Theatre Exile to offer summer learning sessions for kids

Theatre Exile‘s 2024 Paper Wings Summer Theatre Camps just opened up for registration, and kids looking for a creative way to spend some of their sunny season can apply now.

The program, which runs for week-long sessions, is meant to educate, encourage, and inspire students from the tri-state area to express themselves by using the world of theatre. Students from the sixth grade up to recent high school graduates are welcome to apply.

This year, the company is offering two rounds for camps: Session I: Acting in Exile (July 22 to 26); and Session II: Scene Study & Script Sculpting (Aug. 19 to 23.)

The intimately-sized classes will hold sessions at Exile’s venue in South Philadelphia, and while there, campers will receive expert instruction from international author, performance poet, art activist, playwright, and award-winning Theatre Exile Director of Education TS Hawkins (they/them), award-winning director and playwright Cheyenne Barboza (she/her), and actor, writer and producer Monique A. Robinson (she/her), the release notes.

Locals have seen Hawkins’ work as plays, short works, and books, including ‘Seeking Silence, sweet bread peaches (formerly Cartons of Ultrasounds)’. Barbozos most recent work spans productions like ‘Peter and the Star Catcher’ (Seton Hill University), ‘Looking Over the President’s Shoulder’ (Millbrook Playhouse), ‘sandblasted’ (Theatre Horizon) and ‘Passing Strange’ (Long Wharf Theatre). And Robinson a multi-hyphenated artist and healer, received her M.F.A. from the University of Washington’s Professional Actor Training Program.

The first session, ‘Acting in Exile’ is aimed towards honing in on different skills for professional acting by engaging in interactive theatre games and character development techniques to improve performance skills. The second, also delves into the world of live performance to teach how to perform original monologues and plays based on themes kids want to explore. The latter also covers dramatic world-building and advanced scene studies.

Following a week of theatre games, script sculpting logistics, and advanced scene study, students will display their performance skills and creative storytelling in a community showcase for family and friends and be awarded a certificate of completion, the release also notes.

“Art is an offering,” said Theatre Exile Director of Education TS Hawkins in a statement. “Youth creatives at any stage of their artistic journey are welcome to continue to explore in Exile.”

Paper Wings Camps are $350 per week with available scholarships upon staff review and courtesy pricing of $250 for returning students. And as the release notes, the Paper Wings in-school program currently operates at the Philadelphia-based Coppin School for fifth through eighth grades and at Furness High School for ninth through twelfth-grade students under the direction of TS Hawkins. So, area schools are invited to partner for future student workshops at no cost to the school or students.

For more information about in-school residency partnerships, early and late camp drop-off hours and fees, daily times of operation, and camp requirements, visit theatreexile.org