Theater for Young Audiences Ensemble

This course focuses on the production and performance of new musicals for young audiences. During the semester, students who have auditioned and been cast in the course will learn how to create and develop a character in the context of a new young audience's musical. Vocalists and instrumentalists in the course will also learn how a young audiences’s musical differs from other styles of performances and will use improvisational techniques and traditional acting methods. Students will include vocalists and five instrumentalists in the ensemble (drums, piano, bass, keyboard, reeds). Vocalists are required to learn the songs and scenes from the new young audience script and learn blocking and choreography. The instrumentalists and vocalists will work together to create an appropriate sound for the performance. The course requires outside work with fellow actors and outside practice learning the score for both instrumentalists and vocalists. Each week there will be a weekend lab that allows vocalists to practice their scene work. Vocalists and instrumentalists are evaluated through weekly song performances, scene work, a graded midterm (an off-book Act 1 performance), and a graded final (an off-book final performance), and showing up to tech week, dress, and final performances. Vocalists will also explore character analysis throughout the semester, while instrumentalists will work closely with the process of creating and workshopping a new score for a musical. Students will gain a more thorough understanding of how theater for young audiences is created and bring dramatic and musical elements to life as well as how actors are an integral part of the development of new works for young people.