Making Masked Theatre workshops with Molly Brennan

**MAKING MASKED THEATRE** Monthly workshops to develop performance in a respirator. 2nd Fridays at the LAVA Center, 6-8pm

Molly Brennan, Equity Actor and Teaching Artist hosts a 2 hour workshop once a month to invite performance artists, playwrights, singers, poets, drag performers, clowns, actors and everyone who loves to be onstage to:

Devise new work

Workshop ongoing projects

Develop vocal and physical techniques to perform in a respirator

Beginners welcome!

*Why mask required?* As we find ourselves in a world where for most of us, medical care is unaffordable, air quality is poor, and there is a growing population of Long Covid survivors and other folks who need or choose to be cautious about airborne pathogens, many in the performance community have been left behind because of the choice to wear respirator masks.

*Who is Molly Brennan?* Molly Brennan enjoyed a 30 year career as a professional stage actor in Chicago, but the Covid pandemic changed her path, and she had to find other ways to make a living. She and her wife moved to Massachusetts in the fall of 2025, and Molly has slowly been returning to her art, as a teacher, playwright, director and performer. She wears an N95 respirator to do these things, and has found a small community of others who do the same. As a regular and a member of the booking committee of Last Ditch Bar, she observes 5 days a week of mask-required events. Her play “After the Whales Spoke” was featured at the LAVA Center’s On the Boards New Play Festival, and her cast was entirely Disabled actors or actors who are not yet disabled, but wear respirators to protect themselves and their community. The reading was performed to a full house of masked audience members, as well as folks watching from home on the live stream.

Molly is thrilled to offer her decades of experience teaching Acting, Clown, Improvisation and Devising New Works as well as her experience in disability access, in a mask-required environment. There are barriers in creating this work, and she is excited to explore vocal, physical, and access tool making techniques to make masked performance a normal and celebrated form.

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Alt text: a flyer featuring a photograph of three actors from the shoulders up at music stands.

Farthest left is a Black Queer person with medium length locs, deep brown skin and dark black eyes. He is wearing pink noise cancelling earphones, a black kn95 respirator mask and a black top.

Center is a Mexican Queer Nonbinary person with light tan skin and dark short hair. They are wearing a black sleeveless top, a yellow bandana around the neck, and a yellow KN95 respirator mask.

On the right is a Gender Nonconforming Lesbian with a medium complexion, dark brown hair, dark brown eyes. It wears verticle identical brow piercings, no eyebrows, heavy framed tortoise shell glasses, 2 identical nostril piercings, septum ring, a dark brown mustache, stubble. Hair is styled with shaved sides, top coiffed, back long and cascading curls, tattoos on arms, and it is wearing a multicolored floral sleeveless dress and black kn95 respirator mask.

Red text on light pink: Making Masked Theatre: Techniques for Creating Performance in a Respirator. still from “after the whales spoke”, featuring Soe Noire, Drum Fernandez and Asa Rowan. Workshop series centering performance artists, actors & theatre makers who wear respirator masks.

WORKSHOP OFFERINGS Devising New Work Clown How to Host Improvisation

ACCESS INFO Masks required All are welcome Streaming option Wheelchair access LAVA CENTER 324 Main Street Greenfield, MA 6-8 pm 2nd Fridays

Questions? monsterclowngirl.mmm.page or thelavacenter.org Image of a qr code to the LAVA Center website.