The Cherry Orchard – Masterclass 2025/26

This master class is aimed at people who already have solid acting skills and experience and want to go deeper. We will work on Anton Chekhov’s last and most complex play, the tragicomedy The Cherry Orchard, a light-hearted parable about a collapsing micro-society, written on the eve of the social catastrophes of the 20th century. The lessons take the form of dialogue, with questions and teaching content arising from the challenges of the specific artistic work. This allows plenty of room for individual learning, and we refine ourselves as artistic instruments ‘in the process through the process’.

There will be many, but the following topics have been deeply and inextricably woven into our endeavour from the outset:

• How to rigorously give priority to the text and how this constraint becomes creative
• How the ‘nesting’ of the play in empirical historical-sociological and biographical facts contributes to a sound understanding of the play
• What The Cherry Orchard has to do with ancient Greek theatre
• How to direct attention in order to tell the story you want to tell
• How acting and highly interactive play create a non-naturalistic artistic form
• How to cultivate and internalise sculptural acting in time and space
• How speech is action in the environment and how sensation, feeling, thought and movement become audible in a multidimensional artistic speaking voice
• What The Cherry Orchard has to do with Bertolt Brecht and why Chekhov had such difficulties with Stanislavski’s approach
• How to be creatively effective as an independent artistic individual within the artistic vision of a production, without causing the production to descend into arbitrariness
• How to work happily on a common cause in a heterodox, non-collectivist ensemble, navigating along productive conflicts towards a shared goal

Rehearsal times are designed to allow participants to attend alongside their work commitments: we begin with individually agreed small group rehearsals in December. There is a full week of rehearsals at the beginning of February and at the end of May. Between January and the premiere at the end of May, rehearsals also take place every other weekend. Individual dates can be agreed upon, but 85% availability for rehearsals is necessary for organisational reasons. You can expect at least 100 hours of lessons and the same number of hours of independent work.

Here is an overview of the rehearsal dates.

Important: The overview is not yet a rehearsal schedule; blocked dates can still be taken into account and no one involved will rehearse on all of these dates.

All course participants can also attend the Friday Evening Class and the course Theatre as Practical Philosophy of Human Action free of charge. Participation in the Friday Evening Class is recommended for training reasons.

In line with our principle of accessibility for all, the course fees have been kept affordable. In return, participants are expected to act with a high degree of personal responsibility and accountability for the production and, on occasion, to take on tasks that go beyond purely acting duties in order to realise the production.

The master class concludes with three public performances on 29, 30 and 31 May at the Theater Spielraum. The production is designed in such a way that a later revival and guest performances are easily feasible.

Lubov Andreyevna Ranevskaya cast
Anya, her daughter cast
Varya, her foster daughter cast
Leonid Andreyevich Gayev, her brother cast
Yermolai Alexeyevich Lopakhin, farmer and neighbour cast
Pyotr Sergeyevich Trofimov, student (male, playing age 25-35)
Dunyasha, the maid (female, age 20-30)
Semyon Yepikhodov, accountant cast
Simeonov-Piscik, a neighbouring landowner (male, playing age 40-55)
Charlotta Ivanovna, governess, cast
Firs, valet, an old man of 87, cast
Yasha, a young servant, cast

Participation requires an audition followed by an interview.
Please submit your application with a brief CV and a short letter of motivation (both maximum 1 A4 page) to Anne Frütel (annefruetel@humanacting.org).