Back Stage West
January 20, 2005
Lembeck Workshop Cheers 40th Year
By Sarah Kuhn
Forty years ago actor Harvey Lembeck started one of
the most successful
comedy workshops in
Lembeck, "kind of by accident."
Helaine, an actor who now serves as the workshop's
artistic director,
remembers its origins well. "A very dear man
named Jack Kosslyn, who was
teaching an acting class at the time, approached my dad," she says. "Jack
Kosslyn was the dialogue coach for Clint Eastwood,
and he was going to be
going out on location with Clint Eastwood for three months doing a film. He
didn't want to leave his acting students high and dry, so he came to my dad
and said, 'Would you take over my acting class for me when I'm gone?' My
father said, 'I'd love to, but I don't want to teach drama. Let
me teach
comedy.'"
Harvey, who was known for his work in such films as Stalag
17 and Love with
the Proper Stranger, started off by bringing in scripted scenes for the
students. "One particular night, he was doing a
comedy scene with two
people, and he couldn't get them to get what he was trying to say,"
remembers Helaine. "He
finally said, 'Just put down the scripts for a
second. This is what I want you to do.'
He started improvising, and they
loved it, and they wanted to do more and more and more of it.
So it was like
a changeover in the class-that he went from these comedy scripts to improv
because so many people could do so much more work. The
class just went crazy
over this, the fact that they could do improv."
When Kosslyn returned, the students went back to his
class-but they also
continued to attend
several.
her brother, Michael Lembeck. The
two have maintained their father's
influential teachings. The Harvey Lembeck
Comedy Workshop's longevity is
impressive, considering it isn't publicized much. "We've
always kept a very
low profile; we've never really done any publicity or promotion or
marketing," says Michael, who also works as an Emmy-winning TV and film
director. "It's always been word of mouth."
And the reward of this class isn't putting on a show; the workshop has no
public theatre or performance group. "It's a
teaching space," says Helaine.
"We're here to teach people a craft.. Harv really believed that the more you
do it, the better you're going to get at it, and trying to do scripted
scenes is a much slower process. By being able to get
up onstage-every actor
gets up onstage three or four times a night-you're practicing that
particular area of your craft so much more than you can anywhere else."
The workshop, which is taught at three levels, is aimed at the trained
working actor who wants to exercise his or her comedy skills.
"The basic
thrust of the workshops is to teach actors how to play comedy in a scene,"
says Helaine. "So when
you have an audition and pick up the script, you know
what to do with those lines. You're able to look at it
and make choices that
get you farther along."
One of the chief things the class gives you, says Michael, is the ability to
listen. "If you can't listen to the scene, you
can't possibly know how to
respond or how to react," he says. Indeed the
workshop isn't just about
becoming a stronger comedy player; it's about being a better actor. "You
would be amazed at the comics who came through here," says Michael.
"Predominately they don't last, because they're very self-involved. The
comics who have been through here and have sustained and have done well have
gone on to have huge acting careers because of what happened in here."
Helaine and Michael have now been doing this longer
than their father had,
but when
continuing the workshop an option. "When he
passed away, my mom and my
sister and I spent a long time agonizing over what to do," says Michael. "We
decided that by virtue of my dad's students out there in the world working,
that was his legacy; we didn't need to do it anymore. But
during the week we
were observing his death.all the students came to the
house every day.
Literally hundreds. And [they] said, 'Listen, we gotta keep doing this. We
want a place to come and be with each other and work.' So
we said, 'You know
what? We can never, ever fill his shoes, but maybe we
can just continue the
context within which the students can work and provide them the same space
that my dad provided them."
"He was a remarkable human being who had an
unbelievable gift in what he put
together here," says Helaine. "Not
only what he did but how he did it. I
will always strive to learn as much as he knew and to try to impart that to
the students."
And what students they are. The list of Lembeck alums is studded with
recognizable-and in some cases, downright legendary-names. Robin
Williams,
Penny Marshall, and John Ritter are just a few of the famous ones who have
taken the workshop.
Bryan Cranston, who plays befuddled father Hal on the sitcom Malcolm in the
Middle, was with the Lembeck workshop for about three
years, back when
says. "[Harv] put you
to the test, threw you into the pit-in a caring
way-and he made you think your way out. If you can do
that and get somewhat
comfortable in that scenario, then when you're walking into a room full of
strangers and you have to think on your feet to come up with an interesting
choice for your audition, it's not as strange anymore. It's
not foreign to
you. So you go, 'Oh, I know this. Okay. No panic. Just go with it.'"
There's one thing that makes the Lembeck workshop
unique among acting
classes: According to students and teachers alike, every class becomes a
family. "There's such a camaraderie among the
students. Immediately upon
starting, you bond with everybody, and everybody is your safety net when you
go up on that stage, so you're not afraid to take chances and do crazy,
silly things," says Sheri Goldner, an actor who
has been with the workshop
since 1990.
This environment and the ways in which the workshop allows you to keep your
comedic chops fresh mean that many students stay with the master class for
the long-term. Take Goldner,
who still attends the workshop. "I think the
Lembeck structure and comfort and teaching and
everything else about them is
so positive," she says. "And it's like
flexing your muscle at the gym; if
you stop going to the gym, you're gonna get flabby
again. I feel that you
owe it to yourself to continue to go and keep pumping your muscles and keep
honing your craft."
The Lembecks say they'd like to do something to
celebrate the workshop's
40th year, but nothing concrete has been planned yet. And
somehow, for a
workshop that's always relied on word of mouth over flashy publicity, this
is fitting. "The biggest tribute and contribution
that we can make is
producing the kind of people and the kind of talent that we've produced,"
says Helaine. "That's
what we do."
For more information on the Harvey Lembeck Comedy
Workshop, visit
www.harveylembeckcomedyworkshop.com.
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