Derek Scott has spent his professional career clowning around all over the world, but he actually wasn’t the class clown in school.
“I was actually on the track and field team. I’d get bored while running, so I’d be making faces at the judges,” said Scott, who graduated from LCI in 1980. He returns home to put on a special character development seminar at CASA, April 11 for Playgoers of Lethbridge and interested Lethbridge actors.
“ I grew up loving both sports and theatre, so this was a way to combine them both. It was fun and playful,” he said adding he took formal training in Toronto and Paris, which eventually lead to getting plenty of work in Germany and Russia, and appearances on Broadway, with Stratford, Cirque Du Soleil, at the Just for Laughs Comedy Festival in Montreal and many more.
Derek Scott is an internationally acclaimed actor, clown, director, producer and teacher, who has performed around the world, including on Broadway and Lon-don’s West End. He has performed and taught with such companies as Cirque du Soleil, Just For Laughs Comedy Festival, The Stratford Shakespearean Festi-val as well as plays the lead role in Slava’s Snow Show. In his 25 plus years in the business, Derek has developed this workshop which deals with one of the essence of all performance: rhythm.
“ I’ve performed everywhere from Brazil to North Korea,” he said.
“ I still consider myself a pretty mediocre actor,” he chuckled.
He can say a lot without saying a word. Indeed much of his act depends on non-verbal communication to transcend linguistic barriers.
“ It is a combination of my training and spending 30 years in the business,” he said.
He sometimes uses a kazoo in his act as another form of communication.
He noted a lot of acting without words comes from the head and body language.
“It becomes universal. It’s like being a painter. You have to communicate with people from a lot of different backgrounds,” he continued.
He noted during his last few big acting gigs, he was the only English speaking member of the cast.
“ I had a part in a German show that toured all over Europe. And I spent three years touring with a Russian show called Slava’s Snow Show. We spent three months on Broadway,” he said.
He noted Russian drama is very different from western and North American drama.
“ There’s a real darkness to Russian culture. In Russian culture they were oppressed, they had long winters so darkness comes out of that. But on the other hand, they have this real passion and joy,” he said.
“So their art comes out of that. They have a lot of extremes,” he described. Western European culture is much more in the middle,” he said adding their characters are deeper as a result of that contrast. He said actors must take that into account when creating their characters.
He said good comedy comes from learning your body’s natural rhythm and playing to it.
“It’s like a folk musician learning jazz music. It’s a tool that you have that you can use,” he said adding that will be the focus of the workshop.
“Just do. Even though it sounds like a NIKE commercial. You need to do everything you can,” he said.
“When I was growing up in Lethbridge, I remember taking a dance class at Studio 1. I never planned on being a dancer, but it was a tool I could use. And for a 14-year-old boy, it didn’t hurt there were pretty girls in the class and the teacher was pretty too,” he said.
“ I’ve done a lot of these workshops. People would approaching me about doing them,” he said adding he is always learning new skills.
“I’ll teach you how to find your natural rhythm. Good comedy has good rhythm Shakespeare has a lot of rhythm in his plays,” he said.
“ I love doing these workshops. People who take them say they open up a whole new world to them,” he said.
“ I really enjoy exposing this world to them and seeing how excited they get,” he continued.
“ Once you understand rhythm it will affect not only how you create characters, but how you create sketches. One you make people aware of the tool, they will use it,” he said adding it is a happy coincidence that he is holding the workshop during one of his many visits back home.
Though he is based out of Southern Ontario, he married an Albertan girl who has family in the Lethbridge and he still has family here as well.
“ I come back here several times a year, so it is always like a homecoming,” he said.
“ It is an opportunity to visit a lot of people I know. It will be fun,” he said.
The workshop cost $60 to register. It takes place on April 11 from 3:30 -6:30 p.m. at CASA.
