I’d like to share a common theme in my conversations with Imagination Stage families, a theme which I relate to personally. I hear frequently from parents that being in an acting or dance class has had a positive impact on their child. Many parents talk of how it has brought their child out of his/her shell, helped develop empathy, provided more confidence, or even—as one parent shared—given her and her teenage daughter a common interest to talk about. When I hear these comments and watch our students grow their theatre skills, I remember how theatre has also changed my life.

Growing up in Baltimore, once upon a time and many years ago, we didn’t have access to the kinds of programs that Imagination Stage provides. There were no drama classes in my neighborhood, and I can count on one hand the number of plays I saw on school field trips. Elementary and middle school provided no outlet for a sensitive, theatrical, and arguably odd kid. But things changed when I reached high school. Within the first month, the school held auditions for a school play: Our Town. Excited for the new experience I auditioned and was cast as the choir director, Simon Stimson. Despite being a freshman and having absolutely no acting experience I got a role. I think my deep voice and height helped me land the role of this 40-something New Hampshire man. Through this role I began to discover for myself what it was to create a character, choose tactics, and how to play someone who was the opposite of who I was in nearly every way. While I had a very supportive high school director, he had a whole cast of teens vying for his coaching. I would have loved to have the more personal pedagogy and dedicated teaching staff of a place like Imagination Stage to help me understand and develop my craft.  Learning to act after you’ve been cast in your first show is a kind of trial by fire—not something I would recommend to anyone.

Since that first show, I have been in nearly 100 productions, including ones at my high school, St. Mary’s College of Maryland, and a variety of community and professional plays. I feel that these numerous theatre experiences have led me to the best moments in my life. For two years I was able to tour America with a traveling Shakespeare company, many of my best friends have been made through theatre connections, and the woman of my dreams—who I married just last month—I met at a theatre benefit.

This weekend our Musical Theatre Conservatory Seniors will be presenting Into the Woods, Jr. as their final project. I think about all of the classes in acting, singing, and dance that have brought them to this special  capstone performance. They have begun to master acting and vocal techniques that it has taken me years to learn. These young performers are graduating from their conservatory this weekend, but more importantly they have found a community of friends with whom they have shared a journey of self discovery. Which, in my experience, is more important than memorizing your lines or hitting that high note.

So, for those of you already in our classes and camps, please keep your stories coming; they warm the hearts of my colleagues and myself and remind us why we come to work each day. And now, a quick plug (I do have marketing in my title after all): for those of you considering registering for class or camp, do it! Because, in our opinion, it’s not about growing up to be an actor, it’s about growing up.

- Scott McCormick, Education Marketing Manager

Into the Woods sends our beloved Grimm fairytales on a twisted, musical journey brimming with greed, bravery, and the agony of love.

How fitting that the themes for both plays selected for this year’s Conservatory Program graduation shows center around a journey, as the productions themselves mark the end of an amazing journey for all the actors involved. 

The Conservatory Program at Imagination Stage was created to provide a process where young actors could acquire a more advanced set of tools, and a vocabulary that would challenge and push their acting skills. Most theatre experiences for young people are generally individual performance opportunities: audition for a play, get cast, rehearse, and then perform. While this can certainly provide a fun experience, it doesn’t necessarily teach actors how to act. 

The craft of acting seems deceptively easy to do.  It’s just memorizing lines, right?  How difficult can that be?  As any trained actor will tell you, it involves a lot more than that, and the students who complete the Conservatory Program at Imagination Stage understand that as well.  For four semesters these students have been studying the techniques of acting and singing alongside the same group of students and instructors.  Over the course of the program they look at character development, physical strength and dexterity, vocal variation, and script analysis.  For their final semester, they are handed off to a professional director and design team to begin rehearsing their graduation production– an important opportunity to apply all the knowledge they have gained.

 Most of the students’ theatrical journeys did not begin with their first semester of Conservatory. Bronya Lechtman (8^th grade and in East of the Sun…) first took a Drama and Music class with Imagination Stage at the age of three, back when we were located at White Flint Mall, right around the same time as Michelle Schrier (9^th grader and in Into the Woods), who began when she was only two!  Most of their classmates also took a variety of classes and summer camps at Imagination Stage or their school before signing up to audition for the Conservatory Program.

