Jeanmarie Simpson Playwright · Actor · Director Licensing
Teaching and residencies

Teaching

Forty years of classrooms, studios and rehearsal rooms, from a three week master class at San Francisco State University at the age of twenty two to residencies in elementary schools, universities and conservatoires. Practical work, plainly taught, for actors and for the people who teach them.

Reno Sweeney, Anything Goes, 1993

Three ways in

Choose the one that matches your room
01
For Educators
For Educators Scene packets, monologues, discussion guides and review copies for your programme 02
Actor Training
Actor Training How she works with actors, and how to study privately or in a small group 03
Workshops and Residencies
Workshops and Residencies Talkbacks, single sessions, multi day intensives and full residencies Start here if you teachEverything a programme needs, in one place

What she teaches

Hundreds of classes, seminars and intensives

The work is practical and unfussy. Actors are asked to do rather than to theorise, and the vocabulary stays small enough that a room can use it on the first afternoon.

Advanced acting

Text, action and attention. Reading a scene for what a character wants, then playing it without decoration.

Improvisation

Listening as the whole technique. Building scenes from offers rather than from cleverness.

Contact improvisation

Weight, balance and trust between performers, taught with care for every body in the room.

Directing

Staging with very little, shaping an ensemble, and giving a note an actor can actually use.

Writing

Making a play from research, from testimony, or from a single stubborn image, and cutting it until it plays.

Where she has taught

Universities, colleges and institutes
UC Berkeley University of Washington Washington State University University of Nevada, Reno University of Nevada, Las Vegas University of Arizona Claremont Colleges Evergreen State College University of Mt. Shasta Naropa Institute

Work in these rooms has ranged from a single guest session to a full term of teaching, alongside residencies in public schools and community theatres.

Schools

Poor theatre, on purpose

In elementary through high school classrooms, Jeanmarie spent decades creating original works and adaptations of classics using a poor theatre construct, emphasising performance over elaborate production elements.

A few chairs, a length of cloth and a class of thirty are enough. Students who would never audition for a musical find they can carry a scene, because nothing in the room is hiding behind scenery.

Pitti Sing, The Mikado, 1977
Pitti Sing, The Mikado, 1977
In 1989, Jeanmarie entered my life and changed it forever. She asked me to audition for the play, Quilters. Over the next 11 years and over a dozen plays, Jeanmarie taught me about myself through the characters I became. Barbara Lee
Jeanmarie’s work with my son changed his life for the better. His disability made him a target for bullying. She gave him opportunities to interact with his classmates in ways he never had before. Jeff Osten

Plays that teach well

Short, solo, or built for a class

Three titles that programmes return to: one that fits a single class period, one that gives an advanced student an entire tragedy to carry, and one built around a historical figure students already study.

Request review copies

Ask about teaching

Classes, residencies, private study

Tell her what you teach and who is in the room. She will say plainly whether she is the right person for it, and what a session would look like.

Keep in touch

New plays, new productions, twice a year

A short letter when a play is finished, when a production opens, or when new classroom material becomes available. Nothing else.

Educator
resourcesScene packets, guides and review copiesOpenThe
playsThirteen titles, filterable by cast sizeOpenWho is
teachingBiography and full resumeOpen

New plays and new productions, twice a year. Nothing else.

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