Norfolk, VA; Toga, Japan– CORE Theatre Ensemble is proud to announce Co-Founder and Theatre Director, Edwin Castillo has been accepted into the Suzuki Company of Toga (SCOT) Summer Training Session taking place in Toga, Toyama, Japan from August 11-27
This selective program is held in Toga Village, deep in the mountains of the Toyama prefecture, Japan, where the Suzuki Company of Toga (SCOT) has been based since 1976. The intensive training program teaches the basic physicality and ideas of the Suzuki Method of Actor Training, conceived by founder and internationally acclaimed director Tadashi Suzuki and SCOT. The program also includes observation of SCOT training and rehearsals, viewing of Suzuki-related films, participation in discussions, and seeing performances from the SCOT Summer Season 2023.
About Edwin Castillo
Edwin has over 2 decades of training in this actor method starting his tutelage at Old Dominion University with Guest Artist Leon Ingulsrud. He has previously trained with Anne Bogart and SITI Company of New York, having attended their Summer Intensive in Saratoga Springs, NY. He is a director, designer, and performer. As co-founder of Core Theatre Ensemble, he has served as director and sound designer for Core’s productions of Macbeth, The Yellow Wallpaper, Othello, A Season In Hell, The Threepenny Opera, and 40 Whacks, a nightmare. Recent acting credits include The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, No Exit and Macbeth (Core Theatre Ensemble), Pride and Prejudice (Virginia Stage Company), The Death of Thomas Edison (Warehouse of Theatre). Edwin is an alumni of Old Dominion University. Other training includes: Chautauqua Conservatory Theatre Company, Berkshire Theatre Festival, and SITI Company in Saratoga Springs, NY.
About Core Theatre Ensemble
Core is an international touring independent theater company that has been creating since 2006. Totaling over 70 productions in 5 countries, CTE is headed by Emel Ertugrul and Edwin Castillo with artistic associates Laura Agudelo and Nancy Dickerson. Most recently they premiered The Legend of Sleepy Hollow at Zeiders, VB. They work with a philosophy and focus on the performer as the individual and within the ensemble. Their works gravitate towards the group event and the creation process highlights working towards the common goal of performance and presentation. Theatrical collaborations and coproductions include Centro di Creazione Teatrale-Italy, A. Pulka Physical Theater-Lithuania, University of Vilnius-Lithuania, Old Dominion University, Warehouse of Theater, Virginia Stage Company, Chrysler Museum Glass Studio, Limbic System, and Alchemy NFK. CTE’s mission is to create innovative, compelling work that is challenging to the actors involved and engaging to the audiences who watch. We seek to make great theater and have great people see it. Everywhere.
About Tadashi Suzuki and SCOT
Tadashi Suzuki is the founder and director of the Suzuki Company of Toga (SCOT) based in Toga Village, located in the mountains of Toyama prefecture. He is the organizer of Japan’s first international theatre festival (Toga Festival) and the creator of the Suzuki Method of Actor Training. Suzuki also plays an important role with several other organizations: as General Artistic Director of Shizuoka Performing Arts Center (1995~2007), as a member of the International Theatre Olympics Committee, as founding member of the BeSeTo Festival (jointly organized by leading theatre professionals from Japan, China and Korea) and as Chairman of the Board of Directors for the Japan Performing Arts Foundation, a nation-wide network of theatre professionals in Japan.
Suzuki’s works include “On the Dramatic Passions”, “The Trojan Women”, “Dionysus”, “King Lear”, “Cyrano de Bergerac”, “Madame de Sade” and many others. Besides productions with his own company, he has directed several international collaborations, such as “The Tale of Lear”, co-produced and presented by four leading regional theatres in the US; “King Lear”, presented with the Moscow Art Theatre; “Oedipus Rex”, co-produced by Cultural Olympiad and Düsseldorf Schauspiel haus; and “Electra”, produced by Ansan Arts Center/Arco Arts Theatre in Korea and the Taganka Theatre in Russia.
Suzuki has articulated his theories in a number of books. A collection of his writings in English, “Culture is the Body” is published by the Theatre Communications Group in New York. The book has been translated and published in countries including China, Italy, Lithuania, Greece, Indonesia, Hungary, etc. He has taught his system of actor training in schools and theatres throughout the world, including The Juilliard School in New York and the Moscow Art Theatre. Also, a book written on Suzuki titled “The Theatre of Suzuki Tadashi” is published by Cambridge University Press as part of their Directors in Perspective series, featuring leading theatre directors of the 20th Century. These series include works on Meyerhold, Brecht, Strehler, Peter Brook and Robert Wilson among others.
Not just one of the world’s foremost theatre directors, Suzuki is also a seminal thinker and practitioner whose work has a powerful influence on theatre everywhere. Suzuki’s primary concerns include: the structure of a theatre group, the creation and use of theatrical space, and the overcoming of cultural and national barriers in the interest of creating work that is truly universal. Suzuki has established in Toga one of the largest international theatre centers in the world. Surrounded by the beautiful wilderness of Toga, the facility includes six theatres, rehearsal rooms, offices, lodgings, restaurants, etc.
Suzuki’s activities, both as a director creating multilingual and multicultural productions and as a festival producer bringing people from throughout the world together in the context of shared theatrical endeavor, reflect an aggressive approach to dealing with the fundamental issues of our times.
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