A look at First Stage Theater Academy - Beginning and End of Day

By Caroline Abraham, Marketing/Public Relations Intern

Photos by Jennifer McClellan, Creative Services Manager

Being new to First Stage as the marketing/public relations intern this summer, I did not entirely understand what Theater Academy was all about. I knew their motto was “teaching life skills through stage skills,” but I didn’t even truly understand what that meant. This past week I had the liberty of sitting in on two Theater Academy sessions, Beginning of Day and End of Day. What I witnessed at these sessions taught me more about Theater Academy than anyone could have ever explained.

At 8:30 a.m. I rolled out of bed and got ready in just enough time to make it to the Milwaukee Youth Arts Center for Theater Academy’s daily Beginning of Day gathering. As I walked in to the room I expected to be greeted by a group of tired, sluggish children. However, I have never been so wrong.

Beginning of Day started with Associate Academy Director Laurie Nicholas DeMoon shouting “Welcome to beginning of day!” This announcement caused uproar among the children who began cheering and pounding on the ground. The excitement in the room was enough to force me out of my lethargic mood. While some might think getting children this riled up at the beginning of a meeting is asking for disaster, the Academy students fell silent with a simple “shh.”

Announcements were next on the Beginning of Day list. While Laurie had some quick announcements of her own, many of the announcements came from the students themselves.

Beginning of Day always ends with challenges, which in my opinion was the greatest part of the meeting. Challenges are the students’ ideas of what can be worked on throughout the day. Some challenges included being more focused, being quiet while walking through the hallways and my personal favorite, eating lunch with someone new. After challenges, the students all stand up and belt out the Academy cheer. Then the children break off and head out to their specific classes for the day.

Around 4:00, once all classes are finished, the Academy students meet up again for End of Day. This part of the day is set up very much like Beginning of Day. Academy Director John Maclay welcomes the students, followed by 30 seconds of chaos, and then announcements are given. During End of Day, however, acknowledgements are given instead of challenges. Acknowledgements allow the students’ to give others recognition for good deeds done throughout the day.

Before the students leave for the day, Maclay wraps up the meeting with encouraging words. He told the children that the work done as students and actors is very important, but the most important work of all is the work they do as people. He then closed the meeting by telling the students that they have two jobs, “give everyone the benefit of the doubt and take care of them.”

As I walked out of the room after End of Day, I was truly amazed by what had just happened. It takes a lot of courage to stand up in front of hundreds of peers and talk about challenges and acknowledgements, but these children did it with such ease. The environment was so supportive that the kids felt like they could say anything (not to mention most of them were more articulate than some adults I know).

Even though I have no talent in the arts, I wish I had gone to Theater Academy when I was younger. The lessons these kids are learning will help them in all aspects of life, which now makes me understand “teaching life skills through stage skills.” If interested, it isn’t too late to sign your child up. Registration is open through August 8, just visit http://www.firststage.org/theateracademy/.

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Summer Theater Academy - Crazy and fun

By Patrick Schley, Special Projects Coordinator

When Summer Academy begins on June 15th it will be the culmination of months and months of planning. We started way back in December when John and Laurie started thinking about what the summer would look like and when Erin and Alison got ready for the thousands of registrations to start pouring in. And then, in the time between December and now, we’ve been taking registrations, auditioning Company Classes, finding teachers and TA’s, copying scripts… it seems like it never ends.

Going forward from today, it’s a race to the finish. We want to make sure that everything is exactly what it’s supposed to be before hundreds of Academy students pour through the doors on the 15th. Sure, there are always some hiccups but our goal is for Academy to happen with as few hitches as possible.

So what’s my role in all of this? I see it all from afar—working remotely while pursuing my BFA in Theatre Management from The Theatre School at DePaul University in Chicago. During the prep time I do whatever possible to help the full-time staff with what they’re doing (for example, this week I’ve helped with responding to e-mails and phone calls—we get a lot). And then once Summer rolls around, I’m in the thick of it: supervising lunch, handing out band-aids, taking attendance, finding tasks for our lovely office interns.

It’s a crazy time but I love every minute of it. This will be my eleventh summer at First Stage—and can’t wait for it to begin!

Photo Patrick Schley signing and Academy T-shirt

Summer Theater Academy: 3rd-4th grade

By First Stage Children's Theater Lead Teacher "Miss Kim"

This Summer Academy, I will primarily be with the 3rd-4th grade students as their Voice, Movement, and Improvisation teacher. This has been truly one of my most favorite classes to teach. As a former actor, I can remember being completely engaged in the exploration of these three elements of acting. I love the process of trying new things and accepting when things don’t work out and the camaraderie I felt with my fellow actors. I love the flexibility in lesson planning based on the classes’ personality.

Every week is so completely different even when using the same lesson plans- some classes seem as though they’ve known each other for a whole school year, others are complete individuals working in the same room. These two different dynamics really control the outcome of what family and friends will see in the presentations. One of the challenges to teaching this class for the past three years is continually updating and revising the lesson plans.

A few summers ago, the class was using a lot of Improvisation exercises and games and learned more of the technical side of voice production and usage and movement. I also tried more of an abstract version of the class with a focus on spacial awareness and movement and sound through space. We created movement phrases based on songs from all over the world. The children seemed to really like that project. Last year, our focus was on character - how voice and movement affect the audience’s perception of a character and then we applied it to improvisation scene work. Although I’ve found many things that work well over the years (and things that fail miserably!), it is still a challenge to reinvent the same class. But it is necessary as a teacher that I continually challenge myself - as I expect the same commitment from my students.

I look forward to Summer Theater Academy because it is a chance to take a break from an academic focus and teach something that is of great interest to me.

JUNIE B. JONES: Design meeting

Today, the design team for JUNIE B. JONES AND A LITTLE MONKEY BUSINESS met at the Milwaukee Youth Arts Center to talk about the set, the props and the costumes.

JUNIE B. JONES AND A LITTLE MONKEY BUSINESS opens on October 16, 2009.

Here's a few photos from the meeting:

Set designer and scenic designer is Brandon Kirkham

IF YOU TAKE A MOUSE TO SCHOOL: Design meeting

Today the design team met at the Milwaukee Youth Arts Center to discuss the set, props and the costumes for IF YOU TAKE A MOUSE TO SCHOOL (opening March 13, 2010).

Here's a look at what happened at the meeting:

Set designer and costume designer is Brandon Kirkham

Summer Theater Academy

By First Stage Theater Academy Lead Teacher Patrick Schmitz

I am so excited to be entering my 8th Summer Academy as an improvisation teacher. This year I am also scheduled to headmaster for the downtown location from time to time. There will now be about 80 of my Organized Chaos students (First Stage improvisation team) who will be spreading the word about the success of the group and so I hope to pick up some more interest for next year.

Photo by Casandra Horton: (right) Patrick Schmitz with some of the students from the First Stage improvisation team Organized Chaos