Mascha Anna – acting/ improv
Resume
She was born in Piraeus. She studied at the Department of English Language and Literature at the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens and theater at the Higher School of Dramatic Art of the National Theatre. She was associated with the Amore Theater of Yannis Houvardas from the beginning of its operation in 1992 until its closure in 2008. She has performed Goethe, Moliere, Shakespeare, Marivaux, Sophocles, Aeschylus, Euripides, Pushkin, H. James, Chekhov, Ibsen, N Coward, Calderon, M. Tsvetayeva, Carver, Ravenhill, Marber, Dimitriadis, N. Fo, etc., directed by Houvardas, Moschopoulos, Livathinos, Hatzopoulos, Lygizos, Evangelitos, Rigos, Tarlow, Arvanitakis, Albrecht Hirche, Jacques Lassalle, Marc von Henning, et al.
She has received three Athinorama Audience awards and the “Eleftheria Sapountzi” award. She has acted in the cinema in the direction of T. Anastopoulos, M. Mandas, Il. Giannakakis, S. Goritsa, Ol. Malea and others. She has received a second role award from the Film Academy for her performance in the film Gold Dust by Margarita Manda. Finally, she has taught acting at the Theater of Changes, at the workshop of X. Kalogeropoulos, at the Athens Conservatory and at Iasmos, while since 2019 she has been teaching at the school of the National Theater.
Course description
The course aims to engage students with as many topics and demands of acting as possible: From simple improvisations to the complex construction of a role. For this reason, we constantly move along the following axes: a) body – text, b) work in the classroom – work at home.
The work with the body begins with familiarization exercises and games, and then with concentration, alertness, cooperation, readiness, voice and mind awakening games. Then comes the text, the analysis, the correct pronunciation of the word and the improvisations with our own words, as the understanding of the text becomes deeper.
Another axis of work is: individual – group. At this level we give equal importance to individual performance and to creating a strong team. Work in class and at home is either individual or group work. The engagement texts are not exclusively theatrical but may also belong to other genres, like prose or poetry.