**The Fun of Failure with Gabriel Levey** **Saturdays | October 15th - December 10th (8 classes total. No Class November 26th.) ** **1-4pm EST | In Person in Florence MA ** $275 | Open to 12 participants. ​ Class Description: In this class, through games, original song writing, improvisation and a series of fundamental Clown exercises, you will strengthen your ability to listen; to play without shame; to be generous with yourself and others; and to be courageous and vulnerable enough to fail, fail again and then fail better. Over the 8 weeks the class will investigate a series of group and solo exercises, warming you up for the introduction of the Red Nose (the tiniest mask win the world!) and the glorious triumphs and epic disasters to follow. There will be tricks, costumes, maybe even a little show that you'll put on for all of us! No matter what you're going to have fun, like a lot of fun, maybe too much and then a little more. And laughter, lots and lots of laughter - all in pursuit of unfettered joy, radical acceptance and Empathic Vulnerability: the willingness to fully see an other, while being fully seen by an other, all while staying open to the possibility of transformation. Teacher Bio: The Founding Artistic Director of Completely Ridiculous Productions and head of the Completely Ridiculous Training Center and Conservatory, **Gabriel Levey** (he/him/his) is an actor/teacher/maker/producer based in Northampton, MA. For the last 4 years Gabe has been teaching Clown, Physical Acting and Shakespeare as Play at NYU, Tisch School of the Arts. He also teaches Acting as Play at The Pandemonium Studio as a founding faculty member alongside his mentor of the past 12 years, Christopher Bayes (Master Teacher of Clown and Commedia, and Head of Movement at the Yale School of Drama). In addition, Gabe has led Clown classes and workshops at The Berkshire Theatre Group, Smith College, Amherst College, and The Yale Summer Acting Conservatory, among others. Gabe also works as a private coach, specializing in graduate school audition prep. So far Gabe has helped his clients get accepted at the Yale School of Drama, NYU Grad Acting, Juilliard, Columbia, CalArts, UCSD, Brown, RADA, Guildhall, Central Speech and Drama, as well as call backs at every major MFA program in America.​ With a focus on actor training and the creation and production of new works of theatrical comedy, Gabe founded Completely Ridiculous Productions in the fall of 2019. After producing three live shows at the Northampton Center for the Arts, the pandemic hit and everything shut down. It was at this point that Gabe created The Completely Ridiculous Conservatory, a 6 week online acting program that, within its first year, welcomed over 100 students from all over the world. A maker of theatrical comedy, Gabe's original work includes, *Dwellicle 109* (IRT); *Brainsongs, or the play about the dinosaur farm* (Yale Cabaret); *And now we do LINDBERGH’S FLIGHT by Bertolt Brecht* (Yale Cabaret); *The Most Beautiful Thing in the World* (Yale Cabaret/Boston University/Cloud City); *How to Help the Self Needs Help with Carol A. Jantsen* (The Peoples Improv Theater); and most recently *A Super Serious and Not at All Funny Reading of Stories I Wrote After Brain Surgery,* which kicked off Completely Ridiculous Productions first season of new work at the Northampton Center for the Arts. ​​ Gabe received a BFA in Acting at Boston University, and an MFA in Acting at the Yale School Drama.