My name is Tessa Waters and I am an emerging physical comedian, actress and creative producer from Melbourne, Australia. I have built a solid reputation in my industry over the past four years for producing high quality, intelligent and funny live and film work with heart and soul. My shows How to be a Lady, Sexytime! and most recently A little bit of standing up and a little bit of falling down have toured around the world. Being on the stage and making people laugh is what I love, it's awesome.

Since October 2012 I have been studying theatre with world-renowned master Philippe Gaulier at his school in France. In the first term I studied two months of Clown as well as Le Jeu, Neutral Mask and Greek Tragedy. It has been a challenging and entirely fulfilling creative and personal experience. I have just finished second term doing Melodrama and Bouffon and hope to continue onto third term to complete the school year with a 9-week intensive in Bouffon, resulting in a two-week showcase performance in June.

“I love my students. And I love when they discover something for themselves, from themselves to help their freedom, their fantasy to explore and to explode. This is what I love” Philippe Gaulier

Philippe Gaulier's method works to bring out each individual actor’s inner beauty and strength. It is an incredibly honest and empowering, though sometimes confronting process. The atmosphere at school is a place of fun and play to experiment, to be bad and sometimes if you're lucky to be "Not too bad ...surprising". Students come from all over the world and range from 18 to 60+ and the people I have met are as important to me as the process itself. I am sure these new relationships will result in future work, with a number of shows and projects already in the pipeline. I feel very lucky to be able to have this chance to work with Gaulier, at 70 years old he still manages to give so much to each one of his students.

If I reach my target the $2500 will go towards my school fees for third term, to supplement the savings I have to cover living costs . Third term involves 9 weeks from mid April to mid June, Monday to Friday of one and half hours of movement class and two hours of master class with Philippe in Bouffon. If I exceed my target I will attend the Edinburgh Fringe Festival to do comedy gigs, to see shows and be inspired and to re-connect with the professional networks that I established during my successful 2012 Edinburgh Fringe season of the physical comedy 'Sexytime!'.

Every little bit helps and I have some great rewards available including love poems posted to you from Paris, Philippe Gaulier quotes of the day emailed direct to you every day for a month, personally choreographed dances, characters based on your name and dinner parties.

To make this happen I only need...

250 people giving $10 each or...

100 people giving $25 each or...

50 people giving $50 each

25 people giving $100 each

image credits: Amy Gibson