Adult Classes & Workshops
What’s new, and coming soon
Theater classes for adults return this February!
Classes offer adults the opportunity to work alongside professional theater artists to explore and develop their skills as artists and creative thinkers. Offerings will include our most popular classes plus training pathways for theater artists looking to pursue a career onstage. We encourage you to check this space often for exciting opportunities.
If you have questions or feedback, drop us a line at classes@guthrietheater.org.

February classes
MUSICAL THEATER with Stephen DiMenna
Explore acting, song and movement in this engaging introduction to musical theater! Over the course of four weeks, you’ll develop skills to use your body and voice to express an emotional journey, and work collaboratively to communicate the ideas, story and staging of popular songs from the American musical theater canon.
No experience necessary; all levels are welcome.
Tuesdays: February 7, 14, 21, 28 | 6:30–8:30 p.m.
Guthrie Theater, Classroom 1 & 2
Stephen DiMenna is an Off-Broadway and Regional Theatre director and educator. In New York he directed at Manhattan Theatre Club, Ensemble Studio Theatre, MCC Theater, Rattlestick Theatre, The Mint Theatre, Encores at City Center, The Lab Theatre, The Daryl Roth Theatre, HB Playwrights Theatre and the Young Playwright’s Festival. In Minneapolis he is a company member at Pillsbury House Theatre where he has directed 6 productions and was associate artistic director of History Theatre from 1991-1995. He has also directed at The Westport Playhouse, The Guthrie, and Eye of the Storm Theatre. He taught directing, musical theatre and acting at NYU for fifteen years and will be teaching acting for musical theatre in the UMN/Guthrie BFA Actor Training program this year. He is the artistic director of the International Theatre Project.
PLAYWRITING with Marisa Carr (ONLINE)
In this four-week class, award-winning playwright Marisa Carr will help you develop tools to empower your voice as a writer. Explore story structure in the context of Western dramaturgy, engage in the art of imagining worlds and describing characters, and discover how you can turn your idea into a play. By the end of the course, students may complete an outline, a few scenes or even the first draft of a play — all within a supportive virtual classroom environment.
No experience necessary; all levels are welcome.
Thursdays: February 9, 16, 23 and March 2 | 6:30–8 p.m.
Marisa Carr is playwright from Milwaukee, now living in Chicago after a decade in the Twin Cities. Her work has been presented and/or produced by institutions including: Milwaukee Rep, The Guthrie, Pillsbury House + Theater, the Playwrights’ Center, Montana Repertory Theater, Intermedia Arts, and University of Iowa MFA Program. Selected recent awards and honors include: Montana Repertory Theater Warren Miller Commission (2021), Goodman Playwrights Unit (2020-2021), Scratchpad at the Playwrights’ Realm (2019-2020), P73 Finalist (2019-20), American Blues Theater Blue Ink Award Finalist (2020), Bay Area Playwrights’ Festival Finalist (2019), McKnight Fellowship in Playwriting Finalist (2019), Jerome Artist Fellowship Finalist (2019), Ground Floor at Berkeley Rep (2018), Forward Flux Three New American Plays Commission (2018), Minnesota State Arts Board Artist Initiative Grant (2017), Playwrights’ Center Many Voices Fellowship (2016-17), Pillsbury House + Theater Naked Stages Fellowship(2015), and “Best New Political Playwright” (Lavender Magazine, 2014). Marisa is also Co-Founder/former Artistic Director of the Turtle Theater Collective, a Twin Cities-based company committed to producing high-quality, contemporary work that explores Native experiences and subverts expectations about how and when Native artists can create theater, and has taught playwriting for theaters including the Guthrie and Jungle Theatre. She is Turtle Mountain Ojibwe from the Turtle clan.
VOICE & SPEECH with Mira Kehoe
Develop the skills and confidence to authentically express yourself through personal communication, public speaking opportunities or performance. In this four-week class, students will explore the basic principles of voice and speech, including breath, resonance, range, articulation, projection, phrasing and expression. As a participant, you’ll engage in assigned readings, experiential exercises and thoughtful discussions, and apply your newly developed skills to material of your choice.
