TheatreBridge & Playwrights Workshop

Six Weeks of Immersive Theatre Study for High School Students

 Program Dates:

Six-Week Session    
June 24 - August 2, 2013        

Eligibility:

For students completing 10th-11th grade by June 2013

Fees:

$7,655

 Application Review begins March 1

This summer we are thrilled to expand our high school TheatreBridge program by adding a distinct workshop for emerging Playwrights. Inspired by Brown University’s undergraduate and graduate playwriting programs and drawing on the inspired success of the high school summer performance program, the Playwrights Workshop provides students an exceptional opportunity to learn the tools and demands of writing for the stage, under the mentorship of established theatre professionals.

TheatreBridge and Playwrights Workshop offer a connecting link between high school and college theatre and encourage a commitment to a life of creative engagement. The highly selective programs provide promising young actors and playwrights an opportunity to stretch their imaginations and skills as they create new work under the mentorship of established theatre professionals. Students work alongside the artists of the Brown/Trinity Playwrights Rep and the undergraduate Apprentice Company, and are encouraged to achieve their highest potential. Residential Advisors are carefully selected Brown undergraduates, who serve as mentors and role models to help students make the most of their time at Brown.

TheatreBridge

Acting faculty will draw from the Meisner technique which includes interdependent series of exercises that build upon one another. Meisner's technique is based on the idea that acting finds its most profound expression in specific behavior that comes from the actor's real human response to situations and other people. As actors, students will rely heavily on accessing their impulses, through which real responses and real behavior can be accessed in the moment. This technique is applied to improvisation with another person as well as the actor's way of finding things to do in rehearsal, interpreting a script, and creating the specific physical characteristics of each character the actor played.

Daily classes (including Saturdays) in text, improvisation, and movement make up the basic program. Students can expect to spend the majority of their evening and weekend hours rehearsing and preparing for classes. Some Mondays offer trips to popular destinations for TheatreBridge students and when time permits, students are encouraged take advantage of co-curricular and recreational programs offered in the pre-college program.

Four of the top five most frequently produced plays
in America were written by Brown alumni: Peter
Nachtrieb ‘97, Stephen Karam ‘02, Sarah Ruhl ‘97;
MFA ‘01, and Rachel Sheinkin ‘89; American Theatre
Magazine October 2009 Issue.

Playwrights Workshop

The workshop for emerging playwrights is designed to create a supportive and stimulating environment for young writers to develop and share their writing.  Student-playwrights will have the opportunity to write and work alongside the actors, directors and playwrights of the Brown/Trinity Playwrights Rep and the undergraduate Apprentice Company. By the end of the summer, students will have written and revised a complete play, explored the major elements of drama (plot, character, thought, language, rhythm and spectacle) and experimented with puppetry, devised theatre, and other theatrical genres.  Writing prompts and improvisation as well as reading and analyzing plays will be a part of the process. As playwriting is a time-space based art form focused on human interaction, the professional company will also perform students’ writing in staged readings at the end of the program.

Daily classes will include play analysis, writing exercises, and play readings.   Students can expect to spend the majority of their evening and weekend hours reading, writing, rehearsing and preparing for classes.   Students will also attend the three productions at Brown/Trinity Playwrights Rep. When time permits, students are encouraged to take advantage of co-curricular and recreational programs offered in the pre-college program.

A Network of Opportunities

TheatreBridge and Playwrights Workshop provides numerous opportunities for interaction with students in both programs and with members of the undergraduate Apprentice Company, Brown theatre faculty, and other artists from the Playwrights Rep. in a variety of formal and informal settings. All students will have the opportunity to attend special workshops and Q&A sessions with Brown faculty and visiting artists, and participate in post-performance talkbacks.

In addition, teams of TheatreBridge and Playwrights Workshop students provide front-of-house support at performances of the Brown/Trinity Playwright’s Repertory Theatre periodically throughout the program, and that support sometimes requires that students make themselves available on a Saturday night. Otherwise, unless special events or assignments are scheduled, students use weekend time for research, rehearsal and relaxation.