The Teen Scene: Summer Theater

By: Anna Ziering

Have you spent this summer missing your
drama club? Have you been getting together
with friends reliving last year’s musical?
Have you found yourself reciting dramatic
passages from “Hamlet” or “Our Town”
while you lounge on the couch? All of these
things are signs of theater withdrawal.
When the school year ends, drama people
find themselves in a summer theater limbo
that get can boring really fast. If you’ve
been suffering from it, take a look at some
of these programs for next summer! If you
don’t live near any of them, look online to
discover similar opportunities in your
hometown.

Boston Children’s Theater Stagemobile
Tour Company is a group of 20 teenagers who rehearse a wide variety of
genres, from Just So Stories to Broadway. During playwriting classes,
participants also produce original scenes, which are incorporated into the
performances and directed by the participants. During the eight-week day
program, the troupe performs as many as forty times in and around
Boston on the Stagemobile, a truck that carries all the props and costumes
to the location, and then unfolds into a mobile stage for touring
performances. You build up your theater skills by training with
professional artist mentors, and you build up your biceps by converting
the truck to stage and back! Participation in the program is by interview
and audition.

If you are looking for a more traditional theater experience, check out
Newton Summer Stage, a summer theater program for students in grades
six through twelve. With their professional-level productions, it’s hard to
believe that the entire program is produced by people under the age of 26.
David Bloom, the oldest member of the production staff and a current
Executive Producer and Director, has been working with Summer Stage
since it started in 2001. Along with the other members of the staff, he has
turned NSS from a small program that struggled to gather enough people
for a full cast to a vibrant program with over 100 students auditioning, a
20-person staff, and professional orchestras. This summer, Bloom
brought the program to another level by turning it into a full summer
stock event, with four productions going up in the space of six weeks.
This intensive day program is rewarding and impressive! Participation is
by audition for performers, and by interview/application for staff and
tech. For more information, go to http://newtonsummerstage.com.

If you are looking to eat, sleep, and breathe
theater, check out Carnegie Mellon’s Pre-
College Drama program. This six-week
overnight program is a replica of a conserv-
atory education in acting, musical theatre,
or design/technical production designed to
prepare high school juniors for auditions for
conservatory programs. Students take classes
like Acting, Audition, Improv, Dramatic Literature, Speech, Singing,
Ballet, Jazz, Lighting, Stagecraft, Costume, Playwriting, and Directing.
You won’t do a play, but at the end of the program you have prepared a
full audition sequence that can be used for plays, musicals, or
conservatories, which you put into play in an audition for the
conservatory program at Carnegie Mellon University. When the program
ends, you get evaluations from teachers and advice about what to do
during your senior year to increase your chances of getting into a
conservatory. Admission is by application. For more information, go to
http://www.cmu.edu/enrollment/pre-college/drama.html.

If you don’t want to participate in a summer program, or you need a
drama fix right now, try some of these less structured ideas:

•        Grab a friend, memorize a scene, and recite it as you walk down the
street. If you pick a well-known one, you may get some good looks from
passers-by. If you pick an obscure one, do your best to make it seem like a
real conversation.

•        If you have public transportation in your town – subways are better
than buses - grab a group of friends and memorize something from
Shakespeare. Then get on a train, singly or in small groups. After a stop or
two, stand up and start doing the scene! Get really into it. When you’re
done, just sit back down and get off at the next stop.

•        Memorize a monologue! There’s a behemoth of a monologue in
Wendy Wasserstein’s The Heidi Chronicles. Try learning it all in one
sitting. This is a great activity for long car rides.

•        Blast a musical from your iTunes or CD player, and rather than just
singing alone, act the whole thing out – preferably in front of a mirror.
Rent is great for this, because it’s so long and so emotional that, by the
end, you’ll feel as if you’ve really performed it.

•        Look through your local newspaper for plays in your area. Go watch
them and pretend you’re a theater critic! If you write something about
the play, try sending it in to the newspaper that advertised the show –
maybe they’ll print it!