directly from one of the central axes of the creation process of Los Regalos, where the neutrality of the face enhances the legibility of conflict and amplifies the poetic dimension of gesture.
In this way, the workshop proposes a pedagogical arc that moves from the neutral body to a body traversed by melodramatic conflict, offering concrete tools for contemporary stage creation.
Workshop Fee: $55
Clown, Stage Presence, and Acknowledging your Audience
Saturday June 6th,10 a.m.-1p.m. | Taught by Amica Hunter & David Cantor
Location: Wirtz Center Chicago @ Abbot Hall 710 N Lakeshore Drive, Chicago IL 60611
This workshop focuses on the foundational skills of clown: honesty, vulnerability, and play. We will explore what it means to perform in a world without a fourth wall, how to be with your audience and not just in front of them, and how directly acknowledging them transforms presence, timing, and connection. Through simple exercises suited for all experience levels we will develop skills including responsiveness, authenticity, and joy on stage. These skills are invaluable for performers of all styles and disciplines. They offer a deeper sense of intimacy and shared experience with any audience, allowing the feelings, including humor, to move people profoundly.
Workshop Fee: $55
Write Your Own Solo Show
Sunday, June 7th, 10 a.m. to 1p.m. | Taught by Sora Baek
Location: Wirtz Center Chicago @ Abbot Hall 710 N Lakeshore Drive, Chicago IL 60611
This workshop is for anyone who wants to turn lived experience into storytelling—whether you’re a theater artist or writing for the first time.
We’ll write from what you already have: your life. Using simple prompts, music, and movement, you’ll generate new material and uncover stories you didn’t know you were ready to tell. The focus is on voice, curiosity, and risk—not perfection. No acting or writing experience is required, and nothing needs to be finished. Just show up ready to write, play, and explore.
If you’ve ever felt a story inside you but didn’t know where to start, this workshop is for you.
Come write what only you can tell.
Workshop Fee: $55