IMPORTANT DATES
Registration Opens: March 3, 2008
Eccentric Performing with Avner the Eccentric: June 13, 2008
Comedy of the Body: Comic Movement for Stage and Screen: August 1, 2008
Bob Berky — Theatrical Clown/Actor/Director/Playwright
Bob Berky has performed as a solo artist throughout the world. In New York, he has appeared at the Dance Theatre Workshop, Alice Tully Hall at Lincoln Center and as a featured artist at The Brooklyn Academy of Music Next Wave Festival in "The Alchemedians" and "The Power Project". "The Alchemedians", with Mr. Berky and Michael Moschen, was produced off-Broadway and toured worldwide. He has also performed at the Kennedy Center and Arena Stage in Washington and the National Theatre in London, England.
Festival appearances include Hong Kong, Perth, Australia, Wellington, New Zealand, Jerusalem, Belfast, London, Edinburgh, Strasbourg, Lille, Paris and many others.
In "speaking" theater he has performed numerous traditional roles as well, including Estragon in "Waiting for Godot", Puntila in "Puntila and His Servant", Matti, Vanya in "Uncle Vanya" and Willie Loman in "Death of a Salesman in 2005.
Bob Berky directed movement and clowning for producer Joseph Papp's New York Shakespeare Festival's production of "Twelfth Night" at the Delacorte Theatre in Central Park. He was movement choreographer for the Longwharf Theatre's production of "A Flea In Her Ear", directed by John Tillinger. He has also worked as movement coach for such performers as Donal Donaldson, Gregory Hines, Jeff Goldblum and Michelle Pfeiffer.
Mr. Berky has taught at many universities and theaters as a guest artist and Master Teacher including The Juilliard School, Brandeis University, University of Texas at Austin, the North Carolina School for the Arts, UCSB, Smith College and the Dell Arte School of California. He has worked extensively as a teaching and performing artist with the Lincoln Center Institute.
Bob Berky has a B.A. in English from the University of Rochester, and has done MFA work in Playwriting at the University of Iowa. He has collaborated with Michael Moschen, Bill Irwin and Fred Garver.
Mr. Berky, trained as a classical musician (French horn) at the Eastman School of Music, regularly performs as a clown/musician with symphony orchestras in the United States and Canada (sans French Horn). These programs include a new version of "Peter and the Wolf", and Stravinsky's "L'Histoire Du Soldat"
Directing credits include:
As an educator Mr. Berky has written and directed four plays for young people and adults which have been produced and performed : 2002, The Other Anne 2003, Someday My Prints Will Come, 2003 Moby Dick's White Christmas 2005, Our Alice, 2005, Snowmen are Forever. He also directs a Youth Theatre Program which to date have included productions of Honk, Pinnochio, Annie, The Wizard of Oz, and Oliver.
Mr. Berky is an OBIE AWARD winner, received a Fringe First Award at the Edinburgh Festival for his one-man show "FOOLSFIRE" and is also recipient of the Kennedy Center's 1991 New American Plays Award for: "Cooking the World", his first play. "The Dictator's Nose", his second play, was produced in Los Angeles in 1999. His third play, "The Redness of the Woodpecker" was chosen as one of 10 best plays of 1999 by the Bay Area Playwrights Festival of San Francisco. He received the Sarrett National Playwriting Prize in 2002 for "The Redness Of The Woodpecker". Mr. Berky has received fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and the New York Council on the Arts. He has done some television, a PBS special, programs on Disney and Nickelodeon, and television in Europe and South America.
At present, in addition to writing and touring, Mr.Berky is Artistic Director of the Off Square Theatre in Jackson Hole, WY, where he directs and teaches. Current projects include a two man version of Richard 3 and a one man production of Gogol's "Diary of a Madman".
Avner Eisenberg enjoyed a generic childhood in Atlanta, Georgia. As a kid his passions were snakes and juggling. He wanted to be a doctor, but after a year as an honors chemistry and biology major his parents forced him into performing.
