Los Angeles-based international director and acting teacher Louis Fantasia will be returning to Tokyo next month to continue his series of training workshops with an intensive 10-day session on acting.
Fantasia has traveled the world both teaching and directing, and has been bringing his acting workshops to Tokyo since 1994. In past workshops, he typically chose scenes from Shakespeare's plays and sonnets as his material, but in his last workshop here in March 2000, he used material from Anton Chekhov's play "The Cherry Orchard." This time he will again turn to the Russian playwright, drawing on scenes and monologues from "The Seagull" and "Uncle Vanya."
"I plan to approach the workshop as closely and freshly and critically as I do Shakespeare. I think there are just as many cliches in acting Chekhov as in acting Shakespeare. The trick is to avoid them," said Fantasia.