Fall Classes
Writing – Acting – SingingFor All Ages
Contact Theater 150 to sign up
Call 805-646-4300 or email theater150@theater150.org
Freeing the Writer with Deb Norton
Saturdays, 10am-1pm, Jan. 7th - March 10th
$325/10 weeks
Explore practical ways to disentangle yourself from critical voices that keep you from writing. Challenge the whole notion of writer's block and make sure that you never have a reason not to sit down and write. Look at new ways to crack the essence of character, relationship and story. Work to establish a regular writing practice and to live each day in the world as a writer. This is the perfect opportunity to work through a block, reinvigorate your writing, find your voice, rediscover a sense of play and/or gain some new and very practical tools to keep you writing long after the class is over. Click here to secure a spot in this workshop.
Teen Writing Group with Deb Norton
Thursdays 6-8pm, Ongoing
Presentations: Twice yearly
Membership: $200 every 12 weeks
With a maximum of 8 members, this ongoing group affords each participant an opportunity to receive personal feedback and instruction at every meeting. Teens will find a safe, yet rigorous environment in which to develop and deepen writing. No grades, no red pens and no tests. All genres of writing and all levels of skill are welcome.
• Learn to give and receive constructive feedback.
• Develop your voice and personal style.
• Gain a deeper understanding of the elements of story.
• Find support for your schoolwork or an outlet for your personal projects.
• Silence the internal critical chatter that takes the joy out of writing.
Members of this group will have an opportunity to share writing in quarterly showcases on Theater 150’s mainstage.
Rockin' it Old School Senior Choir with Julia Zonic and Smitty West
Every Wednesday at 11am at The Gables
Free and Ongoing for ages 65 and up
Theater 150 and The Gables combine forces to provide rockin' seniors a place to combine voices! If you're over 65 and like to sing, come to the Gables every Wednesday at 11am to explore some lively, contemporary music under the expert direction of Choirmaster, Julia Zonic. The very talented Smitty West accompanies on piano. The Rockin' it Old School Choir will perform on the Theater 150 stage, schedule TBA
Teacher Bios
Gai Jones is founder of California Youth in Theatre and author of two new Theatre resource books, Raising The Curtain and Break A Leg. She taught Theatre at El Dorado High School for forty years in Orange County. Upon retirement, the Black Box Theater was named The Gai Jones Theater. She now works as a theatre education consultant around the country and teaches extension classes for theatre educators through California State University, East Bay and California State University Channel Islands. Gai also performs for Ventura Senior Readers Theatre and is a commercial actress and voice over artist.
Dara Marks, Ph.D. is a writer and leading international script consultant who has devoted the last twenty years to the development of a groundbreaking approach to the theory of the transformational arc and screenplay structure. Her unique method of story analysis has earned her top ratings by Creative Screenwriting Magazine as the best consultant in the business. She has worked with most major Hollywood studios and many independent filmmakers and has recently received a doctorate degree in Mythological Studies from Pacifica Graduate Institute. Dara is a highly sought-after keynote speaker whose work is committed to the idea that a culture speaks through its stories. She offers workshops, seminars, and script development services. www.daramarks.comDeb Norton attended the Master’s program at the American Conservatory Theater (ACT), then worked as an actress in San Francisco and New York. Wanting a deeper experience of the process and more control over her creative life, she turned to writing. Her first play, The Whole Banana, premiered at Theater 150, garnered rave reviews in an LA run, and is slated to become a movie later this year. Experiencing stories from the inside, as an actress, gave Deb a unique window into the process of writing allowing her to develop an exciting and unconventionally holistic approach to the craft of writing and the creative process.
Kat Payseno, a new resident of Ojai, has been involved in children’s theatre for 22 years. Starting as a company member of Kidskits in Denver, Colorado, she continued her career as a Director of both the Performing Arts Academy of Lakewood and Kidstage in Littleton, Colorado. She has run technical theatre workshops for the Southern Colorado Repertory Theatre, and recently completed a year on tour with Kaiser Permanante' s theatre education program.Robert Peake studied poetry at U.C. Berkeley and in the Master of Fine Arts in Writing program at Pacific University, Oregon. His poems have appeared in Poetry International, North American Review, Rattle, and two anthologies of Southern California poetry. He received an honorable mention in the Atlantic Monthly Student Writing Contest, was a finalist for The James Hearst Poetry Prize, and a runner up in the Indiana Review Prize. He has given readings and lectures throughout Los Angeles, Ventura, and Santa Barbara counties. Robert considers that, along with a sense of humor, poetry is a survival skill for modern living. He lives in Ojai with his wife, Valerie, and cat, Miranda, and writes about poetry and poetics on his website at www.robertpeake.com
Betsy Randle is best known as “the mom” on the TV series, Boy Meets World and as “Karen” on, Home Improvement. Her other television and film credits include The Factory, Charmed, Dear John, Hogan’s Family, Down Home, Family Ties and The Beat, which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival. On stage, Betsy replaced Melissa Manchester in the lead role of the musical Hats in Chicago and then upon returning to LA, she played “Heloise” in Victory Theater’s My Old Friends; Followed by “Grandma Tzeitl” in Rubicon Theater’s production of Fiddler on the Roof. Betsy was honored to play “Amanda”, in Bessant Hill’s production of The Glass Menagerie as their “guest artist”. Later on, last Fall she understudied the same role of Amanda at The Mark Taper Forum in LA. Other favorite roles, over the years, include “Louisa” in The Fantastics and “Dora” in Night Must Fall; “Sally” in Tribute; “the alien” in Dan Castellaneta’s Earthers on Hollywood’s Theatre Row; Mrs. Soames in Our Town at Ojai’s Libby Bowl with Peter Strauss, directed by Scott Campbell; Dalliah in Hate Mail at Ojai’s Theater 150 where she also played Virginia Woolf in On The Edge; “the mother” in the opera, Amahl and the Night Visitors and originating the role of “Mary” in the world premier of Garry William’s award winning, Rain. Even more recently you may remember her in the role of AL, Deb Norton’s best dog and “confidant” in Chris and Deb Get Married: The Musical! last summer. And so, moving on… Betsy created and continues to perform her two Club Acts, sharing the ongoing theme, Avoiding Extinction. Not yet extinct, last year this time, she wrote and directed The Nanas and the Papas at Theater 150, where she also enjoys coaching singing and “acting a song”, on a private basis, as well as through her Finding Your Voice workshops.
Smitty West is an Ojai-based keyboardist, vocalist, songwriter and film scorer. He was the 2009 MAVRIC award winner for comedy song of the year and was triple-nominated for acoustic, foreign language, and comedy song of the year. Smitty is the founder of Ojai Songwriters Anonymous, and the producer of two full-length CDs, Smitty West Your World and Myridian Prime Myridian.
Julija Zonic is a Croatian-born singer, songwriter and music educator. A professional entertainer since childhood, her rich, sweet vocals and dynamic range cut across all song styles to move audiences around the world. Her youth musical productions here in Ojai include The Quest (2009), Island Roo (2010), and Monica Ros School’s delightful Shakespeare 2010 mash-up of Midsummer Night’s Dream.