It’s all about stretching. It’s more than building your stage resume, and beyond forging friendships, self-confidence, and learning how to develop as a teen player. Not only do teens learn to value how other people think and respect diversity, but in programs like LATTE where teens who take on full-length plays as acting intensives learn how to read and learn emotional tells. They develop the emotional and physical stamina to stay actively in character for 2 hours, and, in the right program, to deal with the unexpected.
Live Theater can have a plethora of things go wrong, and the show “must go on”, so you learn to trust your wits, your team, and your contingency plan. In a challenging program, you learn as I always say in LATTE, “Prepare for the worst and expect the best”. Teens can learn healthy project management that allows them to be part of the planning process. When you involve teens in the decision-making process of developing blocking, adlibs, and looking for opportunities to use their ideas, then you get a stronger show. And when teens are empowered on stage to support other cast members as scene partners – as equals, the ego gets taken out of the equation, and what we have left is gorgeous theater worthy of standing ovations!
Challenges to Percolate for Directors … or Teens that want to be Directors:
- Look at the blocking for a scene through different lenses. That of each of the characters. How would the blocking change depending on which character you would want to highlight at any given moment?
- How can you strengthen the moving action of the scene?
- What blocking can you add to make sure each character on stage gets to shine – while adding intrigue, suspense, and animation to the scene.
~ Felicia Pfluger, Pfluger Empathy Movement Method, (c) 2023
