This class will develop a mini-musical culminating in a performance on the final date for family and friends that includes minor set pieces, costumes, props , and stage lighting. A favorite of students grades K to 2 for many years, our Music Box Theatre class is expanding this year, with a pair of teachers working together as director and music director to provide more one-on-one focus and attention to students, create more challenging and creative staging, and add a bit more production value (minor set pieces, props, costumes, and stage lighting), so students have a better sense of what the experience of “putting on a show” may be like. Using song, character expression and choreographed movements and gestures as storytelling tools, students will assemble a mini-musical based upon a story or fable that they will perform for families on the final class. A new mini-musical is explored each session for recurring students. A new mini-musical is explored each session for recurring students. This fall's selection is entitled, A Three Piggy "Opera," (which is a comical reference to the Broadway musical title, A Three Penny Opera). Students will be cast in various roles and provided with a script and recorded music tracks. The class will also include special craft projects which will be incorporated into their performance. All students must be available for their performance on the final date (November 14).
This class will develop a stage play (based on a book, fable, or piece of children's literature) culminating in a performance on the final date for family and friends that includes minor set pieces, costumes, props, and stage lighting. In this drama class, students will develop stage adaptations such as fractured fairy tales, Aesop’s fables, fiction, and non-fiction stories that will be used to teach educational lessons. (A new adaptation is explored each session for recurring students. This fall's selection is TBD.) Together, they will learn basic stage skills and direction, explore character development, creative use of movement, develop stage-speaking skills, and build confidence! At the end of this course the students will present this performance for an invited audience (with costumes, props, minor set pieces, and stage lighting). This acting class promises to be fun, exciting and memorable. All students must be available for the showcase performance on the final date (November 18).
*No class 9/25 (Yom Kippur) or 10/9 (Columbus/ Indigenous Peoples Day)
This class is a dance/ movement class to help students build confidence in movement and learn how actors can use their bodies to create characters and tell stories. Young performers will build comfort and confidence in learning to use their bodies as acting tools. Acting requires more than words. Actors and dancers use their bodies and facial expressions to inform the audience of what kind of personality they are, and what they are feeling and thinking. Just simply how a character stands or how they walk can tell us an awful lot about them. (A giant would move very differently than a mouse, for example.) In this class, students will use music and movement exercises, and choreography to get in tune with their bodies creatively, and explore how body language, posture, gesture and facial expression can be used as effectively as a costume in order to create a character. They will also use masks and work with props.
Registration: $136 for all eight weeks or register as a drop-in at just $20 per class.
Music Box Theatre: An Introduction to Musical Theatre, Grades K to 2