Storytelling Master Class | Sustainable Systems News

Each Sunday session we build your skills in voice, gesture, imagination, and story structure. We focus on Zoom screen theatrical fundamentals, video and podcast personality. Your voice. Your face. Your ideas. Learn how to tell really good stories that really matter. See the 8 Questions...

“All the worlds a [screen]”  - William Shakespeare

For youth from middle school through high school

Limited to first 24 Zoom faces

Three hours via Zoom, including break out coaching sessions

All three Master Classes cover the same fundamentals but within a different theme. You can register for one or all three Storytelling Master Classes. With more practice, you just get better.

About the Acting Coaches

Jasmine Lomax (she/they)

Jasmine (She/They) is an Actor, Playwright, Director, Dramaturg, and overall “Artistic Generator” - meaning that Jasmine thoroughly enjoys collaborating with other Artists and devising work that rocks the foundation of outdated ideologies. As a recent graduate from Cornish College of the Arts specializing in Original Works, Jasmine’s goal as an artist is to share, promote, and develop New Work and Original Content with their communities to bust free from stories too steeped in classical text, binary social norms, and outdated narratives. Jasmine thrives on giving space to uplift disenfranchised and marginalized voices by sharing stories that have been silenced by our current political, social, and emotional climate. Jasmine is a mother to one amazingly adorable 10-year-old son, Kayden, and to many (many) cute animals, including a Ferret named Cooper! They have had the opportunity to move all over the United States. Originally from Baltimore, Maryland, Jasmine is proud to have made it from one coast to the other in their twenty-nine years of life, collaborating and learning from so many wonderful artists along the way. Prior to falling in love with the PNW, Jasmine has lived in several small towns including Duluth, MN, and Boise, ID (random, but it is true) and believes that these experiences helped shape the artist, the citizen, and innovator that they are today. With over twenty years of experience in the performing arts, their past credits include Pass Over (Dramaturg) Directed by Tim Bond, Raisins in a Glass of Milk 2019 produced by Live Girls! At Taproot Theater, Baltimore directed by Malika Oyetimen, and O! Beautiful directed by Michael Place.

Ethan Sandler

Ethan, a Seattle native, is a writer/performer/producer working in Los Angeles. He began his storytelling education at the Youth Theater Northwest (with Peter Donaldson), where he wrote, appeared and directed numerous plays - but, more importantly, learned the importance of collaboration and clarity in the storytelling process. After graduating from Northwestern University, he continued his journey through numerous glorious failures/successes (usually both at the same time) in New York, including a series of solo shows which were produced in Seattle, New Haven, the Williamstown Theater Festival, San Francisco, Los Angeles, and the Public Theater in New York. Epitaph, a two person show he created with Adrian Wenner, won a Stage award at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival and was a finalist for the Perrier award. Ethan has worked for the last 15 years in television and film in LA, writing many episodes of TV and a few films you haven’t seen, while constantly relearning the same lessons as when he was 12 - that every story demands purity of voice and a complete willingness to drop everything you think you know about it. He is currently working on a documentary about the time he was smacked in the face by one of his heroes and a film adaptation of Wheedle on the Needle.

Peter Donaldson

Peter Donaldson is a strategic storyteller with over 35 years of experience in performance art, public speaking, curriculum design, and community facilitation. Peter founded Sustainability Ambassadors in 2012 and serves as the Director of Learning, coaching student leaders, teacher leaders, and community leaders on how to advance collective impact strategies, design problem-based learning curriculum, and support sustainable systems thinking at the intersection between classroom learning and community impact. With a BFA in Painting and a Teaching Certificate from the University of Washington, Peter started out as a middle school art teacher tinkering with new models for teaching as storytelling. He frequently found himself impersonating famous artists. From 1986-1996 Peter was the Artistic Director for Youth Theater Northwest, authoring 17 plays for young actors and audiences. In 1994 he was recognized as National Youth Theater Director of the Year by the American Alliance for Theater and Education. Peter wrote and acted in two of his own one-man, touring shows, The Life and Times of Leonardo da Vinci and Salmonpeople, with follow up seminars at high schools and colleges across the northwest. Impact storytelling for a sustainable future is just a bigger stage with 7 billion actors. In 2009, he was appointed Distinguished Scholar to the Dan Evans Chair for the Liberal Arts at The Evergreen State College where he facilitated seminars on sustainable systems thinking. In 2010, Peter was recognized by E3 Washington as the Outstanding Environmental Educator of the Year. Peter’s focus on strategic storytelling is informed by his passion for coaching youth at the cusp of adulthood. To rest his mind at night, Peter writes a lot of poetry. Poetry and his early passion for painting are both method and metaphor for leading a learning organization. 

SCHEDULE

12:00 Full group fundamentals, modeling and practice,

1:00 Small group breakout rooms for application and direct coaching

2:00 Full Group presentation and peer feedback

EIGHT WORKSHOP QUESTIONS

1. Screen: How can I maximize the theatrical potential of my computer screen as a storytelling frame?
2. Production Values: What are the highest level production values within our control for staging, lighting, video and audio?
3. Voice: How can I take advantage of every possible dynamic of my voice to tell my story?
4. Gesture: How can I use my head, shoulders, face and hands to reinforce my story?
5. Imagination: How do I observe, construct and manipulate images in my mind that will get into your mind?
6. Story Structure: How many different ways can I construct a story?
7. Purpose: How can I use great stories to engage, inform and inspire any audience to rapidly advance a sustainable future.
8. Right Now: How is the Black Lives Matter Movement intersectional with rapidly advancing a sustainable future?

You can register for one or all three Storytelling Master Classes.