Bill Irwin: Clown / Beckett (1/16)
Company Workshop BILL IRWIN: Clown/Beckett One-Day Workshop Dates & Times Friday, January 16, 2026 – 10:00am-1:30pm, 2:30pm-6:00pm Houghton Hall Arts Community, 22 East 30th Street, Jefferson Studio This workshop is open to observers and all company members are invited to attend. Observers may attend for any portion of the workshop. About the Workshop Celebrated actor, director, writer, and clown, Bill Irwin, returns to The Actors Center for a one-day workshop combining the world of the Clown and the language of Samuel Beckett. Over the course of a full day, we'll look at Clown vocabulary—some slapstick principles, some eccentric movement—followed by an exploration of fragments of Beckett’s prose selected by Bill. We’ll see where these two areas of pursuit can connect—and where they seem to need to stay separate. Together, these investigations invite actors to sit inside the creative tension between play and precision, revealing new pathways to clarity, spontaneity, and truth on stage. About Bill Irwin Bill Irwin has been honored with Tony, Drama Desk, Outer Critics Circle, Barrymore, and Helen Hayes Awards and is a recipient of Guggenheim, Fulbright, MacArthur and National Endowment for the Arts Fellowships. Bill's original works include The Regard of Flight; Largely New York (four Tony Nominations); Fool Moon; Old Hats, The Happiness Lecture; and others. He has starred in many Broadway, Off-Broadway and regional stage productions, including The Iceman Cometh; Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (Tony Award for Best Actor in a Play); The Goat, or Who is Sylvia, opposite Sally Field; Waiting for Godot with Nathan Lane (2009 Drama Desk Award nomination); The Tempest opposite Patrick Stewart; Texts for Nothing; Largely New York; The Regard of Flight; Garden of Earthly Delights; Accidental Death of An Anarchist and the Tony Award-winning Fool Moon which he created with David Shiner. On television, Bill can be seen in The Gilded Age, Legion, Confirmation, This Is Us, as Mr. Noodle of Elmo’s World. His film credits include Rachel Getting Married, How the Grinch Stole Christmas, Eight Men Out, Interstellar, Stepping Out, among others. Irwin was an original member of Kraken, a theatre company directed by Herbert Blau, and was also an original member of the Pickle Family Circus of San Francisco. Register Now Participants Enrollment limited to 14 actors. Participants are expected to attend the entire day in full. Comments/Queries

