Celebrating 15 Years – Not “Just” an Incredible Acting Troupe

LATTE Theater, the La Grange Area Teen Theater Ensemble, is proud to have brought its Pfluger Empathy Movement Method of stagecraft and life development to La Grange and Chicagoland for 15 years1 We recognize the potential in each teen and the ripple effect on our community volunteers and audiences. We are grateful for making a difference in our community through performances in partnership with our local libraries, historical societies, soup kitchens, and more. We won the 2019 Illinois “Leading Age’s Honoring Excellence Award” for our community impact and our long-term intergenerational partnership with Plymouth Place.

Being “a LATTEer” means we pay it forward… and backward. It nurtures real friendships and allows a measurable impact on Stage and off. For LATTE believes in “Learning by Doing”, and champions the future of each teen and family. It creates an opportunity through high-level theatricality for teens to compete against themselves, for volunteers to laugh and create with us, to reach every member of our community through family-friendly, demanding shows for all ages, and to help us all have a safe place “to be”.

In the last 15 years, over 800 teens have been part of our program through our teen outreach, acting workshops and 45 theater shows that teach resiliency and life-skills through stagecraft. We have helped 74 volunteers and interns to full-time, paid employment.  We have helped families heal and grow and form friendships. And we had 27 senior citizens who came to laugh and enjoy “the life in the kids” through being a “practice audience”. LATTE Alum have come back home to support teens they don’t even know on Stage, and our Stage Professionals share their gifts seeing the difference in growth from the first workshop to the curtain calls.

Through our quality performances, LATTE entertains with full-length comedic and dramatic shows and explores real emotions and current issues. Family dynamics, relationships, domestic violence, aging, emotional wellness and mental health, literacy, estrangement, alcoholism, Alzheimer’s, social responsibility, free will vs. comfort, and abandonment are themes we have brought to the Stage in works that range from Shakespeare through Neil Simon. These thought-provoking shows amuse and entertain our wonderful community, fuel great discussions, and give a beautiful launch point for discussions and introspection.

Thanks a LATTE for your support in making our dreams come alive on and off the Stage,

Felicia Pfluger

Founder/Artistic Director/Producer, LATTE Theater

The Java Jive: Fatal Flaws and Fantastic Strengths.

As you develop your character, think of them in terms of their strengths and weaknesses. What fatal flaws will they conquer? Which of their strengths will help them triumph? What other characters of the stage have complimentary faults that together, could be their undoing? Which combined strengths could be used to help them triumph over adversity? Tag team with your fellow ensemble to create this. Are the tensions internal or external? How can they be heightened? When the audience is sitting in the darkness, what “magic” you created will make them lean forward in their seats?

Create an emotional scavenger hunt for the audience. Before the “moving action” of the play takes place, ask where can you embed foreshadowing. Where might you build tension early on to give the audience inklings of what might happen? Remember, it is only through your action, and little “tells” that anything can be visualized. Your breathing. Your eye contact – or lack of. Your posture changes. Yes. these gifts to the audience allow you to create the backstory to bring forth the tension and build the dynamics of your role, so that the play is going someplace. 

Challenge to Percolate:

  • Pick up a script and take some time to “play”. Choose two areas to build tension as “the stage is being set” in the first scenes.
  • Think about your favorite movie characters. Write down bits about her that make her/him character authentic – that make you “root” for them well before the crisis.
  • Choose a character in a show you hope to act some day. Create a few journal entries, in their voice, over a week. These can even be from a decade before or after the story we know takes place. There are no limits. Just have fun! Play!
  • Look at the relationships between family members in the show. What habits stretch generations? Which are a character developing their autonomy or rebelling?

~ Felicia Pfluger

© The Pfluger Empathy Movement Method