Take your performing career to new heights.
Our Professional Circus Training Program is the clearest expression of our mission to develop well-rounded, physical performers.
Early applications now available! Financial aid availalable.
Invest in your future.
Today’s most marketable performers have training in disciplines ranging from contact improv to acrobatics, dance, clown, devising, and more. In a sea of talented performers, quadruple threats are the new triple threats.
At Actors Gym, you’ll be immersed in a supportive community of physical performers that will help you build the strength and confidence to create visceral works that push the envelope of physicality.
With specialized training in acrobatics and clowning, our program will help you fly onto Chicago stages and beyond.
I came to AG with a very specific goal: acquire and maintain a skill set that would put me on the radar for Lookingglass Theatre. As an actor with movement experience, I wanted to 'up' my skill set.
Pretty much everything I did was equally positive and fright-inducing, and it is this balance of fright and flight that is so important for professional growth.
– Cassi S.
Class of 2016
Curriculum: Year 1
The program provides 27 hours per week of intense, high-caliber circus theatre training. Students choose between two primary concentrations: acrobatics and clown. Both concentrations include coursework in foundational circus and performance skills, including:
Physical theatre (ensemble building, physical improvisation, devising, flocking, partner/acro yoga)
Dance (ballet, contemporary-based technique, low flying, improvisation, choreography)
Fundamentals (safety, stretching and conditioning, Pilates, injury prevention, special topics such as circus history and career management)
Training starts off with “boot camp” where students undergo four intense weeks of training that focus on increasing strength, flexibility, and technique.
Boot camp also provides a foundational skill set in physical theatre, dance, tumbling, and juggling, and gives students the tools to craft their own workout regimen to serve them as they dive into the remaining 8-months of training.
P.S.
Did we mention it’s also a ton of fun? 🤪
New: Year 2 Program!
This program is designed for Pro Trainers to continue their training and education. Each trimester is a stand-alone and students will be able to register for 1, 2, or all 3. Students will choose between two primary concentrations: acrobatics and clown. Year 2 students will work on enhancing skills that are learned in the Year 1 curriculum plus:
Year 2 students will get access to 6-8 hours of open gym time a week
Access to pick and choose from our Pro Training classes and workshops
Opportunities for private lessons throughout the semester
Those who opt-in to all 3 semesters will be assisted in building a routine to be featured during the Showcase.
This is an excellent opportunity to continue learning & to deepen your training commitment. Opening doors to new connections, new skills, and enhanced performing and teaching opportunities.
This program was the best decision I have ever made both personally and professionally. Each discipline taught humility, patience, and respect for the apparatus, the ensemble, and the self. As an actor this program proved invaluable to me. Since graduating I have begun interweaving my love for circus and theatre and will continue to do so for the rest of my life.
– Molly H.
Class of 2019
Concentrations
Acrobatics Concentration
The acrobatics concentration builds on the curriculum’s foundation by helping students achieve proficiency in a wide range of circus arts.
Students receive training in:
Ground skills (hand balancing, tumbling, juggling, partner acro, contortion, tightwire, stilt walking, rolling globe)
Aerial skills (static/dance trapeze, silks, lyra, straps, Spanish web/corde lisse, Chinese pole)
Acrobatic safety and rigging instruction
After winter break, each student declares a major and minor apparatus/specialty. Students will train primarily in those two areas, while also continuing general classes in dance, physical theatre, and contortion, through the midterm in March when exclusive training in the major and minor increases to prepare for the showcase performance in May.
“Having spent a lifetime in the circus, it’s become clear to me that many of the most versatile and successful performers have a background in a wide range of acrobatic skills.”
Clown Concentration
The clown concentration provides training for physical performers looking to heighten their work and increase their confidence onstage.
It features regular performance labs to help students develop the necessary attunement and connection with audiences.
Inspired in part by Ringling Brothers’ original Clown College, the Clown Concentration offers a contemporary curriculum featuring techniques from a wide range of areas and disciplines, including:
Circus Arts
Mime
Dance
Physical comedy
Devising
Direct Audience Relationship
Object manipulation and interaction with costumes, props, and set pieces
Clown Dramaturgy
“The clown uses humor to embrace the full spectrum of human experience. The clown we play towards is not naive. It is a 24 hour news cycle clown that carries the weight of the world on its shoulders and has been smashed by it. The clown is resilient. Even when it doesn’t win, it always survives the experience, and the audience sees that it’s possible to go through the fire, to transform, and to thrive.”
Welcome to your new artistic home.
As one of the nation’s premiere circus and performing arts training centers, Actors Gym has helped countless performers learn to fly – physically, emotionally, and creatively.
A celebrated name in Chicago theatre for over 25 years, the Actors Gym brings a new physicality to the American Theatre by developing trusted, multi-skilled physical performers and producing award-winning, genre-bending circus theatre productions and live entertainment.
Just steps away from public transit, the Gym is located minutes outside of Chicago. As such, students are able to easily take advantage of the resources that our incredibly vibrant circus and theatre community provides.
