Oscar West

​Ira was my unforgettable mentor for a practicum as part of my Masters in Drama Studies course at the University of Auckland in 2015. For a fabulous month I was able to use his teaching and Method to explore a mixture of late medieval and Shakespearean texts, gaining a totally unique and immediate path of access to the physical and clowning realms of these older works. Appreciating clown as not only a performance art but also state of being on stage served to enrich me as a performer as well the content of my thesis – an historical and literary investigation of the legendary Elizabethan clown Richard Tarlton. Ira’s teaching and directing brought me infinitely closer to Tarlton’s remarkable life and work than I could have imagined.

As a touring musician and actor working with the Pop-up Globe theatre company in New Zealand and Australia for the last two years, Ira’s teaching has been fundamental to my craft and professionalism. Another workshop with him in Paris in winter of 2016 refreshed my commitment to the theatre and my role as a multi-instrumentalist in several groups. His mechanical and musical approach to accessing the natural intelligence of the body in performance helped to anchor me to my own sense of stagecraft and musicality and deepened both my discipline and joy of performing. I continue to challenge and employ the philosophies and principles of body, mind and spirit he imparted in nearly everything I approach, on and off the stage.