Tweens (5th - 8th Grade)
Class Schedule | Class Descriptions
Our Tweens program (5th-8th Grade) offers after-school classes as well as weekend workshops, both devoted to helping children explore all aspects of the performing arts.
After-School Classes
Each of our after-school classes specializes in teaching specific skills. Students can take a class or classes based on the interest. We offer classes in:
- Musical Theater Performance
- Singing
- Acting
- Dance
- Hip-Hop
Our after-school classes are kept small and intimate so that each child can receive the maximum amount of personal attention. This individual attention allows our teachers to set specific, challenging goals for each child in each class. For example, in a dance class, if your child can't do a pirouette at the beginning of the semester, they'll be able to do a double-pirouette by the end!
The purpose of our after-school classes is to encourage an environement where children can be creative, feel safe enough to take risks, and truly be themselves. Working professionals from the industry, with years of experience, teach these classes so we can ensure a fabulous experience for every one of our students. Each class has a fully developed curriculum that becomes more rigorous as the children get older and become more advanced. We want to challenge our students and help them strive to achieve more than they thought they could!
We want our students coming out of a semester having had a great time, feeling self-confident, and have greatly improved in the areas that they've studied.
Performance Workshops
Our Applause weekend workshops were created for the older student (11 – 18 yrs.) who is more advanced and wants to immerse him/her self in theater. Each class offered here at Applause has been developed to push our teenagers to reach their highest potential. Making real progress, gaining knowledge of the theater, developing and continuing a passion for the arts are the primary goals of our program. Besides all the educational benefits, our students develop unique, life-long friendships.
Our performance workshops are the most serious classes that we offer here at Applause Theatrical workshops. Each workshops meets every week for a rehearsal-based class where students get to work on their singing, acting, and dancing. At the end of the semester, the students get to perform their show in an Off-Broadway theater.
Commitment, passion, and enthusiasm are the qualities we look for in an Applause student. These classes are by audition only and are a very rigorous training ground for students who are interested in pursuing musical theater further. Each workshop has a director, musical director, choreographer, and stage manager. We regularly have assistant choreographers come in to assist the head choreographer, meaning each workshop can have up to 5 teachers for each rehearsal. One of the most exciting features of our weekend workshops is that they are visited by industry professionals who come in to talk with our students about a particular aspect of the business. These talkback sessions have been a great hit with our students!
The Rehearsal Process
Every one who gets accepted into the program will be cast in a show. After initial auditions for the program, further auditions ensue to cast students in individual roles. Once the shows have been cast, the major work begins! Each 4-hour rehearsal is devoted to all aspects of the show. The cast will work with their musical director (often musicians who play on Broadway) on vocal technique for both solo and ensemble work. The director will work with the students on scene study, blocking, and helping them with their character development, all in the context of mounting the show. Finally, the choreographer choreographs whole cast musical numbers, simultaneously giving attention to both the gifted and beginner dancers. As rehearsals progress towards show time, they get more intense and the excitement starts to build!
Show Time
At last, after the rehearsal period is over, it's time to move out of the reherasal space and into a real Off-Broadway theater for "show week." Musicians arrive, lighting technicians are brought in, dressing rooms are given out and dress rehearsals begin! This is truly how a real Broadway show works and we want our students to have the closest experience to that as possible. Finally, at the end of dress rehersals, our students perform in front of over 800 people over the course of "Show Weekend." Agents, managers, and casting directors attend our shows every semester looking for new talent. We have never had a semester where a student has not been signed.
Our Alumni
Our former students have been starring everywhere:
- Broadway — Spring Awakening, Jersey Boys, Rent, Mamma Mia, Talk Radio
- TV Shows — Gossip Girl, NBC's Kings, Guiding Light, Law and Order, Law and Order: SVU, Law and Order: Criminal Intent, The Sopranos
- Movies — Hamlet 2, "Synecdoche, New York", Little Children, In the Mix, The Good Shepherd, The Covenant, Finding Buck McHenry
And of course, more are on the way!