Applying the art of juggling to education, Avner attended four universities moving counter-clockwise around the United States, and ultimately earned a BA in theatre from the University of Washington in 1971. He studied in Paris with Jacques Lecoq for two years, and once, while street performing in Paris was arrested for buffoonery in public.
On returning to the United States Avner taught at Carlo Mazzone Clementi’s Dell’Arte School of Physical Comedy in California. Avner is greatly indebted to these two men: “Lecoq, who taught me everything I know, and Carlo who taught me the rest.”
Avner is probably best known for his endearing portrayal of The Jewel, the scene-stealing holy man, in The Jewel of the Nile, co-starring Michael Douglas and Kathleen Turner. He was also featured in the film Brenda Starr and the television series’ Webster and Mathnet.
Avner’s one-man show, Avner the Eccentric, was a hit of the 1984–1985 Broadway season. He co-starred in Lincoln Center’s production of Shakespeare’s The Comedy of Errors, and returned to Broadway in 1989 in a principal role in Ghetto. In regional theatre Avner has played both Estragon and Vladimir in Waiting For Godot, played the title role in R. Crumb Comix, and co-starred with his wife, Julie Goell, in the world premier of Zoo of Tranquility.
Avner’s new show, Exceptions to Gravity, defies the barriers of language and culture and has toured extensively all over the US and abroad. Avner has often played on subscription at regional theaters including Arena Stage, Trinity Rep, Actor’s Theater of Louisville, The Empty Space, Indiana Rep, The Goodman Theater, Portland Stage, Merrimack Rep, Virginia Stage Company, Dallas Theater Center, Seacoast Rep, and San Jose Rep.
Avner is often a featured performer at comedy, magic and theatre festivals, which in past years have included The Edinburgh Festival, where he won the New Faces of 1991 Award, and was a finalist for the Perrier Award, the Israel Festival, the Montreal International Comedy Festival. He has also appeared at the London International Mime Festival, the Festival of American Mime, the New York Clown Theatre Festival, the Fool’s Festival, the New York Magic Symposium, the Hudson Clearwater Revival, and the International Movement Theatre Festival. Avner has won special jury awards at The International Festival du Cirque in Monte Carlo, Arosa International Humor Festival, Barcelona International Clown Festival, Leipzig Lach Messe, St Gervais International Theater Festival where he won both the public and the jury awards. Avner was recently inducted into the International Clown hall of Fame.
Avner is regularly featured on television specials throughout the world. He has been seen on the Paul Daniels Show and Packing Them In in Great Britain, on the NTV 35th Anniversary Special as well as numerous appearances on NHK in Japan, Sebastian C’est Fou, Le Plus Grande Cabaret du Monde, and Cabaret Sauvage in France, Un Dos Tres and the Juan Tamariz Special in Spain, Martes 13 in Chile, Ritmo de la Noche in Argentina, UNICEF Comedy Special in Italy, the Montreal Just for Laughs Comedy Festival on Showtime, and many more.
In 2004 Avner appeared for three months in a sold out run at Theatre Fontaine in Paris.
In addition to a busy performance schedule, Avner has taught master classes in clowning and Eccentric Performing in the United States, France, Germany, Finland, Belgium, Japan and Spain. He has developed silent theatre skills as a therapeutic tool and also teaches workshops for students and professionals in health care, education and counseling, as well as theatre. He lives on an island off the coast of Maine and would really rather be sailing. Avner has been a devoted practitioner of Aikido for many years.
Avner is certified in Ericksonian Hypnosis and as an NLP Master Practitioner, and is in private practice specializing in performer related issues of all kinds.
Avner is the artistic director of Phyzgig, and annual festival of physical comedy, former President of the Board of Directors of the Celebration Barn Theater, and is on the Boards of Directors of Acorn Productions, and Etz Chaim Synagogue.
