Acting & Musical Theatre
The Acting and Musical Theatre program gives interested students the opportunity to study the practical and theoretical elements of live theatre. The program integrates classwork and practical workshops with an active production schedule that includes two main-stage productions a year and a variety of student projects.
Class Levels
This course is an overview of the American Musical Theater through the study of its’ elements and its’ history as well as hands on experience with 2 musical pieces. This course addresses how to approach the imaginary circumstances of musical acting by working with objectives, obstacles, tactics, relationships, beats and personalization. as well as explores the music, lyrics and libretto of a musical and teaches the student to look at (and listen to) these components of a musical for clues to character development.
Students will perform in our annual Winterfest & SpringFest shows.
This course is an overview of the American Musical Theater through the study of its’ elements and its’ history as well as hands on experience with 2 musical pieces. This course addresses how to approach the imaginary circumstances of musical acting by working with objectives, obstacles, tactics, relationships, beats and personalization. as well as explores the music, lyrics and libretto of a musical and teaches the student to look at (and listen to) these components of a musical for clues to character development.
Students will perform in our annual Winterfest & SpringFest shows.
7 Week Children’s Acting Class Series with Robin Frome
Ages 9-12
Beginning Tuesday, September 13th
5:00-7:00pm
$300
A performance class culminating in an in-house production of The Legend of Sleepy Hollow!
Take a journey through acting out the story of Ichabod Crane and the Headless Horseman circa 1790. Student actors will be in Colonial garb playing parts like Ichabod, Baltis Van Tassel, Katrina Van Tassel and Brom Bones in addition to other characters that make up the town of Sleepy Hollow. The class will culminate in a full fledged production with costumes, lighting and special effects. The show will be directed and written for the stage by Drama Director, Robin Frome, who has staged this story in the past with all ages. The script will be tailored to the make up of the workshop participants and parts will be auditioned.
Parts will be assigned from open class auditions and classes will be set up as rehearsals for 7 weeks. A performance will be held on the last class, Tuesday, October 25th, at 7:30pm.
7 Week Children’s Acting Class Series with Robin Frome
Ages 9-12
Beginning Tuesday, November 1st
5:00-7:00pm
$375
A performance class culminating in a production of The Nutcracker and The Mouse King during Winterfest at NMHS on 12/16 & 12/17!
This performance workshop centers around a story written in 1816 by Prussian author E. T. A. Hoffmann, in which young Marie Stahlbaum’s favorite Christmas toy, the Nutcracker, comes alive and, after defeating the evil Mouse King in battle, whisks her away to a magical kingdom populated by dolls. Students will be playing roles such as Marie, her brother Fritz, The Nutcracker and The Mouse King and host of other doll characters. The class will culminate in a full fledged production with costumes, lighting and special effects. The show will be directed and written for the stage by Drama Director, Robin Frome, who has staged this story in the past with all ages. The script will be tailored to the make up of the workshop participants and parts will be auditioned.
Parts will be assigned from open class auditions and classes will be set up as rehearsals for 7 weeks. The class will perform in Act 1 of FineLine’s Winterfest performances at New Milford High School on Friday, December 16th and Saturday, December 17th. Tech/dress rehearsal information for the week of December 11th TBA.
Masks Optional.
This class explores the principles of the Stankislavski method tailored especially for this age level. Through improvisations, scene and monologue study, audition techniques, voice and diction training, some stage dialect work and performance in one or more one act plays or scenes, students will learn the basics of character development, technical blocking and stage directions and performance values. The class will culminate in a performance of scenes, monologues or a one act and a collection of improvisation games in front of a live audience.
Improvisation taps into the part of most student’s brains that seldom gets fully activated or utilized and is the most powerful tool available to build confidence in student performers. Students will learn to create expression, imagination, and appreciation in group dynamics. They will create scenes and narrative structures and develop their improv skills through games and learn to make, accept and extend offers in improvisation.
7 Week Adult Acting Class Series with Robin Frome
Ages 17+
Beginning Wednesday, September 14th
7:30-9:00pm
$215
This class will explore various types of methods of acting for the older teen and adult from the amateur to the experienced. Students will work on scenes and monologues from all genres from Contemporary to Shakespeare to the Greeks. Method acting and Meisner will be broached with excercises in both disciplines in character development, voice and diction and scene and monologue analysis. Students can also use this as a workshopping lab of prepared audition pieces for use in future production auditions in schools, theaters or professional acting studios.
This workshop will culminate in a prepared scene or monologue at the end of each term.
Masks Optional.
Dress Code
Comfortable but appropriate clothing, nothing that will distract from work at hand, ie: pulling clothing up or down, unable to move fully.
