L'Atelier director launches actors' studio

The professor was L’Atelier head Florent Masse, and the voice projection exercise was part of the new Rocky/Mathey Actors’ Studio.

Masse, who is a lecturer for a French theater class and a faculty adviser at Rocky, said that the studio allows students “to find a place [where acting] is not academic — it is not even a production.

Students interested in the freer mood of the weekly actors’ studio, Masse said, should “just come for the pleasure of acting.”

“There are no constraints. This is a new environment,” he added.

The studio will use works by a diverse group of writers from the United States, Russia, France and other countries. The author of choice this Thursday was Shakespeare. Masse said that he intended to use works by a variety of sources despite his background in French acting.

“I want to do it in English because I [already] do all my theater in French,” he said.

Masse said he started the actors’ studio to give back to students not taking his French theater course, whether or not they live in Rocky or Mathey or even speak French.

One student who was welcomed into the studio on Thursday was Wyliena Guan ’11, who described it as “really great.” She added that Masse “challenged us to do something new with what we already knew.”

Another attendee, Keith Mathewson ’11, said Masse’s passion was balanced by his sensitivity to the actors.

“He’s genuinely passionate about what he’s teaching, but he’s also very perceptive of strengths and weaknesses,” Mathewson said.

Amy Gobel ’12 said that the program was a good experience for beginners. “I thought it was a very good introduction to acting … Florent Masse was really trying to get the students to start with the basics,” she said.

Gobel added that Masse tried to break the many preconceptions of acting that students brought with them.

Get the best of the ‘Prince’ delivered straight to your inbox. Subscribe now »

“He stressed the importance of not taking an element of acting for granted,” Mathewson said.

Masse said he considers the Rocky/Mathey studio a sort of return to the beginnings of L’Atelier. He explained that though today L’Atelier is a group that exists both as a student troupe and as a theater class under the French and Italian Department, it was a much smaller program in the past.

“A few years ago, L’Atelier was not a class, we were not producing plays, we were producing only scenes,” Masse said, adding that last December, he and the then-small L’Atelier presented these scenes in the Rockefeller Common Room.

“I’d love to revive that tradition,” Masse said. “I hope that’s what happens to the actors’ studio.”