At the beginning of August, Drama club hosted a theater camp where students learned about the aspects of being an actor and technician. The camp was student-run by the club’s officers. Anyone was welcome to participate in the theater camp. In order to teach students about acting and tech, the club officers created stations and activities for members to participate in.
Club members were able to get to know each other and bond with one another in various activities. To decide what group they’d be in, senior Morgan Lavin said, “We did an activity on the first day, a scavenger hunt, and they got to find a piece of a puzzle. That’s the group they were in.” Once the students were in groups, the next few days would consist of activities to help sharpen their performance skills.
One of the club officers, senior Samuel Smith, said “there were a lot [of activities] ‘cause we had four different workshops. I was part of running the acting workshop where we discussed what we do for stage presence and incorporating motion.” Another station included dancing to an excerpt from the musical ‘Wicked,’ choreographed by two officers in the Drama Club.
Other activities offered were singing, where they sang ‘Whole New World’ from ‘Aladdin’, as well as an improv class to play games like ‘Switch Left’, and a Q&A section for students that were new to the club. Each station served the purpose of teaching members different skills in drama club whether it was dancing, singing, or improvising.
Besides station rotations, there were also skits, where students created stories to be performed on stage, and “Clashes”, where actors and technicians could learn about the importance of each other’s roles. Drama club is not only about the acting part, but also behind the scenes. There is a whole different set of production that goes into the lighting, backgrounds, and sound to support the actors.
After students had the tech parts down, they’d compete with one another to see who would be the quickest at folding tarps and coiling wires. Sophomore Rebekah Bear said, “I learned some things I didn’t know before, especially in the tech stuff because I feel like actors don’t really learn tech stuff and techs don’t really learn acting stuff.”
Drama club’s theater camp taught students about singing, dancing, acting, and teching.
