Brittany Plummer

My name is Brittany Plummer and I'm a professional actor, maker and teacher from Adelaide. I am currently in France. I've just finished studying Second Year Clown at the international theatre school École Philippe Gaulier with the Master of Clown Philippe Gaulier.  Between November 2016 - June 2017 I studied selected subjects within the first year program at the school. Through different modules striving to find pleasure in every moment, exploring my beauty as a performer, discovering how to surprise my audience and make them dream. 

Philippe helps each individual student to find his or her own personal strengths; their own way of becoming extraordinary. His distinctive approach to theatre making originates from ‘Le Jeu’, which means ‘game and play’. This is the defining feature in Philippe’s teaching. He emphasises the importance of joy, human nature and the pleasure of play.

(Philippe Gaulier, photo by Amy Gibson studiocorderie.com)

I wish to continue my study at his international theatre school and study second year subjects Vaudeville and Play (January to March 2018) and Bouffon (April - June 2018) and continue to explore my strengths and weaknesses as a performer, growing and developing work under the expert eye of one of today’s most influential theatre practitioners.

The second year is about delving further in to the work by putting first year skills to practice devising and rehearsing numbers to become part of a show to be performed at the end of each term of 10 weeks.  Second Year Clown was the most challenging and  rewarding experience of my life. To be truly vulnerable and make the audience laugh every 7 seconds is not easy; the same audience every day. The audience, which is made up of students in the class, take a critical role in the learning process. Take the beautiful impulse to be with your audience and embrace the flop! The flop, a clown's best friend.  One day a classmate asked Philippe, "How do you be a clown and stay happy when life sucks?" his response was, "You must find seven beautiful things a day, seven at least. See the beauty and watch it, play with it. There is beauty everywhere, EVERYWHERE! That is it. If you can't do that then you can't be a clown."

My classmates and I went through something very special, which continues to develop. We live to discover a freedom of playing on the stage, moments when something shifts, no more bullshit, the mask is gone, and suddenly we experience our raw and vulnerable humanity. I've witnessed these beautiful moments by my classmates. Those moments when you can't keep your eyes off the person on stage, they are magic!

"The clown has a beautiful stupidity and leaves a fantastic dream in your head." - Philippe Gaulier

(Clown, photo by Philippe Gaulier)

In Vaudeville and Play, we explore further the freedom of playing in the clown way with the works of Georges Feydeau, and later Anton Chekhov and William Shakespeare. The final term is Bouffon, which is all about speaking the truth, by parodying the unjust and nasty figures in society, the Donald Trumps, Pauline Hansons... Bouffons deal with the social dimension of human relations, showing up its absurdities. The subjects offered are uniquely European and not available in such an intensive format anywhere in Australia.

As an artist, I believe it is vital to be constantly learning, training, creating, and experiencing. I feel myself changing, and growing as an artist, as a person. I am being challenged every day, and I've had so much fun every day. I strive to be a self-sufficient practitioner, capable of making theatre at the highest standard, creating performance pieces that put the connection between the artist and the audience at the forefront. This training is enabling me to drive my own artistic career, and work towards being a specialist of Gaulier training in South Australia; passing on the skills I learn in workshops for other artists, as I have already began to do at the Adelaide College of the Arts.

I feel very grateful to have gained the experience I have from this school so far. I wish to continue and complete this training now, in that room in the little town of Etampes, with this teacher, Philippe who is ready to bang his drum and kick me off stage at any moment and tell me honestly what he thinks of my work, "fucking fucking boring", "une merde, une grosse merde"  or sometimes  "she is beautiful", "you progress a lot". You have to work hard to earn your place on the stage, and you have to be happy to be bad because it is a good place to discover.  I have an incredible opportunity to work with him now, at this stage of my life, with a talented group of diverse artists from all over the world that I've been devising work with for a year now.  Philippe is getting older, he turns 75 this year. I have many things in place to complete this study now, I hold a student visa which expires in October 2018 which allows me to work a certain amount of hours per week, I have a job teaching English through performance in the mornings before school which will pay for my accomodation in Etampes and living costs.

I need your help to cover the tuition fees.

Every little bit helps! And I have some great rewards, postcards from France, portraits, Philippe Gaulier quotes via email, workshops in Le Jeu and Clown.

Thank you so much for your support. xxx

(Philippe and I and classmates, photo by Alexis Dubus)

(Photo by Amy Gibson, studiocorderie.com)

If I raise my target of $3,000 the funds will go towards the tuition fees to study Vaudeville and Play (tuition fees are 2300 euros/$3500). I will then return in 2019 to study Bouffon, which I won't need a visa for because it is less than 3 months.

If I exceed my target I will stay and study Bouffon this year, I would ideally need $6,000 which would cover the course fees for Vaudeville and Play (2300 euros/$3500) and the remaining $2,500 with the savings I have left would cover me for the final term- Bouffon (1700 euros/$2,600 - you receive a 500 euro discount for completing the course). 

The challenges are having enough money to live.  If I don't reach my target.