Geva Theatre Center Summer Academy Showcase

Let me start by saying I’m not a fan of watching or reading Shakespeare plays. Yes, I studied my fair share in high school, and I’ve seen enough plays (and movies) to have an appreciation for them. But to me they're a bit like vegetables - I know they're good for you, but a little goes a long way... So I was ambivalent about attending Geva’s Summer Academy 2015 Showcase: Welcome to the Renaissance.

Not surprisingly, there were more young people in the audience than I’d seen at the theater in a long time – mostly friends and family of the cast (many had bouquets of flowers for post-show presentation). I chatted with two women behind me – mother and grandmother of a 14-year old in the academy for his first year. I asked how he had liked the program, and they said that despite being a quiet kid, he had thoroughly enjoyed the experience, had blossomed, and wanted to be an actor when he grows up.

Skip Greer, Director of Education, introduced the afternoon and explained that the five-week training program for 30 students focused first on process and then on performance. Wait, just five weeks to learn all those difficult lines, songs, and dances? I was impressed. Even though some of the kids were difficult to understand at times when they were speaking too quickly to enunciate clearly. Even though Shakespeare can sometimes sound like a foreign language and you really have to remain alert because if you miss a few words, your brain can’t easily fill in the blanks. Because most of the actors did an amazing job at conveying not just the text, but interpreting it – imparting emotion and subtleties in their body language and facial expressions.

Some of the casting was very creative (especially the 3 women playing Juliet), and some at first confusing (several men’s parts were played by women, perhaps because there were simply more girls than boys in the academy?). There were several of songs to break up the dialogues, and two of them featured simple but very effective Jerome Robbins-like choreography.

Very few of these students will likely realize their dreams of becoming professional actors, but this training will definitely serve them well in whatever future careers they pursue, since learning to be comfortable in your body and comfortable in front of an audience, to communicate and express yourself, are all skills that will come in handy in most professions.   And while Geva does charge tuition for the program, scholarships are available; the entire back side of the one-page program was devoted, in a very tiny font, to thanking all of the organizations and individuals whose support contributed to this and other educational programs at Geva. For more information on auditioning for Summer Academy 2016, or regarding Geva in general, visit their website: www.gevatheatre.org.