21Soho & Soho Theatre present
Comedians’ Workshop
with Adam Brace & Alison Thea-Skot
An 8 week Development Course for early professional and semi-professional comedians. The course is for people committed to a career in comedy and looking for a way to enhance their work and refine their process.
Open to Solo Performers in:
Stand-up. Character Comedy. Musical Comedy. Clown and/or Bouffon. Solo-Sketch. Ventriloquism. Dance Comedy. Or if you’ve come up with something that falls outside that, good on you.
Must have performed an absolute minimum of 50 gigs.
This is not an introduction course, or a way back into performing. We don’t believe people can be taught to be funny. But we do believe people can be helped to be funnier by better understanding the dynamics in their work; their comic persona, its context, its focus; their material generation, and their own work ethic.
There are strictly limited places and participants will be selected on the strength of their application.
This course will require collaboration as a group in order to facilitate your improvement as a comic.
The course will be held at 21Soho:
Saturdays 11am - 2.30pm starting 5th March 2022 until 23rd April 2022 (8 weeks).
With a public showcase performance on the evening of 27th April 2022. Fee £350 (fee can be paid in up to 3 instalments) Age 18+
We will offer two full bursaries for comics who would not be able to attend otherwise. To apply please fill out the form AND email the below address with BURSARY as the subject detailing any relevant information. (Please consider carefully if you are eligible as application for the bursary means you will not be considered for the paid course)
This is the first collaboration between Soho Theatre and 21Soho.
Any questions, please email courses@21-soho.com
APPLICATIONS ARE NOW CLOSED.
Thank you for applying. Check your inboxes (and junk mail) for emails from courses@21-soho.com
Adam Brace is Associate Director at Soho Theatre where he works across Comedy, Theatre and Performance Art. Within comedy he has developed a varied range of work which has included 6 Edinburgh Comedy Award-nominated shows, 2 Herald Angel winners, 2 Barry nominees and a Southbank Award. He is Creative Supervisor for Soho Theatre Live on Amazon Prime. He was Live Director on Ahir Shah’s HBO Max special ‘Dots’ and has recently directed Alex Edelman’s show ‘Just For Us’, currently running Off-Broadway produced by Mike Birbiglia. Other acts he’s worked with include Sh!t Theatre, Lucy Pearman, Alfie Brown, Ruby Wax, Nina Conti, Ivo Graham, Janine Harouni, Sophie Wu, Massive Dad, Pierre Novellie, Lou Sanders and Liz Kingsman.
Outside comedy, for 3 years he was a Lecturer in English Literature at Southampton University (Guardian Ranked 5th Best English Dept in UK). As a Dramaturg he has worked with Lucy Prebble, Nick Payne, Vicky Jones and Lucy McCormick. As a playwright his plays have been produced by The Almeida, The Donmar, The National Theatre and are published by Faber and Faber.
Alison Thea-Skot is a critically acclaimed actor, comedian, improviser and writer. ‘The reigning queen of character comedy’ (Evening Standard), she has written and produced her own 5-star smash hit, live comedy shows, which won critical acclaim at The Edinburgh Fringe Festival and transferred to sold out runs at Soho Theatre in London. Selected as one of the Observer’s Female Millennials Changing Comedy, the Evening Standard's Best Comedy Shows to See and The Telegraph's Best of the Fringe. She can be seen on Comedy Central, Sky, BBC, ITV, Channel 4 and she has worked with Bad Robot & Paramount Pictures. She has recorded numerous comedy shows for BBC Radio 4 and has been part of two separate BBC Comedy Writers Rooms, developing her own pilot sitcom script.
She is a highly-experienced improviser, as well as developing improv TV formats for ITV & BBC, she is a founding member of the improv supergroup ‘SORRY’ (Evening Standard’s Funniest Shows to See) and was invited to perform a two-person hour long improv show with Jason Mantzoukas.
Alongside performing, for the last 6 years she has taught improv at The Free Association and leads workshops for their business training, including creating and facilitating bespoke communication programs. She has also led Soho Theatre’s Comedy Plus Lab course, working with emerging comics, for the past 5 years.