Summer Theater Camp Relocating to Lake Fairfax Park

Traveling Players Ensemble, known for its innovative summer theatre camps and its recognition by the National Endowment for the Arts as a Summer School in the Arts, will relocate this summer to Lake Fairfax Park in Reston, the camp has announced.

“We’re thrilled to be in residence at Lake Fairfax,” says Founding Artistic Director Jeanne Harrison. “The park is gorgeous, and I can’t wait to hold rehearsals looking out over the lake, and nestled in their beautiful amphitheater.”

Traveling Players Ensemble is a professional theatre company whose mission is to bring great theatre into the great outdoors. Founded in 2003, it has grown from a summer camp of 18 campers to a year-round institution serving over 300 teenagers a year.

The company was located at The Madeira School in McLean from 2007 to 2014, but Madeira’s extensive construction on its campus this summer inspired the move.

The camp distinguishes itself with its focus on outdoor theatre and ensemble process, as well as its expert instructors. It has been invited to perform at the Kennedy Center’s Millennium Stage, Colonial Williamsburg, Shenandoah National Park, Reston’s Multicultural Festival, and the International Children’s Festival at Wolf Trap, as well as over 60 other venues throughout Virginia, Maryland and Washington, DC.

The company was selected by the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) as a “Summer School in the Arts” - one of 25 in the nation.

The core of the company remains its summer day camp for rising 4th through 12th graders, where they work in small ensembles (up to 13 performers) to rehearse a play under the direction of experienced theatre professionals.

Tuition includes daily bus transportation, picking up in Bailey’s Crossroads, Arlington, Falls Church, McLean, Reston, Vienna, Dulles Town Center, Bethesda, Silver Spring and Washington, DC.

This summer’s ensembles will perform Moliere’s plays The Miser and The Learned Ladies, Shakespeare’s Two Gentlemen of Verona and All’s Well that Ends Well, a Commedia dell’Arte adaptation of Cinderella, and two original plays by Judy White based on world mythology: Ariadne’s Threadand Atum’s Eye: The Dawn of Time. In addition, rising 4th - 6th graders can register for a one-week Acting Sampler Camp, getting a small taste of everything the camp has to offer.

The campers spend most of their days outdoors, camping out once a week. Intensive training in Shakespeare, Moliere, Mythology, and Commedia dell’Arte, combined with outdoor skills, low ropes and Leave-No-Trace camping ethics, creates an experience that is unique in the world of theatre programs, according to the group.

In the final week of each session, the campers tour their show by bus, giving them the experience of wandering entertainers who carry their dinner, tent and props in their trusty pack.

Camp begins on June 22 and runs through August 14. A regular session is four weeks long. The camp also offers one- and two-week sessions for younger campers, and optional tours for older campers which can extend sessions up to seven weeks.

The camper-to-counselor ratio is 4:1. Need-based scholarships are available for all programs.

For more information, visit www.travelingplayers.org or call 703-987-1712.

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