So has the classroom work paid off?  I’m confident these productions will exceed your expectations of what young people can do, but what pleases me more is how the actors themselves view the difference in their work after their experience in Conservatory.  When I asked the students to compare this show to previous performances at their schools or other youth theatre companies, they almost all mentioned the degree of character building that has gone into the work. “With other shows I have been in,” says Teddy Sullivan (9^th grade and in Into the Woods), “it was all just staging, and learning dance steps.  However, with this rehearsal process, we are really developing deep characters and finding the subtext, making our show not just going through the motions, but giving us a reason to what we are saying.”  With shows that have large numbers of young actors, directors can easily get stuck in simply moving the performers around the stage.  Go there. Move that arm. Smile!!  It is a crucial element in our curriculum at Imagination Stage that we encourage our students to understand why their characters are moving around the stage.  As actors, we seek to motivate every action.  Every line we say is based on what our characters need.  Bronya loved that while her director helped guide her in the process, she was able to make her own decisions about her character and her character’s actions. She wasn’t merely a pawn being moved around the stage.

In addition to the students’ work in technique, Imagination Stage also seeks to replicate the professional experience of the production process by hiring directors who are both dedicated educators as well as working professionals in the field.  This adds another very different element to rehearsing a show here at Imagination Stage.  Annika Cowles, a 9^th grader in Into the Woods, remarks that “after each rehearsal of blocking and music learning, we had to go home and memorize it. The adults who worked with us didn’t ‘baby’ us. They told us their expectations and their vision for the show. They didn’t have time for us to not have things memorized or to be talking with our friends. We had to come in, put aside our personal problems, and be completely focused and ready to take blocking notes or stand in for someone who was practicing in another room.” 

 Being an actor requires a huge amount of vulnerability. Actors of all levels find it incredibly important to have the support of their fellow class or cast mates, and our conservatories are no different.  “I didn’t expect that I would make such amazing friends,” says Chewey Delaplaine (9^th grader, Into the Woods). “With each [Imagination Stage experience], I gain more and more great friends, I learn valuable lessons, and have so much fun.”  A sense of ensemble is such an important part of creating a piece of theatre.  The actors in a show need to have a connection with one another on stage. They need to move in sync, breath together, and trust each other.  Trust that they will have each other’s backs during the actual show, and that they will support each other in their journey to experiment and take risks with the work. While Teddy noticed the professional, business-like nature of the rehearsal process, he also has a deep appreciation for the fact that his class is like a family, “and that family-like atmosphere pushed us forward, making our performances better, and making us become better performers.”

I certainly hope you’ll come see the culminations of the two journeys these graduating Acting and Musical Theatre Conservatories have traveled!  We celebrate not just the work they have put into these specific shows, but also the work they have accomplished over the last two years; the dedication and commitment they have made to Imagination Stage, to each other, and to themselves as theatre artists.

 - Nikki Kaplan, Associate Director of Education 

East of the Sun and West of the Moon ~ Performed by the Acting Conservatory Senior Class, December 2-4

Into the Woods, JR ~ Performed by the Musical Theatre Conservatory Senior Class, December 16-18

CLICK HERE FOR TICKETS 

In my adult life, the most significant example of my parents’ party influence can be seen in an annual Halloween party that my husband and I throw. We are now in our 12^th iteration and the parties have grown from 30 people to 150+ people in our smallish house.

So, when I joined the staff at Imagination Stage in July of 2009, I was thrilled that part of my job would be creating unique community engagement events that reflect the creativity we have on staff, on stage, and in our classrooms (in 2010, I worked on both a 1979 Dance Party and the Pirate Treasure Hunt for our 30^th anniversary). I couldn’t ask for better collaborators. Imagination Stage has some of the most fun, hardworking, thoughtful, and creative people I have ever encountered. This is a group that knows how to have serious fun (not just a tagline…we walk the walk).

This year, we are kicking off the Imagination Stage season with a new style of open house on September 10, 2011: ImagiFest. The goal is to get people excited about both our education and theatrical offerings for the coming year. We created an interdepartmental team to make this the best open house ever. Lilly, Chad, Scott, McKenzie, David, and I have been working on this event for more than three months. We’ve had good ideas, bad ideas, funny ideas, etc. In the end, we think we have come up with something appropriately outrageous to kick off our 32^nd year.

Riffing on the themes in Dr. Dolittle, we decided we need to have a safari through the building that takes you to all the exciting worlds of our theatre season. Kids will get a passport for travel, and we will go from the desert in Aladdin’s Luck, to Hip-Hopia from P.Nokio, to a land far away in Rapunzel, and lastly to Narnia from The Lion, The Witch & The Wardrobe. Each location will be an appropriately decorated for the environment (designed and fabricated by Jared Davis, local set-designer and my husband/party co-conspirator).

