A weekly improvisational theater workshop is set to begin tonight, free and online with Peninsula College professor Lara Starcevich, Olympic Theatre Arts and the Port Angeles Community Players.
Starcevich, an actor, musician and head of the drama department at Peninsula College, will lead the workshop at 7 p.m. via Zoom.
For a link to the one-hour sessions — open to drop-ins any Tuesday — email LaraS@pencol.edu.
No experience is necessary to join in and all ages are welcome, noted Olympic Theatre Arts’ Sarah Tucker. Sessions will include entertaining warmup exercises and plenty of humor, she added.
Starcevich said the past 10 months of being on various screens much of the day have made her more cautious in her interactions with people.
Improv promises relief; it “helps keep you loose. It’s a good way to relieve stress,” she said.
Last year, Starcevich directed “The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time,” a play presented on Zoom shortly after the onset of the pandemic, and she hopes to stage another show this spring.
Meantime, she invites people to use the free improv class “to test it out, and see if they enjoy theater.”
Participants don’t need to be Peninsula College students, she said.
Starcevich delights in the fact that the workshop is accessible to anyone with an internet connection. She has local people signed up as well as a woman who lives in San Francisco.
“Improv,” she said, “is a way to be creative and learn how to embrace mistakes — and turn them into opportunities to make something funny happen.”