My d, a high school junior, is looking for a summer camp to gain more exposure and experience in stage management and tech. Less interested in design and costuming. She loves stage managing in her small high school. Her current college plan is to major in chemistry/electro chem. However, she wants to try stage management outside of her high school setting. She thinks it will help determine if she wants to co major or minor in that in college or if she wants to stick with her science focus and just attend performances for fun in the future. She loves the mental challenge of chemistry but running the show backstage at performances makes her truly happy.
Most theater related camps we have found are primarily focused on acting, singing, & dancing.
2 that we’ve found that meet her interest:
Interlochen: 1 week stage management intensive or 3 week theater design and production
Northwestern: 5 week Stage Management, Design-tech ( seems amazing but may be too competitive given her limited experience)
Any opinions of these programs or other suggestions?
Thank you very much.
I wouldn’t advise a double major/minor with stage management, especially not an academically intense companion like chemistry. There is a ton of out-of-class work with any theater degree. My D19 was a BFA with that concentration; worked her a** off and was generally in rehearsal six nights a week for months at a time.
She never went to a summer camp (we didn’t have any money for that; she had to work). She’s now graduated and working professionally.
Not sure where you are, but maybe a better idea is summer stock/high school internship programs. There are quite a few of those. Even the local college might have ways to volunteer or even a formal program. My kid job-shadowed a stage manager, and worked in the shop at her high school theater department during some off-time.
C24 went to Northwestern’s summer program (for acting) last summer, and they had an absolutely wonderful experience. I didn’t get the sense that the program itself was competitive once the kids were there. They all seemed kind of cool and supportive of each other.
Southeastern Summer Theatre Institute — the SSTI-Tech program is fantastic! In addition, we have a Guide with over 20 summer programs with Tech components in the Theater Tech Parents FB group…just be sure to answer the membership questions and agree to the group rules.
My son went to the Northwestern NHSI institute last summer, focused on stage management. He loved it. It was supportive and terrific. There is definitely an application process, with very helpful videos on the website describing what they are looking for. Grades (and scores, if submitted) seem to matter, as well as a couple of required essays. They make clear that they understand students have different access to theater experience, and they will look at the whole picture. (My son goes to a big-city performing arts school, but many of the other students came from different backgrounds and had less experience.). One thing about NHSI - the design & production kids do have to take acting and movement. My techie was initially worried about that, but ended up loving it. Acting/movement was two hours in the morning, and then he had a variety of technical theater experiences in the afternoon, and was stage manager for a production that they rehearsed in the evenings.
We also looked at UCLA’s program (new last year) which I think was 3 weeks, and MPulse, so you may want to check into those.