Summer Programs  2011
Registration has begun!

Unless otherwise noted, rehearsals do not occur on weekends or national holidays.  However, all actors in productions must commit to weekend performances at the end of their program. 

Click here to read Theater Tips: Audition to Post Show Blues.

JUNIOR AND SENIOR MELODRAMA PROGRAMS

Want to learn lots of great stuff about theater by playing action packed, fun and funny cartoon characters like heroes, villains, and fools? You get to be big, bold, loud, and silly.  You dress in wild colors, and get sprayed with water or shaving cream. And at the end of the two weeks, you get to do real live shows for packed houses with audiences that hiss and boo and cheer your every move!

Melodrama has been NEYT’s favorite summer program for eleven years running. It fills up almost immediately so don’t wait! Get ready for the fun time of your life!

Junior Melodrama (ages 9 – 11)  JUNE 20 – JULY 3 9:00am-3:30pm
    Stephen Stearns’s group--performing July 1-3
    Jane Baker’s group--performing July 1-3

Tuition: $400

Senior Melodrama (ages 12 – 15)  JULY 18 – JULY 31   9:00am-3:30pm
    Stephen Stearns’s group--performing July 29-31
    Jane Baker’s group--performing July 29-31

Tuition: $400

MUSICAL THEATER: Beauty & the Beast

Ages 12-19
JUNE 20 – JULY 8, 9:00am-3:30 pm
Performing July 9-10 and July 13-17
Tuition: $500

     Singing! Dancing! Acting! During NEYT’s Musical Theater Summer Program you can play in all three areas!  Rebecca Waxman directs, with Alli Lubin as music director.
     The brainy and beautiful Belle yearns to escape her provincial life...and her brute of a suitor, Gaston. However, Belle gets more adventure than she wants when she becomes a captive in the Beast's enchanted castle! Dancing flatware, menacing wolves, and singing furniture fill the stage with thrills in this beloved fairy tale about very different people finding strength in one another and learning how to love.
     Students will be cast based on a friendly audition in the spring, so go to our auditions page on the NEYT website now to find out what to prepare! Click here for audition information.

THEATRE ADVENTURE PROGRAM

JUNIOR SHAKESPEARE

Ages 12–16
JULY 5 – JULY 17 9:00am -3:30pm
Performing July 16-17

Tuition: $400

     Kids and adults everywhere have heard about the world’s most famous playwright, William Shakespeare.  They usually think of his plays as hard to understand, humorless and dull. Boy, are they wrong!
     Peter Gould and Stephen Stearns, Vermont’s “Clown Jewels”, will take you on the fun, funny and action packed journey of your life when you act out this summer’s Jr. Shakespeare play, “The Merchant of Venice.”
     Peter and Stephen will teach you how to act Shakespeare as if you were a college student and a fool at the same time. Your vocabulary will grow by 100% and your acting skills will triple! If you want to become a good actor and you’re between the age of 12 and 16, this program is for you. Please sign up early, because we only take 16 students! 

Ages 4-5
JULY 11 - 15 9:00am-12:00pm
Tuition: $235

     Come and join the fun with a rack of costumes and props as we open up our imaginations and explore what's inside!  Theater games, songs, movement and storytelling bring characters to life, as we discover our own stories to act out in this high energy, engaging week of fun and laughter!

Ages 6–8
JULY 18 - 22 1:00pm - 4:00pm

Tuition: $235

     Like to read books?  Do you ever imagine yourself as the characters that you read about, like Max who journeys to Where the Wild Things Are, or Harold who creates his own adventures with a Purple Crayon? In this summer program students ages 6-8 can explore many aspects of theater using great books as jumping off points!  Students get to let their creativity loose to create characters from princesses to monsters.  They will make scripts, build and paint scenery of any place you might imagine, and put together colorful costumes with the guidance of a seasoned elementary school educator , Aimee Levesque!

CIRCUS MINIMUS

Ages 7-13
JULY 12 – JULY 23
Performing July 23 at 2 & 6
Tuition: $400

     We know you’re a kid who wants to run away and join the circus, to learn all the tricks of the jugglers, clowns and wirewalkers! At Circus Minimus you’ll find fabulous toys to play with: mats to tumble on, balls to roll, unicycles to ride, plates and poi to spin, rings to toss, flags to wave, stilts to walk upon and all kinds of wild and wacky clothes to wear! Every day will be a new adventure and the show at program’s end is utterly thrilling. So don’t wait–sign up now for the greatest time of your life; we want you in the act! Directed by ringmaster Kevin O'Keefe and friends.

SENIOR SHAKESPEARE:  Merchant of Venice

Ages 14-19
JULY 23  – AUGUST 14 9:00am-4:00pm
Performing August 11-14
Tuition: $500
(Rehearsals will occasionally occur on weekends & after regularly scheduled hours)

     This year’s Senior Summer Shakespeare program promises to be a colorful extravaganza of dance, music, carnival, and circus!
     Parental control, the rights of individuals to love whom they choose, racial and religious intolerance – these themes run right through the Merchant of Venice and make it incredibly modern and relevant to today’s audiences (and actors).  However, this production will be set in High Renaissance Italy: in the Venice of commercial imperialism, Carnival, Monteverdi and the age of such painters as Caravaggio and Tintoretto.
     With the assistance of Keely Eastly and New England Center for Circus Arts, David Vann directs this classic Shakespearean problem play, recently performed on Broadway with Al Pacino.

LEAP INTO ACTING 

Ages 8–11
AUGUST 8 – AUGUST 12 9:00am -12:00pm

Tuition: $235

      “Playful pedagogy for petite players!”  Leap Into Acting focuses on finely fixing first-timers’ tips of the tongue, teeth and lips around tricky text; tuning students’ appetites to comedy and dramedy; and cleverly clowning camaraderie.
     With stupendous Stephen Stearns and beneficent Ben Stockman, kids will explore characters, poetry, music and clowning, and be grinning from ear to ear while begging their parents to stay and play all night. This program blends acting games with effective voice and physical training. Children are introduced to the magic of theater along with the rhythms and rhymes of our amazing English language.  

TECHNICAL THEATER PROGRAM

Ages 12-19

Tuition: $200

SESSION 1

Monday, June 20-Sunday, July 17; 11am-5pm weekdays + all weekend performances

(only free weekend during the session is 6/25-26)
 

SESSION 2

Monday, July 18-Sunday, August 14; 11am-5pm weekdays + all weekend performances

(only free weekend during the session is 8/6-7)

     The technical theater program at NEYT trains students in elements of stage carpentry and set construction, painting, decorating, and set management- moving sets and set pieces, changing sets between scenes or shows, and generally being responsible for all that the audiences see and the actors use during a performance of a play.  In addition, they learn how to light a show, and operate lights, sound, and follow spots when needed.  In the summer, this is particularly intense, as we do 4 melodramas, a major Shakespeare and a  major musical, and several other smaller productions, all in the space of 8 weeks.  The time commitment is huge, so be sure you can make all the dates if you sign up.
     For any new techies out there- you will help design, build, assemble, and paint the sets, change sets between shows, run lights, sound, projections, and follow-spots as needed.  You are a vital part of each production and performance, so make sure you can handle the time commitment. We may be able to allow the occasional day off during the week, if there is no tech or dress rehearsal going on that absolutely requires your attendance.
     For more information, please contact Jerry Stockman at jerrys@neyt.org, or Rick Barron at rjbarron@sover.net.