Home American Shakespeare Center hosts Theatre Camp Festival
Local

American Shakespeare Center hosts Theatre Camp Festival

theater-masks2The first session of the 2016 American Shakespeare Center Theatre Camp presents its final performances (free and open to the public) on Sunday, July 10, 2016 starting at noon at the Blackfriars Playhouse.

The ASC Theatre Camp is a program for young, aspiring actors who seek professional level training in a college preparatory environment.  For three weeks, campers learn Shakespeare’s rehearsal and staging conditions by participating in performance master classes including voice, movement, audience contact, text preparation, combat and more, while rehearsing for their final hour-long performances of a play from Shakespeare’s canon. Every camper will also participate in the session’s showcase event, a staged reading of  Shakespeare’s Henry VIII.  Along with Henry VI, Part 2, and Session II’s production of King John later this summer, Henry VIII marks the camp’s completion of William Shakespeare’s established canon of plays.  This summer, the ASC will host 13-18 year old campers from 12 different states and the nation’s capitol.

“I get to do things here I would never get to do anywhere else.” said Dash Thompson, a camper from DC. Nora Flynn-Mciver from Asheville, NC, added “This has been the best experience of my life for two years in a row.”

Lia Wallace, College Prep Programs Manager and Camp Director for the ASC, knows the effect that these three weeks have on the campers’ lives: “ASC Theatre Camp graduates are marked by a creative confidence that allows them to succeed in all areas of life, because the purpose of camp is not to train a new crop of Shakespearean actors.  The purpose of camp is to prepare the next generation of fully engaged human beings.”

This group of talented young actors will perform one-hour versions of William Shakespeare’s Henry VI, Part 2 , directed by Marshall B Garrett, from 12:00 p.m. – 1:00 p.m; and A Midsummer Night’s Dream, directed by Molly Seremet, from 1:30 p.m. – 2:30 p.m.  A Midsummer Night’s Dream is Shakespeare’s fairy-tale romance, complete with feuding fairies, fleeing lovers, and well-meaning fools.  Caught between the houses York and Lancaster, England erupts into civil war in Henry VI, Part 2.   The final performances are free and open to the public, and the ASC invites everyone to come and support these young actors as they take the stage with these three exciting shows. Session II of the ASC Theatre Camp begins on July 17 with final performances on August 7 of Much Ado About Nothing, Macbeth, and King John.

 

About American Shakespeare Center Theatre Camp

The American Shakespeare Center Theatre Camp is a three-week overnight camp for high school students aged 13- 18. Campers get a taste of college life – living on the Mary Baldwin University campus, and finding a balance between work and play. While at ASCTC, campers work together and with ASC actors, professional directors, and renowned scholars to study the world of Shakespeare’s stagecraft at the world’s only re-creation of Shakespeare’s indoor theatre, the Blackfriars Playhouse.  Each ASCTC session culminates with a performance festival, where campers perform one-hour versions of early modern plays.  ASCTC is the only theatre camp in the nation that provides college credit options for campers.

About the American Shakespeare Center

The American Shakespeare Center in Staunton, VA, recovers the joys and accessibility of Shakespeare’s theatre, language, and humanity by exploring the English Renaissance stage and its practices through performance and education.  The ASC’s Blackfriars Playhouse, the world’s only re-creation of Shakespeare’s indoor theatre, is open year-round for productions of classic plays, which have been hailed by The Washington Post as “shamelessly entertaining” and by The Boston Globe as “phenomenal…bursting with energy.”  Founded in 1988 as Shenandoah Shakespeare Express, the organization became the American Shakespeare Center in 2005 and can be found online at www.americanshakespearecenter.com.

Contributors

Contributors

Have a guest column, letter to the editor, story idea or a news tip? Email editor Chris Graham at [email protected]. Subscribe to AFP podcasts on Apple PodcastsSpotifyPandora and YouTube.