Judi Lewis Ockler

Undergraduate Discipline

Theatre

BFA, New School. A professional intimacy director, fight director, stunt performer, teaching artist, and clown. Ockler’s directing work has found collaboration with Signature Theater, WP Theater, New World Stages, The Flea Theater, Classic Stage, Dixon Place, Here Arts Space, The Wild Project, and Williamstown Theatre Festival. Stunt credits include feature films—The Wolf of Wall Street, Enchanted, Across the Universe—and television shows—30 Rock, Gotham, Big Dogs, House of Cards, Boardwalk Empire. She is a founding member of Kendall Cornell’s Clowns Ex Machina, an all-female clown troupe in residency at LaMama, ETC. Ockler is a certified Intimacy Director with Intimacy Directors International and Intimacy Directors and Coordinators. She teaches/directs intimacy and violence in performance at Tisch Drama, The Meisner Studio, Playwrights Horizons, Atlantic Theater School, National Theater Institute, The New School for Drama, HB Studios, Stella Adler Studios, The American Academy of Dramatic Arts, and The American Musical and Dramatic Academy, NYC. SLC, 2021-

Previous Courses

MFA Theatre

Intimacy in Performance I

Component—Fall

Prerequisite: previous acting, directing, or stage management class or permission of the instructor

This class will provide students with an introduction to the language, processes, and best practices of intimacy training for stage and screen. The class will meet once per week, during which time students will engage in discussions of terms and theory, learn fundamentals of approaching scene work or material that is intimate in nature, and work collaboratively to simulate artistic settings where best practices can be enacted and assessed. Toward the end of the term, students will work with text, scenes, or breakdowns to practice their approach to solving challenges around intimacy choreography.

Faculty

Introduction to Intimacy in Performance

Component—Fall

This class will provide students with an introduction to the language, processes, and best practices of intimacy training for stage and screen. The class will meet once per week, during which time students will engage in discussions of terms and theory, learn fundamentals of approaching scene work or material that is intimate in nature, and work collaboratively to simulate artistic settings where best practices can be enacted and assessed. Toward the end of the term, students will work with text, scenes, or breakdowns to practice their approach to solving challenges around intimacy choreography.

Faculty

Theatre

Intimacy in Performance II

Intermediate, Component—Year

Prerequisite: Intimacy in Performance I

This class will provide students with an advanced study of the language, processes, and best practices of intimacy training for stage and screen. The class will meet once per week, during which time students will engage in discussions of terms and theory, learn fundamentals of approaching scene work or material that is intimate in nature, and work collaboratively to simulate artistic settings where best practices can be enacted and assessed. Toward the end of the term, students will work with text, scenes, or breakdowns to practice their approach to solving challenges around intimacy choreography.

Faculty

Intimacy in Performance Level II

Advanced, Component—Spring

A continuation of consent in performance practice built on the foundations learned in Introduction to Intimacy. Led by Intimacy Directors and Coordinators for Theatre, TV, and Film.

Faculty