PRESENCE • PLAY • GAME • COMMITMENT • AUDIENCE

Performers in The Idiot Workshop learn to be present and playful allowing them to improvise organically without having to follow improv rules or formulas. Performers are encouraged to eschew common “types” and discover their own comedic voice that serves their personal identity. Range is developed through strong commitment to choice, character, self and partner. Performers will explore the physicality of their choices raising their performances to ones that are fully embodied and deeply visceral.

We name and acknowledge that our identities shape the way we do this work, AND as this work requires us to break the fourth wall and create a relationship with our audience we must also acknowledge that the identity of the audience shapes that way we do the work. How do our various identities influence this relationship with an audience? We see that forces of oppression are operating and by naming them we will together discover a fuller, uninhibited comedic self.

About Ian Bratschie he/him/his

Ian Bratschie came from Michigan by way of Chicago.  With Wet The Hippo he has performed with The Murge, The Greatest Show in the Back of a Truck We Rented, and The Invention of Language. He has been on television on Criminal Minds, Chicago PD, School of Rock, Chicago Fire, The Mob Doctor, and a recurring role on Modern Family. Ian has also been the hero in many commercials including DIRECTV, Chase Bank, Tostitos, McDonalds, Samsung, Bic, Peak Motor Oil, and Dunkin' Donuts. He is a graduate of I.O. and the Second City Comedy Studies program in Chicago, and of both The Groundlings and UCB here in LA. He has studied clown with Paola Coletto, Jet Eveleth, and Philip Burgers, and has been studying with John Gilkey for over a millennia. He also has a dog.