While many high school students have headed off to camps full of campfires and canoeing for the summer, a few ambitious students have signed up for a very different experience.
Clarence Brown Theatre will host “intensive actor training workshops” for two sessions in July, and the students who sign up can expect the rigor and intensity of a college course.
Participants will attend the workshop from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Monday through Friday for two weeks.
Terry Silver-Alford, professor of Music Theatre at UT, has been an instructor in the summer program for almost eight years.
“We call it a camp, but it’s not camp,” Silver-Alford explained. “I mean, they bond with each other and become great friends, but it really is like a professional acting workshop. They are challenged beyond anything else they might do.”
Students will have training in musical theatre in the mornings and acting skills in the afternoon.
“We learn by doing, so we pick musical numbers that will use pretty much everyone, ensemble numbers and we try to pick numbers that are appropriate for the age group and abilities of the kids,” Silver-Alford said.
No audition is necessary to enter the program, but on the first day, students perform a monologue and a song to help the instructors place them in roles accordingly.
“We have some students who have done more musical work and some students who have done more acting,” Silver-Alford said. “It really works out well that everybody gets to shore up the areas they might be weaker in and they also highlight their strengths.”
The afternoon acting instructors are David Brian Alley and Carol Mayo Jenkins, both of whom are artists-in-residence for the theatre department.
Jenkins emphasized the serious nature of the program.
“It is pretty much on the level of our beginning acting classes in the university, and the goals are the same,” Jenkins said. “We realize that a lot of these students don’t know yet if they want to pursue a career in musical theater, and that doesn’t matter. The training for the theatre is very good training for life.”
However, in spite of the serious nature of the instruction and training, Jenkins tries to make the students feel safe and have fun in the program.
“We create an environment of trust so that nobody feels pressured or uncomfortable or awkward,” Jenkins said. “It’s very important when you’re working on acting that you’re able to feel free and to feel the support of a group.”
Acting classes involve “training in voice, proper speech techniques, diction, pronunciation, projection and movement,” along with developing individual scenes in pairs.
The students’ hard work will culminate in a two-hour showcase at the end of the program.
Jenkins said she enjoys watching the students discover new abilities in themselves.
“Those who can really sing have big solo sections,” Jenkins said. “Those who think they can’t sing get to be in the ensemble and discover that they can sing. And that’s very exciting.”
“It’s very good to show discipline and make them understand that discipline is fun,” she continued. “When you’re disciplined, then you’re able to have fun. They really feel a great sense of accomplishment.”
