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Our theater curriculum is designed to provide students with embracing storytelling in all aspects of theater arts, including acting, stagecraft, directing, and production management.

From an early age, students at Ensworth have a wide variety of opportunities to develop and strengthen their theater skills. Whether you're drawn to performing on stage or working behind the scenes, there's a place for you. You can shine as an actor, or contribute your creativity and skills to building sets or running the vast array of technology. Theatre classes at Ensworth exercise our academic Core Skills through in-depth scene studies, faculty and student directed performances, and new works written by our students alongside professional contemporary theatre creators. Within these productions, students work beyond acting, alongside faculty and staff, students prepare for the entertainment industry as writers, directors, designers, technicians, performers, and musicians.

 

Featured Courses

Acting 1: Naturalism

This course is designed to engage both first-time and experienced actors. Highly active in nature, the course utilizes the Blackbox Theater as a studio classroom where theater games and exercises are heavily relied upon to build both skills and relationships. The focal point of the course is an extended exploration of a scene study with a partner. Tennessee Williams’ The Glass Menagerie serves as our central text for scene study, which focuses on skills related to text analysis, character building and working with a partner. Acting journals offer students an opportunity to reflect on their progress in writing.

Acting 2: Beyond Naturalism

While Acting 1 is grounded in the Russian/American tradition—an approach which puts a high premium on realism and which is often described as cerebral—Acting 2 emphasizes a more physical approach to acting. Grounded in techniques including European Clown, “the search for truth” in Acting 2 is often pursued through a more hyper-realistic tone. Course objectives continue to be pursued through scene studies. Analyzing a text, developing character and working well with one’s partners remain core objectives, while working within an active relationship with an audience is given increased focus and attention.

Acting 3: Performance Theater 

Serious students of acting have the potential to satisfy their arts diploma requirements by continuing their studies through the masters level with Acting 3: Performance Theater. This course provides the premier curricular acting experience for students at the high school. Its purpose is to allow students with exceptional experience or talent to work within a select ensemble preparing a text for public performance. The class rehearses a challenging dramatic text selected specifically for the ensemble assembled. 

Theater

Footloose performance