| The Actors Guild of Parkersburg's youth theatre company will begin its twelfth season with pre-registration by mail in July of 2008.
From September through February, Guild Builders will meet on Saturday mornings from 9:00 a.m. until 12:30 p.m. at the Actors Guild, located at the corner of Eighth and Market streets in downtown Parkersburg.
Interested children entering grades four through nine are welcome.
There is no fee for this program. Weekly curriculum will include instruction and participation in all aspects of theatre arts: acting - voice and projection - movement and dance - set, props, and costume design and construction - lighting and sound - marketing design - makeup - directing - stage management - technical support roles - playwriting - and many specialty theatre classes.
In addition to the "basics", weekly specialty workshops have included: Acting With an Accent, Jazz and Tap Basics, Movable Set Construction, Mask Making, Theater Superstitions, Voice & Projection, Magic, Fencing, Movement for Aged Characters, Improvisation, Puppetry, Clogging, Unusual Props Construction, Native American Dance and Song, Marketing Design, Oriental Dance, Theatre Games, Stage Swordplay, Script Period History, Intro to Stage Lighting, Glues And Textures, Acting For The Camera, Researching Your Role, Character Development, Preparing for an Audition, Dialects, Technical Roles, Safe Stage Combat and Falls, Physical Performance: Dance & Movement for Actors, Movement for Animal Characters, Acting With Emotion, and Specialty Theater Makeup.
The technical students, in addition to learning the technical support skills for the production (stage managers, backstage, props, light board, sound, and follow-spot operation), also form the Playwriting & Producing class and create an original stage play, performed as a companion piece.
The students create the characters, write the script, stage the scenes, design and assist in construction of their set and costumes, and perform their play prior to each of the four performances of the final stage production.
Each student's parents are required to volunteer for at least three days as parent monitors and to assist with the activities. Parents provide help with every aspect of the program: from providing "two deep" leadership with the children during classes and rehearsals, to sewing costumes, building and striking the set, to volunteering as make-up artists during dress rehearsals and performances. Without these extra hands, a program the size of Guild Builders would be unmanageable.
At the end of the six-month program, students will use all the theatre skills they have learned to present four performances of a full-length musical production.
The entire cast and crew of the production will be comprised of Guild Builders students. This year's production, the musical classic The Music Man, follows fast-talking traveling salesman Harold Hill in 1912 as he cons the people of River City, Iowa into buying instruments and uniforms for a boys' band he vows to organize, despite the fact he doesn't know a trombone from a treble clef.
His plans to skip town with the cash are foiled when he falls for Marian the librarian, who transforms him into a respectable citizen by curtain's fall.
Performances are scheduled for February and March 2009, on the Actors Guild main stage.
For a registration packet e-mail us at guildbuilders@yahoo.com, or contact Susan Kelby at (740) 423-8685 or Donna Riley at (304) 863-8637. Visit our web site for a description of this season's activities at www.actorsguildonline.com.
Guild Builders is sponsored by Camden-Clark Memorial Hospital, and funded in part by the Ohio River Border Initiative, The Ross Foundation, the Belpre Area Community Development Foundation, the Oakland Foundation, Artsbridge Special Projects Pool, Wells Fargo Financial, Cherub patrons, the Combined Federal Campaign, the West Virginia Division of Culture and History, with approval from the WV Commission on the Arts, and in partnership with Mountain State Blue Cross and Blue Shield and the Parkersburg Arts Center.
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