No experience necessary; all levels are welcome.
Tuesdays: February 7, 14, 21, 28 | 6:30–8:30 p.m.
Guthrie Theater, Classroom 3
Mira Kehoe
GUTHRIE Refugia, The Parchman Hour and more than 80 productions since the 1990–1991 Season. THEATER Voice, Text and Dialect Coach: Next Wave Festival (BAM); Theatre de la Jeune Lune; Jungle Theater; Theater Mu; Children’s Theatre Company; Minnesota Opera; North Star Opera; Numerous productions at area colleges; Multimedia theater pieces: Co-Director, Composer and Performer: Labyrinth (Space-Space); Circling (Guthrie Lab). FILM/TELEVISION Dialect Consultant: Sugar & Spice, The Naked Man, The Parent Trap, The Mighty Ducks. OTHER Several recordings, numerous concerts and workshops throughout the U.S. and Brazil; Co-Director, Arts on Lafond. TEACHING University of Minnesota; Hamline University; The University of Utah; Guthrie Theater; Private studio teaching for voice, dialects, text and acting GUTHRIE Refugia, The Parchman Hour and more than 80 productions since the 1990–1991 Season. THEATER Voice, Text and Dialect Coach: Next Wave Festival (BAM); Theatre de la Jeune Lune; Jungle Theater; Theater Mu; Children’s Theatre Company; Minnesota Opera; North Star Opera; Numerous productions at area colleges; Multimedia theater pieces: Co-Director, Composer and Performer: Labyrinth (Space-Space); Circling (Guthrie Lab). FILM/TELEVISION Dialect Consultant: Sugar & Spice, The Naked Man, The Parent Trap, The Mighty Ducks. OTHER Several recordings, numerous concerts and workshops throughout the U.S. and Brazil; Co-Director, Arts on Lafond. TEACHING University of Minnesota; Hamline University; The University of Utah; Guthrie Theater; Private studio teaching for voice, dialects, text and acting
HOW TO SPEAK SHAKESPEARE with William Sturdivant
This four-week class is designed to introduce you to speaking and acting Shakespeare. Through various individual, partner and group exercises, you’ll discover the playfulness of this highly poetic (and sometimes overwhelming) genre. Each class builds upon the previous week’s lesson, combining new techniques with basic acting principles. By the end of the course, you will have an audition-ready monologue and the tools to interpret and speak Shakespeare!
Foundational acting experience recommended.
Mondays: February 6, 13, 20, 27 | 6:30–8:30 p.m.
Will Sturdivant
GUTHRIE The Tempest, Julius Caesar, Romeo and Juliet, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, The Merchant of Venice. THEATER Off-Broadway: X: or, Betty Shabazz v. The Nation; The Comedy of Errors; Julius Caesar; Romeo and Juliet; Henry V (The Acting Company); Henry IV, Part 1 (The Pearl Theatre Company); Regional: Macbeth, Cymbeline, The Tempest (Great River Shakespeare Festival); The Winter’s Tale, The Comedy of Errors (Ten Thousand Things); Tartuffe, The Winter’s Tale (The Shakespeare Theatre of New Jersey); As You Like It, Much Ado About Nothing (Shakespeare on the Cape). OTHER Summer 2022 poetry book release: Bounty! a pilgrimage in process. AWARDS Presidential Scholar in the Arts (Theater). TRAINING University of Minnesota/Guthrie Theater B.F.A. Acting Program. UPCOMING Great River Shakespeare Festival: The Taming of the Shrew, The African Company Presents Richard III. @wspoetry (IG)
March classes
SLAY with Brian Bose
Feel sexy, fierce and powerful while learning fun choreography, grooving to music and dancing your way to empowerment. This class creates an open environment to get your cardio up, move your body and challenge yourself. Strip away fears and perfectionism while learning how to get out of your own way so you have no choice but to slay.
No dance experience necessary.
Mondays and Wednesdays: March 6, 8, 13, 15, 20, 22, 27, 29 | 6:30–8:30 p.m.
