(Rajesh
Gopie)
Respected
actor, playwright, director, producer and qualified acting teacher, Rajesh
Gopie, will be running a series of three mid-year courses geared particularly
for those wishing to learn about professional acting course for film and TV as part of his ActorWize programme – a foundation phase course for
new recruits; an intermediate phase for those who have attended his basic
ActorWize Course already, and a vac youth programme for high school learners.
Created by Rajesh Gopie, the course is
called the Professional Acting Course for Film and TV. It will be taking place
at Durban High School campus, in Durban’s Berea.
The classes offer a unique training style
with a psycho-physical approach. Gopie describes his Professional Acting Course
for Film and TV as, “Classes are geared towards providing the building blocks
needed to develop acting skills. The compressed length of the course and the
focused level of study needs commitment and intensive collaboration among the
participants. The emphasis is placed on the physical blocks which stop the
instinctual body from doing what it should do naturally. However, fear and bad
experiences which plague our lives result in psychological blocks which prevent
the actor from reaching full potential. These blocks will be addressed,
unpacked and managed during the course. ”
Gopie ran his inaugural Durban course in
January, to a capacity group of enthusiastic budding film and TV actors. It was
so popular, and received such great feedback, that Gopie is running the small
group bespoke four week course again starting on 13 June every Tuesday and
Thursday from 17h00 until 20h00 and on Saturdays from 10h00 until 13h00. He
will also be running a follow-up course going into more detail and teaching
more advanced acting skills geared particularly (although not exclusively) to
those who attended his first course, starting on June 12 every Monday, Wednesday
and Friday evenings from 17h00 until 20h00.
Making use of the July vacs, Gopie is also
running a course for high school learners: ideally for those between 11 and 16
years old who want to learn about developing acting techniques for camera. He
will be giving a modified version of his Professional Acting Course for Film
and TV geared specially for younger performers. He will be taking this for the
first ten days of the July school holiday.
Gopie is a professional multi-award winning
actor and playwright who has worked on film, TV, stage and radio - locally and
internationally. In the last five years, he has turned his focus to training
South African actors and pursued a masters degree in actor training and
coaching at the world-renown Royal Central School of Speech and Drama (RCSSD)
in London. RCSSD boasts an alumni the likes of Judi Dench, Laurence Olivier,
Christina Scott Thomas, Rufus Sewell, Vanessa Redgrave and Harold Pinter.
Gopie is a recipient of the prestigious Oppenheimer
and Guilford scholarships which enabled him to study abroad. At RCSSD he
specialised in coaching for screen and studied under coaching mentors Amanda
Brennan (Head of Screen acting at RCSSD), Mel Churcher (Acting Coach on Narnia, Harry Potter) and Geoff Coleman
(Star Trek, Miramax acting
consultant), all world class coaches in the UK and US.
Gopie has extensive experience producing
theatre at community, university and professional level across the country, and
has acted in local and international films as well as in television series such
as Scandal and Zero Tolerance. His stage work repertoire includes his acclaimed
and much-travelled self-penned solo show Out
of Bounds and his ensemble piece The
Coolie Odyssey, as well as playing the lead in Shakespeare’s Hamlet at the Baxter Theatre under the
direction of Dame Janet Suzman.
For more information: prices, dates and
times of the three courses, contact: 082 872 5487 or email: info@actorwize.com, or visit www.actorwize.com. Participant numbers for
all courses are limited!
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