Rising STAR Summer Theater Experience

    Shoreline Arts Alliance will offer a program this summer to encourage reading, critical thinking, imagination, self-worth and educational development among school-aged children and has instituted a week-long summer theater experience for children in collaboration with its annual Shakespeare on the Shoreline event. The Rising Star Summer Theater Experience will be held July 29 – August 2 from 8:30am – 3pm daily on the Guilford Green.  Tuition for this program is $250 and need based scholarships are available.  Promoting the arts as a method of educating and empowering, the program intends to specifically cater to the youth of the community, offering children and teenagers the opportunity to become involved in an artistic endeavor that speaks to their own needs, desires, dreams, and aspirations. Aiming to allow every child to contribute his or her strongest skills and talents and to develop others, this theater experience speaks to a child’s desire and need to be recognized and nurtured as a successful individual as well as a strong, contributory member of a group.
    Alongside the goals of promoting creativity, critical thinking, cooperation, literary enrichment, and self-confidence, this weeklong program is designed to offer a more in-depth educational experience for youth participants.  Providing training from professional instructors for all participants in script analysis and performance, with some additional attention to set design, sound and lighting, costume design, and stage management as well as training in work/life skills (proper dress, inter-personal development, public speaking, communication, etc.).  For many of the older participants these crucial skills can aid in admission to college or entrance into the workforce.
    Shoreline Arts Alliance will employ Shakesperience Productions, Inc. for the operation of the Shakespeare on the Shoreline Rising Star Summer Theater Experience. A nonprofit professional, educational theatre founded in 1996 and headquartered in Waterbury, this organization serves Connecticut school systems and those of neighboring states, reaching over seventy communities per year. A recipient of “Arts Organization of the Year” by Waterbury Neighborhood Council, Shakesperience’s programming has proven a regular success among its client schools, with 93% of these schools rescheduling events with the company year after year.
   Shakespeare on the Shoreline Rising Star Theater Experience will offer youth between the ages of seven and seventeen the opportunity to study the art of acting and theatrical production. In the first year of its inception, this program will begin with sixteen to eighteen campers, expanding staff where necessary if the number of interested students exceeds these numbers. Learning how to perform a monologue, execute an audition, design a set, and interpret a script, students will be grouped and cast into an adapted Shakespearean play to be performed for family, friends, and community members. Students will receive invaluable experience seeing a production from start to finish while gaining exposure to quality literature. Taking the reading of a play beyond classroom walls, students will be encouraged to use their creativity, imagination, and collaborative skills to participate in the direction of shows and see plays grow from a concept to a finished product. For registration form click here.
    With the addition of this summer theater experience for children, the annual Shakespeare on the Shoreline programming will be expanded to encompass and involve the youth of the community more specifically, granting them access to hands-on experience in the world of theatrics. The mission is to instill an enduring passion for learning by not only allowing students to participate in an educational opportunity outside of school, but to also take reading, interpersonal skills, and self-expression of ideas beyond the classroom and into a public, professional setting. Showing students how their education can be supplemented and expanded  upon  in the world beyond school walls, the program ultimately intends to allow each student to bring his or her personal strengths and passions to a creative setting, encouraging each individual’s separate proficiencies and capabilities. In addition, students are shown that through a collaborative process, these individual skills can come together to create a powerful display of culminating talents. Brought together to achieve the same goal, students learn the importance of valuing others’ thoughts, opinions, and personal strengths to create and complete a successful project. Emphasizing the importance of individual ability and group cooperation, the program builds upon the building blocks of institutional education, allowing students to apply these fundamental principles to a “real world” setting. Ultimately, these kinds of experiences promise to prepare students for successful lives in which they will utilize their personal and collaborative strengths in future educational and professional settings.
    Rising Star Summer Theater Experience is funded in part by May & Jeff Beeman, Liz & Niall Ferguson, Guilford Foundation, Guilford Fund for Education, National Roofing, CT Department of Economic & Community Development-Office of the Arts and Sennheiser Electronic Corporation.