Theatre--Workshop

Louisiana Native Returns to Cite des Arts for Discussion & Master Acting Workshop

Lafayette – July 10 - 14, 2012 – Professor Caroline McGee and Cite des Arts will present an informational discussion on July 12 at 6 30 pm, free & open to the community, regarding the application process and financial aid issues at the top BFA & MFA programs nationally, as well as the private professional conservatories in New York City, Chicago, and Los Angeles. 

McGee has recently mentored a number of local students from Louisiana for successful acceptance to nationally recognized BFA, MFA, and professional acting programs, including NYU Tisch, California Institute of the Arts, Barnard and Emerson Colleges, Yale Drama, and professional acting conservatories in New York, LA, and Chicago.

Beginning in July 2010, she has returned 2 or 3 times a year to Lafayette to offer her expertise to actors of all ages and levels of experience in master acting classes.  The Summer Master Acting Workshop will be held July 10 - 14, 2012, from 4-6 pm, at Cite des Arts, downtown Lafayette.  It will feature acting techniques of legendary masters Lee Strasberg and Michael Chekhov in exercises exploring scene and monologue work from contemporary dramatists ranging from Anton Chekhov and Tennessee Williams, to some of the best plays currently running on Broadway.

Actors of all ages and levels of experience are welcome to apply. The fee is $200 with some partial scholarships available. For more information and to register: info@citedesarts.org

Caroline McGee is fluent in Cajun French growing up on a rice and crawfish farm in the Richard/Church Point community.  After attending USL and UNO, she studied acting on a CODOFIL scholarship at the National Conservatory in Strasbourg, France going on to complete an MA in Directing, Theatre History & Criticism from UC Berkeley, studying acting at Yale Drama, and with the master teachers in professional studios in New York.  She is a member of Screen Actors Guild, Actors Equity Association, and American Federation of Television & Radio Artists.

Her acting credits include the New York Shakespeare Festival, Yale Repertory Theater, Williamstown Theater, Berkshire Theater Festival, Opera Theater of St. Louis, , and other theaters in New York, the US, and in Europe. Her film work includes Norman Jewison’s Other People’s Money, Woody Allen’s Another Woman, and J.G. Ballard’s The Atrocity Exhibition, which was selected for the Montreal Film Festival, and more.

From 1997 – 2004, as Associate Professor, she directed the MFA Acting Program at The Catholic University of America in Washington, DC; from 2006 - 2009, as Director, Producer, Professor, at NYU’s Strasberg Institute; and, currently, Director, Professional Programs, NewGeneRussian/Moscow Art Theatre Training Program at The Baryshnikov Art Center in NYC.

Caroline’s one-woman play Lache pas la Patate (about three generations of Cajun women) toured nationally for the Smithsonian Institute’s National Folklife in Education division and was featured at ULL’s Bayou Bijoux Theatre for the 300^th Anniversary of the Acadians’ arrival in Louisiana.  Another play, WomanBomb, also written with her husband, Allan Graubard, explores the world of the female suicide bomber and was performed at the International HOTINK Festival and United Solo on Theatre Row, in NYC.

During the last several years, Caroline has served on the Individual Artists Panel for the New York State Council of the Arts. In 2001, she was chosen as guest jury member for the MES Sarajevo International Theater Festival, Bosnia Herzegovina. Her articles on French and Eastern European theatre have been published in Western European Stages and Slavic & Eastern European Performance and Film.