About the School
The John Bolton Theatre School is a full time theatre intensive based in Melbourne. Participants study with John Bolton and a team of diverse and experienced teachers of physical theatre, song, voice and movement.
John's Lecoq training and extensive background in performance, teaching and directing has inspired countless performers and theatre makers all over the world. This integrated training investigates and strengthens the practice of creating new work.
It explores the Play of Mask, Bouffon, Clown and Vaudeville, as well as using these tools to find dynamic ways of working with text. Given a rigorous and secure environment, participants will leave fueled with a sense of action, more confident in voice and body and in their ability to stand in front of an audience or camera.
Areas of Study
The Neutral Mask puts us in touch with our most authentic and intuitive self. It integrates mind and body, clarifies impulse, and allows the wearer to experience the power and fragility that come from living in the present — the basis of any other performance work.
Energy normally wasted on eccentricity and character is now directly used in coherent action, from still point to still point.
Nothing can be hidden in clowning: all of your stupidity, charm and child-like play surface and dazzle the audience, taking them to an imaginative place reserved for naivety and magic.
As well as helping develop a circus clown who can do tricks, falls and routines, this work reveals the actor devoid of tricks — the actor who can stand on stage or in front of a camera whole and secure in their vulnerability, completely spontaneous.
The world of these malformed and anarchic people is perfect. Their beloved task is to make the audience die of laughter by parodying their ways and gleefully mocking their hypocrisy.
This is one of the most freeing and adventurous experiences for any actor. It requires absolute commitment of imagination and body, and involves learning to follow the dark and destructive urge...with charm.
We will inquire into the world of Vaudeville. As well as entering into Melodrama, students will create their own unique theatre by integrating or focusing on one of the styles we have studied.
From the serious to the absurd, these explorations are platforms from which participants can continue their investigations after completing the course.
Testimonials
John Bolton's skill, wisdom, generosity, passion, humour, and humanity, infuses every aspect of his teaching. He has inspired generations of students, many of whom have gone on to create shows whose theatrical vocabulary, diversity and imaginative scope can be traced directly back to their training with John — me included.
The John Bolton Theatre School is an absolutely unique experience to learn within. This is a chance to practice your craft — I repeat — to practice your craft, THE craft of performing. Every single day you go to a room and make performance happen. NO books. NO in-fashion concepts. NO jargon. Practice based learning. If you want to crack open and go deep into your journey of being a truly interesting performer and a truly excellent theatre maker, then THIS course is what you want to be doing.
Training with John Bolton allowed me to pursue a career I never knew quite possible. One where I am able to craft my own pathway: to devise theatre.
All our work over the last twelve years has been inspired by our time at John's school. It was always about the work and the potential of what we could achieve.
The training I did with John Bolton in 1993 has underpinned everything I have done in the theatre since. John creates the kind of theatre I love — theatrical, imaginative, full of life and delight. His training is rigorous, challenging, joyous and maybe even life changing.
John Bolton is an inspiring and masterful teacher who challenges you to push through every single barrier. His humanity and passion for theatre feeds through into every student and equips us with the thirst and drive to make unique and beautiful work. Every day I am reminded of the massive journey I embarked on with John and I am beyond grateful for what he has taught me.
A Brief History
Teaching guitar to a couple of youngsters at Theatre Workshop Edinburgh in 1974 was one of the most excruciating experiences of my life. Struggling with doubt driving the Theatre Workshop van through evening fog to Blackburn, preparing to teach parents techniques for working with youths in theatre was as bad; the fog was so thick no one turned up, and bent over the wheel at snail's pace I exulted, singing my way back to Edinburgh.
Years later I read that it is often the second arrow to our bow that proves the most fruitful and gives us depth in our work. At Guildhall we of the acting stream held our noses in the air past the teachers, but my first arrow, so easy and instantly gratifying, was always shallow.
A group of unemployed youths on a six-month government scheme in Whangārei, New Zealand taught a green immigrant how to teach theatre in the Quarry. Bridget Brandon taught me how to run an independent theatre school at Drama Action Centre in Sydney, and ninety percent of the content I teach is still based on the genius of Jacques Lecoq's research and practice. When David Latham was Dean of the VCA the latitude and challenges he offered allowed all the staff an opening and a safety net in the dynamic world of training passionate students.
If you want to teach theatre, find a church hall. It's light, airy, it's got a wooden floor, it's private — not flash, not brash, the paint's worn and everything is old enough to settle into the background once someone gets up to work. There are loos, a kitchen, possibly an office, probably an extra space for smaller groups and some green around it too — including a branch that dapples a window and a bird that sings on cue during a Neutral Mask exercise.
As much as feeling that in 1991 Melbourne would look kindly on a physically based theatre school, as much as I was moved to start one, it was the delight in seeing The Holy Trinity church hall and the desire to work there that kick-started the process towards opening a school. Lindy Marlow went to see the priest and came back in half an hour with the news that it was free, he was keen to have us there, and it was cheap.
Marion Milner's book, On Not Being Able to Paint, is more of an inspiration than anything I have ever read on theatre. She learned to paint "what the eye loves to look upon" and we learn to articulate what the body loves to express. She realised that thought apart from action is a nonsense; we practice the coherence of thought and image in activity. Willed creation can never find its true form or rhythm, but when we are truly revealed we can transform completely into another.
— John Bolton
Get in Touch
To apply for the next intensive or to ask any question about the school, send us a message and we'll get back to you.