Theatrical Education

 

New Artists Productions provides an opportunity for kids to learn about theater in a theatrical environment – the stage becomes the classroom. We offer opportunities for youth to test their talents, expand their experiences, and become involved in dramatic plays, musicals, comedies, summer camps, and concerts.

We provide the exposure to theater in a variety of ways – practical, experimental, and formal. The practical method is to hand kids the script, the plot, and to help them through the lines and the scenes. The experimental is to have the kids help with the preparation and writing of the script. Dan has written several plays involving improvisational opportunities for the actors, line writing by the actors, and staging or choreographing scenes. This has worked out well as the kids feel the ownership of their presentation of their craft.

The formal exposure is through ‘fieldtrips’ taken by the group over the years. We tour other venues, we see Broadway type shows that tour the country to our state or area. We bring specialists to our workshops and camps to talk about professional theater, and we perform at other venues to not only generate a new audience base, but give the kids experience on a different stage.

The actors learn that not every venue has the same capabilities of their home-base venue. Many do not have the same lighting and sound systems, scenery capabilities to fly or hang painted drops or set structures (trees, building facades, drapery, etc.). New Artists Productions has discovered that no script is written for our home-base venue. So we must “create” to make the production feasible and entertaining.

New Artists Productions has adapted over the years to acquire specific sound and lighting projection equipment and/or build set/prop structures – tables and mobile carts designed to hold scenery on framework. Even though the home-base venue may be so equipped, we utilize many of these added items to enhance our productions.