WHAT MAKES LATTE CHICAGO’S TEEN ACTING CHOICE

The LATTE Theater Acting Program stems from the conviction that Teen Actors can be trained with similar rigor and discipline as adults. As teens establish internal stage discipline (while having fun), they also are taught emotional wellness tools to allow them a healthy self-awareness as they are developing their stage characters to protect the psyche.

This acting training technique is specifically designed for young people’s personal triumph on and off the stage. The Pfluger Empathy Movement Method focuses on spherical growth in all aspects of character building, physicality and stage interrelationships , commanding voice and speech intonations, muscle activation, micro-expressions, and improvisation… all while developing personal stamina and directing skills.  Curiosity and questions are encouraged for collaborative growth. Teens are included in the dramaturgy process and given a voice from the start of the acting intensive to the final curtain call.

Coaching for healthy stage intimacy and interrelationship creates a holistic stagecraft approach where teens are not only acquainted with the core elements of acting training, but actively mentored from a cultural, historical, literary, and psychological basis. Exploration of character interrelationships allow each teen to gain healthy insight as an actor or actress – for through stage we celebrate our humanity, challenge ourselves, find comfort… create healthy opportunities to learn and make lasting memories.

For more information on our Teen Acting Program, Auditions, Acting Workshops, Summer Teen Camp, Acting School, LATTE Theater Performances, and Acting Intensives, please contact us at 708-655-0989 or email lattetheater@gmail.com.

Choosing an Acting Program with your Teen – The Developing Brain and Stage

Acting in the teen years can be an incredible experience. Otherwise, I never would have created the LATTE Theater Company or the Empathy Movement Method to help young actresses and actors thrive. So let’s take a beat and talk about why teens need additional safety around their stage experience and character creation.

Teens are exploring and defining who they are. Trying to do this hard enough in this age of tech and social media. When you are on stage you are creating a character that has its own separate emotional responses, physicality and personality.  That is complex to any age, let alone when the brain has not hardwired (till the mid to late twenties).To make things all the more challenging, often acting schools teach method acting or fail to teach the teen to approach character development as a healthy exercise with aesthetic distance.

Look at the cautionary tale of Heath Ledger and how he lost himself in the character. Look at actors and actresses who fall in love – with each other’s characters, unaware in that moment that they aren’t falling in love with each other. If adults easily have fallen into these pitfalls, don’t we owe it to teens to give them a safe and nourishing framework to thrive on stage – and off?

Thoughts to percolate:

As you choose a program that will in influence your teen, ask how they help the teen grow on stage and off. How do they protect the psyche of the teen as they bring a show to the spotlights?

~ Felicia Pfluger, Pfluger Empathy Movement Method, (c) 2023

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