Guthrie Theater, Rehearsal Room 2
Register
Brian Bose (SLAY) is an actor-singer-dancer, performing artist, choreographer/director, and international teaching artist who is considered one of the “Faces to Watch in Arts” by UT San Diego. Born and raised in Los Angeles, he revels as a multidimensional storyteller. He received a Double B.A. in Theatre & Dance from UC San Diego in 2015. Brian has taught for the UMN/Guthrie BFA Actor Training Program, Movement for Actors & Musical Theater at the La Jolla Playhouse’s Young Performer’s Workshop, instructed as a Resident Guest Teacher/Choreographer at the Francis Parker School, and teaches Modern & Jazz dance in Germany for the Patricia Rincon Dance Collective Europe Teaching Tour every summer since 2014. He practices the art of cultivating the creative mind, unleashing the pure potentiality of human expression,creating, and recognizing abundance, speaking truth, and being an agent of change.
STAGE COMBAT with Aaron Preusse
In this course, you’ll learn what goes into creating moments of violence on stage and film. From slaps and punches to pushing and choking, you will build foundational knowledge of how to perform basic techniques with safety and believability. We will also explore what the audience perceives versus what the character's intentions and the actor’s reality. This is a movement course open to all experience levels.
No experience necessary; all levels are welcome.
Thursdays: March 9, 16, 23, 30 | 6:30–8:30 p.m.
Guthrie Theater, Classroom 1 & 2
Aaron Preusse
GUTHRIE Vietgone, Sweat, Emma, Twelfth Night, Noura, Floyd’s, Guys and Dolls, Metamorphoses, As You Like It, Noises Off, Frankenstein – Playing with Fire, Indecent, Watch on the Rhine, Native Gardens, Refugia, The Bluest Eye, The Royal Family, The Parchman Hour. THEATER Ordway: Jesus Christ Superstar, The Pirates of Penzance; Minnesota Opera: Carmen; Park Square Theatre: Hamlet; Commonweal Theatre Company: The Three Musketeers; St. Paul Ballet: Carmen; Red Bird Theatre: A Bright Room Called Day, Buried Child, Time To Burn; Gremlin Theatre: Dial M for Murder; Theatre Pro Rata: The Illusion, Henry V; Lyric Arts: Superior Donuts, Leading Ladies; Theatre in the Round: The Three Musketeers; Old Log Theatre: The Play That Goes Wrong. TRAINING Dell’Arte International School of Physical Theatre; London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art; Society of American Fight Directors. www.fakefighting.com
ALEXANDER TECHNIQUE with Eli Sibley
The Alexander Technique is the “glue” that integrates acting, voice, speech and movement training. At the technique's heart is the conviction that we are perfectly designed to express an impulse with honesty. As a psychophysical tool for body, breath, and imagination, it teaches actors how to release habitual tension and instead bring ease, presence, and choice to performance. In this class, you’ll learn the principles of the technique and the art of self-direction, using warm-up, monologues and partnering work. This class is experiential, asks for curiosity and invites exploration. Beginners are welcome.
This is a hands-on technique class, and students are encouraged to dress for movement (no sleeveless shirts, shorts or jeans), wear layers and bring a yoga mat/towel for floor work.
No experience necessary; all levels are welcome.
Tuesdays: March 7, 14, 21, 28 | 6:30–8:30 p.m.
Guthrie Theater, Classroom 1 & 2
Eli Sibley has been an actor and theater professional for over 20 years, and their credits include work in production, playwrighting and movement direction. She has worked nationally from coast to coast and internationally from Central Europe to China. She has been a singer, a dancer, a puppeteer, an extra, and a Blue Dinosaur. Her one-woman movement, storytelling piece, Born of a Fairytale was produced both in Washington, D.C. and New York to great applause. And the inaugural production of the company she founded with her husband, Vacant Lot Theatre Co, was privileged to work closely with renowned playwright, Erik Ehn, bringing Child's Drawing of a Monster to its world premiere in New York and then moving it to Boston. Along with her MFA and AmSat Alexander Technique certification, she is also a certified Laban Movement Analyst. She continues to work across the country and globe but also with local Twin Cities theater companies and acting studios. Eli loves combining the craft of acting and life, and supporting them through movement and the Alexander Technique, not only with acting students but also her general teaching population. When she is not doing that, she tries her hand at being a mom and mostly succeeds. Just ask her kids!
