Watering Hole (Erica Maity) IMPROFEST WORKSHOP

The Watering Hole is a workshop all about character specificity through the lens of animal behavior. Using animal physicality, social and mating behaviors, and status (prey/predator, familial and social hierarchies, etc.), students learn to play wonderfully specific scenes as humans while channeling other creatures. Crucially, specificity comes from knowledge, so this workshop also uses simple internet research and video to help students turn their wikipedia clickholes and TikTok scrolling into character ideas that can be drawn on in the future.

Erica Maity
(Holland)

Erica has been improvising for ten years, teaching for three. She was a staff teacher at Florida Studio Theater under Will Luera (primarily teaching Harold classes). In Eindhoven, Netherlands (where she is now based) she leads drop-ins, coaches long form, and has developed and taught an eight week Intro to Long Form course several times. She specializes in working with international groups of students for whom English may not be the first language. In addition to teaching and organizing, she has performed in Europe with the teams Seven with Wine, As Seen on TV and Same Old. Most of her time these days is taken up with her job as Artistic Director and Head of Production for Impro Amsterdam.