Acting Classes

This course introduces students to the fundamental skills and tools that will help them learn to be a confident speaker, listener and actor in theater and in life.  Students build self-awareness, develop their imagination and concentration, recognize their emotional truth, learn acting and character analysis and vocabulary, work in teams, and expand the ability to be fully present in their voice and body. They participate in exercises and games as well as in classroom comedic and dramatic scenes and monologues.  There is no public performance, and no previous experience is required.

Recommendation: Successful completion of Acting I with grade of C or higher.
 

This second year of acting expands upon the skills learned in Acting I.  Students study, prepare and perform scenes in various acting styles such as Greek tragedy, contemporary realism, and Wilde’s British comedies.  Students learn audition techniques and cold reading strategies, and they write and perform their own monologues and scenes in order to make connections between their lives and society.  

Recommendation: B- or above in Acting II and approval of teacher.
 

The third and fourth years of acting focus on plays for performance.  Students learn proper audition techniques and participate in plays from rehearsals through performance as actors and/or backstage technicians for fall and spring productions.  The final production of the year is often a fully student written, directed and produced work. 

This course provides opportunities for students to delve further into backstage theatrical skills and ideas.  Students will concentrate on studying production elements that include directing, stage management and playwriting skills, as well as theatrical design areas and acting techniques.  This course integrates theater skills for the career-oriented theater student, or for someone who wants to translate theater production skills into other careers (e.g. graphic design, writing, fashion, sound design, etc.).  The class will be hands-on project-based learning tailored to the students’ interests and needs.