VOICE & SPEECH with Mira Kehoe (ONLINE)
Develop the skills and confidence to authentically express yourself through personal communication, public speaking opportunities or performance. In this four-week class, students will explore the basic principles of voice and speech, including breath, resonance, range, articulation, projection, phrasing and expression, and release of excessive tension. You’ll engage in assigned readings, experiential exercises and thoughtful discussions, and apply your newly developed skills to material of your choice.
No experience necessary; all levels are welcome.
Tuesdays: March 7, 14, 21, 28 | 6:30–8:30 p.m.
Mira Kehoe
GUTHRIE Refugia, The Parchman Hour and more than 80 productions since the 1990–1991 Season. THEATER Voice, Text and Dialect Coach: Next Wave Festival (BAM); Theatre de la Jeune Lune; Jungle Theater; Theater Mu; Children’s Theatre Company; Minnesota Opera; North Star Opera; Numerous productions at area colleges; Multimedia theater pieces: Co-Director, Composer and Performer: Labyrinth (Space-Space); Circling (Guthrie Lab). FILM/TELEVISION Dialect Consultant: Sugar & Spice, The Naked Man, The Parent Trap, The Mighty Ducks. OTHER Several recordings, numerous concerts and workshops throughout the U.S. and Brazil; Co-Director, Arts on Lafond. TEACHING University of Minnesota; Hamline University; The University of Utah; Guthrie Theater; Private studio teaching for voice, dialects, text and acting GUTHRIE Refugia, The Parchman Hour and more than 80 productions since the 1990–1991 Season. THEATER Voice, Text and Dialect Coach: Next Wave Festival (BAM); Theatre de la Jeune Lune; Jungle Theater; Theater Mu; Children’s Theatre Company; Minnesota Opera; North Star Opera; Numerous productions at area colleges; Multimedia theater pieces: Co-Director, Composer and Performer: Labyrinth (Space-Space); Circling (Guthrie Lab). FILM/TELEVISION Dialect Consultant: Sugar & Spice, The Naked Man, The Parent Trap, The Mighty Ducks. OTHER Several recordings, numerous concerts and workshops throughout the U.S. and Brazil; Co-Director, Arts on Lafond. TEACHING University of Minnesota; Hamline University; The University of Utah; Guthrie Theater; Private studio teaching for voice, dialects, text and acting
ACTING THE SONG with Stephen DiMenna
Ready to enhance your audition and performance skills so you can land a role in a musical? In this class, you’ll be guided through the process integrating text, music and story, and how to build an emotional arc for your character. This course is designed to support early career actors and singers in bringing a well-rounded performance to a musical theater song — strengthening both vocal and physical delivery. After four weeks, you will have at least one audition-ready piece in your songbook!
Foundational musical theater experience recommended
Tuesdays: March 7, 14, 21, 28 | 6:30–8:30 p.m.
Guthrie Theater, Classroom 3
Stephen DiMenna is an Off-Broadway and Regional Theatre director and educator. In New York he directed at Manhattan Theatre Club, Ensemble Studio Theatre, MCC Theater, Rattlestick Theatre, The Mint Theatre, Encores at City Center, The Lab Theatre, The Daryl Roth Theatre, HB Playwrights Theatre and the Young Playwright’s Festival. In Minneapolis he is a company member at Pillsbury House Theatre where he has directed 6 productions and was associate artistic director of History Theatre from 1991-1995. He has also directed at The Westport Playhouse, The Guthrie, and Eye of the Storm Theatre. He taught directing, musical theatre and acting at NYU for fifteen years and will be teaching acting for musical theatre in the UMN/Guthrie BFA Actor Training program this year. He is the artistic director of the International Theatre Project.
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