I have included a couple preliminary designs for the event. In addition to this safari, we have more traditional sample classes; previews of Aladdin’s Luck and a new early childhood piece, Mouse on the Move; a chalk art wall (inspired by the Graffiti Fairy in P.Nokio); behind-the-scenes tours; and more. If you would like to see a complete schedule, you can click HERE.

In my opinion, great events (for kids or adults) require a good balance between structure and free play.  I think we have struck that balance with ImagiFest and hope that this is an event we can, and will, repeat annually. Grab your pith helmet, binoculars, and imagination…an interactive adventure awaits you.

-Kate Taylor Davis, Director of External Relations

Elijah Lawrence with Gala co-chairs after singing at kick-off event

Elijah Lawrence has been a student/performer at Imagination Stage for most of his life.  He started in classes when he was five years old and is now a high school freshman at Duke Ellington School of the Arts.  Along the way, Elijah has taken many Imagination Stage classes and summer camps, graduated from the Acting Conservatory and sung in numerous Galas.  For those of us who have watched him grow over the years, his talent, smile and warm personality are a joy. 

 As Elijah prepares to perform in Imagination Stage’s Gala on October 23 and then sing with Peter Yarrow (of Peter, Paul and Mary fame) on October 24 in a concert to benefit the Hydrocephalus Association, we had a chance to chat with him about his experiences and studies in the arts. 

Imagination Stage (IS): When did you first start studying music/singing?
Elijah Lawrence (EL): Ever since I can remember, I used to sing “Clementine” all the time in the hallway at school!
IS: What are some of your favorite class and camp experiences?
EL: One of my favorite classes at Imagination Stage was “Broadway Song and Dance” taught by Kierstie [Whitehead]. It was a lot of fun being in Oliver and Fiddler on the Roof during summer camp.
IS: You’ve sung in a lot of cool places. What are two or three performances you have done that you have especially enjoyed?
EL: I got to sing with Peter Yarrow in at the Children’s Inauguration Ball and we did a lot of well-known songs.  I have a picture in my room from that concert. 
IS: And you got to sing the Star Spangled Banner at the U.S. Tennis Open in New York—that sounds pretty cool!
EL: Yeah…
IS:  What are your goals for singing and performing?
EL: I want to work on not straining my voice and having more freedom with my singing.  
IS: Thanks and keep up all the great work, Elijah!

Now in our thirty-second year, we at Imagination Stage continue to strive every day to fulfill our mission of producing children’s theatre and arts education programs which nurture, challenge, and empower young people of all abilities.  We envision a future where theatre experiences are a fundamental aspect of children’s lives, nourishing their creative spirit, inspiring them to embrace the complexity and diversity of their world and helping them overcome their challenges with hope, courage and, above all, creativity.

Our fall classes in creative drama/acting, dance, musical theatre and filmmaking for ages 1-18 begin during this week honoring Arts in Education and we look forward to welcoming many hundreds of eager, open, creative students.  We are most definitely in the spirit, and hope you are too. Sing a little song, do a little jig,  take a moment to be a drama queen and enjoy Arts in Education Week.

We are taking it day-by-day, but hope that everything will be on a normal schedule by Saturday. We’ve added an 11:00 performance on Monday, February 15, which is President’s Day and will be looking for other opportunities to add performances to make up for the ones which have been canceled.

Meanwhile, rumors are that Bird and Duck have migrated south, that Peter and his Grandfather are sipping hot cocoa in the farmhouse and that the show’s stage manager is stranded in Baltimore.

Below is a letter to Diane Nutting, Imagination Stage’s Director of Access and Outreach, from the mother of a 14 year-old boy with Asperger Syndrome:

“Social interactions and group activities are very difficult for my son. Although enormously interested in a variety of topics…he has little opportunity to share his interests with others. He doesn’t really have friends. At Imagination Stage he got a taste of something different. At your suggestion, he took a class on a topic he know a lot about (Shakespeare), which gave him a sense of security. You provided him with a wonderful dedicated aide, who quietly guided him through any difficult situations that arose, coaching him toward more appropriate interactions…To see him play Feste in the final scene of Twelfth Night on the last day of camp, singing a song with half a dozen children dancing around him, was a dream come true. He breaks out in a grin whenever I remind him of the experience.

Saying people with disabilities are welcome is one thing, but making that commitment meaningful by putting substance behind it is another. What sets Imagination Stage apart, in my experience, is that you and your staff put so much intelligence, enthusiasm, creativity and STAFFING behind your words. From the first conversations I had with you, the questions I asked and the suggestions that were made reflected a real understanding of autism spectrum disorders and the strategies that work to support a student.”