World-Class Instructors
Our faculty are led by Circus Ring of Fame artist Sylvia Hernandez-DiStasi and include top Chicago circus artists like Oyuna Yadamjav, Amanda Crockett, and Adrian Danzig.
Our outstanding faculty come from diverse performance backgrounds. They represent many of Chicago’s top circus and theatre companies, including the Tony-award winning Lookingglass Theatre, which partners with Actors Gym as its exclusive provider of circus performing arts training.
Multidisciplinary training is a hallmark of the Actors Gym. As such, applications are encouraged from those who have additional skills in music, dance, design, original work, and other disciplines.
Tuition
Year 1 Program: The cost for year 1 students is $11,000 for the 2025/2026 school year.
Year 2 Program: Year 2 students are welcome to join for the full year or for trimesters 2 and 3 only. The cost for year 2 students is $2,050 per trimester: $6,150 for the full year or $4,100 for trimesters 2 and 3.
Students receive a 10-month payment plan billed in even installments July 2025 through April 2026. Financial aid is available.
Tuition includes all of the weekly classes and private lessons, as well as 2-3 hours of open gym access and practice time daily.
Application Process
Once you have submitted your application, you will also need to create and submit your audition video to protraining@actorsgymnasium.org.
Your video should feature not only the required skills below, but also as much performance energy as possible. Please play to the camera. Your video should be no longer than 5 minutes and include the following:
Handstand (free standing or against a wall)
Forward roll
Dive roll
Splits (left, center and right side)
Backbend (from laying on ground)
Cartwheel (right side and left side)
Pull ups (as many as possible)
Trapeze inversion from hanging (move from hanging by your arms to hanging by your knees gracefully. If you do not have access to a trapeze bar, please use a chin-up bar and lift your toes up to the bar while hanging from your hands).
Please also include any of the following you can safely execute: Front walkover, back bend from standing, front handspring, back handspring, standing back tuck.
A portion of a choreographed act of your choosing which demonstrates sequencing and performance abilities
Anything else you would like to include (tumbling, dance, juggling, hand balancing, acting, clowning, aerial work, musical ability, or other special skills)
Prospective pro trainers can expect to hear from us within 2 weeks of their application and video link’s submission. Decisions are made and communicated on a rolling basis and acceptances will continue until the program is full.
FAQs
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Beyond direct access to our incredible faculty of experts, the pro training program at Actors Gymnasium will help you become a stronger, well-balanced, multidisciplinary artist. We’re most interested in helping our students grow as collaborators, storytellers, and creative professionals who will thrive in a wide range of artistic settings.
Students appreciate us for our strong focus on ensemble building and devising that builds the skills necessary to work in highly collaborative professional environments.
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Our intensive curriculum will focus on aerial arts skills, tumbling, partner acrobatics, physical theatre, clown, dance, and fundamentals such as conditioning, rigging, and injury prevention.
Focused study is available in:
– Trapeze (single point, double point, and duo)
– Fabric/Silks
– Rope
– Tumbling
– Chinese Pole
– Hand Balancing
– Straps
– Partner Acrobatics
– Lyra
– Clown
– Wire
– Juggling & Manipulation
– Sling or Hammock
– Cloud Swing
– Invented Apparatus -
Our program is designed to meet the needs of artists and performers looking to take their circus training and performance to the next level. Successful applicants typically have some experience in both circus arts and/or physical theatre, though we take a holistic approach to assessing the skill sets of prospective students and seek to fill the program with focused students of diverse physical and artistic backgrounds.
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There is no formal application deadline, since we accept applications on a rolling basis until the program is full. The program typically fills up by early summer.
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We do not provide housing, but we are situated near the heart of Northwestern University’s campus with a large selection of student housing. We are also only a few train stops from Chicago’s Rogers Park neighborhood, home to Loyola University and a hot spot for artists and affordable student housing options.
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We are located in the Noyes Cultural Arts Center (a Daniel Burnham-designed building nestled in a park) at 927 Noyes Street Evanston, IL 60201. Acrobatics classes are primarily taught in our 3,000 sq. ft. gymnasium space, which features a 1,600 sq. ft. sprung floor and a fully rigged 24 foot ceiling.
Other classes such as dance, physical theatre, and open workouts take place in our studio space which features a semi-sprung wood floor, gymnastics mats, and a rigged ceiling. All equipment is provided.
Some of the clown classes and other ground skills are taught in our clown room.
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The program provides 27 hours per week of intense, high-caliber circus theatre training.
Each week the ProTrainers will be training from 9am - 4pm Monday thru Friday.
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Our goal is for the students in our program to find work in the artistic community, so we try very hard to accommodate for the schedules of working actors and performers.
Still have questions? We're here to help! Please feel free to email us at hello@actorsgymnasium.org.
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Our students are going places.
Our graduates have gone on to perform across the country, from Chicago’s top stages (including Lookingglass, Writers Theatre, and The Goodman) to Broadway tours and more.
