Annual Acting Summer Camp Extends Roster

Little Lake Theatre will host its annual summer youth workshop for grades four through eight, as well as a continuing apprenticeship program for high school and young college-age students interested in the performing arts. 

Workshops run from July 18-29 and Aug. 1-12 from 9:30 a.m. to noon, with showcase performances at 9:30 a.m. on the following day of which the camp concludes.

With the theater’s first camp roster already filled, demand for the second is quickly increasing. 

“We always have a waiting list, but this year we have extended the 40-camper limit to 44," said Jena Oberg, assistant production director at Little Lake and camp theater arts instructor. "That’s a one to 11 instructor-to-camper ratio.”

Oberg said that because of the nature of the camps many kids choose to come back summer after summer.

“I think this year we have 60 percent returning campers, which means I know a lot of names and faces already,” she said. “But every group is different. This year, we will probably do a scene collection, with our older campers in the apprentice program reading monologues for our showcase.”

Oberg, who has been with the theater for 10 years, was asked to teach the children’s acting camp when the previous instructor left to tend to twin newborns.

She said the program has since expanded to include improvisation, stage-speaking and technique, ensemble games and an audition class for those campers who are looking for real-world preparation for a career in performing arts. 

But the goal of Little Lake Theatre’s summer camp is not just to put on a show.

“One of the reasons we do this is because kids in middle school often have difficulty making friends,” said theater managing Director Rob Fitchett. “On the first day, no one talks to each other. We have 40-some kids who don’t know each other, are required to participate in acting exercise and theater games, and then at the end of two weeks, are best friends. The hugs and the tears that go on backstage during the showcase performance are really remarkable.”

Some campers may come with an ambition to continue on to broadway or the TV industry, but Fitchett stressed that this is not the goal of Little Lake’s camps.

“I think sometimes parents see it the other way—that after two weeks, their son or daughter is going to become a child star," he said. "It’s just impossible. But what they do learn from the summer camp is the ability to speak clearly in front of an audience of strangers and to communicate, which is a very important life skill.”