Youth theater programs heat up in summertime
By ERIC MARCHESE
Nearly every major Orange County theater company has an eye on cultivating a love of theater within young people.
Most take advantage of summer, when students are off from school. Each youth theater program offers a distinct emphasis or approach.
South Coast Repertory’s Summer Players, in existence since the ’70s, taps student actors from SCR’s Kids and Teen Acting Program with at least a year in SCR’s heavily process- and life-oriented theater conservatory.
Segerstrom Center for the Arts’ Summer at the Center, in its 25th year, is aimed at high-risk and underserved teens.
Chance Theater in Anaheim’s Speak Up: Take a ‘Chance’ program, in its 11th year, guides students grades 7-12 toward developing their storytelling and playwriting skills.
And new this year is American Coast Children’s Theatre, which gets off the ground this month with a pair of two-week musical theater workshops for kids ages 6-15.
All four programs culminate in public performances of full productions.
South Coast Repertory
Hisa Takakuwa, SCR’s theater conservatory director since 2005, said that unlike most others, SCR’s is a process-oriented program. “So the goal is that everything we do is really about them understanding the craft of being an actor and everything it takes to create theater.”
The program also has a crucial advantage, she said. “We’re using long-term students we have relationships with, with the goal of both building on and enhancing their training.”
While for most youth programs, the goal is the finished full production, Takukawa said SCR offers a much deeper process. “(It involves) not just giving them a structure (blocking, etc.), but understanding the ‘why’ of the structure – for example exploring relationships between the characters and their motivations and actions.”
Cast in the upcoming production of “Disney’s Beauty and the Beast,”Sarah Cocroft and Kat Lewis each have been involved with SCR for years.
Cocroft said she and her older sister wanted to find a theater that would help them grow in their lifelong passion for acting. “We tried a few different theaters, but never really felt a connection to stay – until we found SCR.”
The choice, she said, was easy: “It was a professional theater, it was close to home, and we had heard so many wonderful comments about it.”
Lewis said she’s grateful that the conservatory values process over product. “The skills and training I’ve gotten from this program will be useful in whatever path I end up on.”
Segerstrom Center for the Arts
Talena Mara, Segerstrom Center for Arts vice president of education, said the Summer at the Center program “offers high-risk and underserved high-school-age teenagers facing personal challenges a safe environment in which to grow, trust and develop self-esteem and positive goals.”
Using a musical theater format, the program’s professional teaching artists create daily lessons and exercises that engage participants over a two-week period in what Mara called fun, creative and productive ways, after which they perform a Broadway revue-style show in the 300-seat Samueli Theater.
The program, Mara said, is designed to boost confidence in students and help them develop self-respect and discipline.
“(It also) preps students to perform, dance, and speak in public about their life’s journey and how the program itself has helped them to grow, and teaches them that taking healthy risks in a safe environment truly influences their path forward,” Mara said.
Chance Theater
Anaheim’s Chance Theater hosts the Speak Up: Take a ‘Chance’ education program, which uses resident artists to guide students in building their storytelling skills. On June 20, students started creating an original play they’ll perform later this month.
Karen O’Hanlon, Chance’s education director, said no two years have been the same. Each year, they tailor the program to the participants involved. “(The participants) help guide the processes used, the questions raised and possible answers,” said O’Hanlon.
“Unfortunately, there are pretty dramatic events that have happened recently that have affected students directly and indirectly – things they don’t quite understand. And we use theater to explore these things.”
Darryl Hovis, producing associate for Chance’s Theater for Young Audiences series, said Speak Up is about empowering students to embrace what makes them unique. “By sharing their own stories, they can begin to take control of their own lives and realize that there is a community out there that identifies (with them) and they aren’t alone,” he said.
“A lot of (other) programs teach students acting skills, or give them a chance to perform.” Hovis said. “But Speak Up allows them to dive into the creation process from concept to creation, and speak, no pun intended, to the things that are important to them.”
Alexia Rosa is in her third year with Speak Up. After Hovis spoke to performing arts students at Anaheim High, the junior said, “I knew I had to join.”
Hovis explained “how we get to write our own show and how we make our own monologues and scenes – how we are the creators, that we don’t just get a script and read from there,” Rosa said.
The Anaheim Hills company, Rosa said, is a safe place for anyone who chooses to join. “As the director, Darryl, always says, ‘You are enough.’ This simple statement has gotten me through so much and so many different obstacles in my life, and without the Chance family, I’m not sure where I would be,” she said.
American Coast Children’s Theatre
American Coast Children’s Theatre launched July 5 with a pair of two-week workshops at the Lyceum Theater.
Lissa Slay, ACCT’s director of education, said professionals and college interns at the American Coast Theatre Company, the resident professional theater troupe at Vanguard University, help students develop musical theater skills, life skills and theatrical excellence in a safe, encouraging and professional environment.
Slay said the 10-day camp includes workshops in areas such as scenic design, makeup, stage combat, improvisation and technical theater.
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