Learning from the pros

The program's official title is the UCLA Arts Camp/Workshops – and when you talk to the people who administer, teach and study at TFT during these annual summer sessions the emphasis is almost always on work and fun rather than recreation. These are not the kind of summer camps where kids toast marshmallows or paddle around in canoes.

Now in its eighth season the program runs from June 21 to August 7 and offers students ages 14 – 20, one to three weeks of hands- on intensive workshops in subjects ranging from Shakespeare performance to sitcom acting and writing and producing. And from musical theater performance and dance to computer animation and digital filmmaking. This is a rare summer program aimed at young people who are thinking seriously about careers in the performing or media arts. Their work here can even earn them a few extra college credits.

Attracting almost a thousand high school and college students each year, from the United States and around the world, the program was developed and has been supervised since its inception by producing director and adjunct professor Myrl Schreibman, who emphasizes the continuity between the Workshops and the curriculum of UCLA's top-ranked professional School of Theater, Film and Television. "That is the primary reason," he says, "why we recruit our faculty from the School and the industry. The professional emphasis is central to the approach of all the Workshops."

Robert Rosen, Dean of the School, reinforces that point: “This is the only summer youth program that is taught by the faculty of a world-class academic institution and by top professionals from the entertainment community, such as Conchata Ferrell, John Pasquin, Philip Charles Mackenzie. Armin Shimerman and Kay Cole."

SERIOUS STUDENTS

According to former Workshop veteran David Tucker, now an undergraduate studying acting at UCLA, it was their seriousness, the sense of what was at stake, that made the sessions exhilarating. "I was there five weeks," Tucker says, "and we were up in the morning, fast breakfast, get over to the Theater Department, get into the room and just dive into it. It was definitely a professional atmosphere, which I loved. I was looking for the next step up."

For Schreibman, the intensity of the Workshops is rooted in their sense of purpose: "Most summer programs of this type give a video camera to a kid and teach them the basics of shooting and editing, and say 'Go make a movie.' We don't. Our workshops are based on developing strong storytelling skills, which is the approach we take at the School.

"With the easy availability of digital camera and editing software," Schreibman continues, "many of these kids have already made movies when they arrive here. But there is a huge difference between doing a short kick-boxing sort of film, which is what they think of as a movie when they are kids, and something that really tells a story. They come away from this program with a whole new outlook on what making movies is really all about."

A STUDENT ACTOR BREAKS THROUGH

Acting students in the Workshops, too, get what may be their first glimpse of "what it's really all about."

Theater Professor April Shawhan, who is one of the teachers in the program's pivotal College Audition Workshop, suggests that "getting to students before they have had a chance to form bad habits," can give them a boost in their college and later professional careers which cannot be overestimated.

"A key element of the audition workshop is helping the students select the material that is best for them," Shawhan says, "that will show off their particular talents to the best possible advantage. And gaining this sense of who they are as performers will be of value to them throughout their careers."

David Tucker remembers Shawhan's Workshop as one of the high points of his summer, because it gave him his first experience of top-flight professional stage direction: "April gave just great, great direction," he says. "All of her suggestions felt very natural. I could tell I was getting better every time I did my monologue for her."

Professor Jean-Louis Rodrigue's classes in the Alexander Technique, one of several in the Theater Conservatory, has become a summer staple for similar reasons: because they help liberate the potential of performers at a crucial formative stage of their training.

"The Alexander Technique," Rodrigue explains, "helps to develop a high level of self awareness and the integration of mind and body, an ability to eliminate unwanted, restrictive tension. This stress and tension can negatively affect the use of the voice and the breath, as well as the expression of emotions.

"A perfect example of this kind of learning experience came about when I was working with David Tucker. He was performing a monologue from Moises Kaufman’s “The Laramie Project,” the speech of the father of Mathew Shepherd during the murder trial of his killers. David said he felt rushed and had poor concentration. Basic acting questions were asked: Who was the character, where was he, who was he talking to and why? This helped him become more aware of himself in a constructive way, so he could begin to live in the world of the play. By the time he started speaking again the character was alive and addressing the other characters with urgency and full emotional commitment."

Tucker recalls the experience as a personal breakthrough, a turning point that confirmed his decision to pursue acting as a career:

"I went up in front of the class, and I started the monologue, and Jean-Louis came over. There was a white wall in front of me, and he said, 'Look at the wall. See the courtroom in front of you. There are the defendants, the two men who killed your son.' And then he said, 'See your son Matthew. Look at him. Talk to him.' And he had this technique where he got behind you and he would touch your shoulders lightly to adjust your posture.

"And I started doing it again, and it was the best monologue I have ever done up to that point, because I saw, I actually saw my son Matthew's face. I saw him and I spoke to him. I didn't even see the other students in the class sitting there. And it was just.... I started crying during the monologue, tears rolling down my face. At the end of it Jean-Louis came up to me and gave me a big hug."

It is not hard to understand why faculty members and top professional return again and again to teach at the Workshops – or why students like Tucker express a strong desire to someday "pay it forward" by teaching there themselves.

"The expression 'life changing' is one that I hear over and over again every summer," Schreibman says, "either from the kids or from the parents. The parents drop their kids off on a Sunday, and by the time they pick them up at the end of a week, or two weeks or three, they can see a big difference in their son or their daughter. They grow up a lot in the space of a few weeks, both as performers and as human beings."

UCLA Arts Camp/Workshops are produced by the UCLA School of Theater, Film and Television in association with US Performing Arts.

Photos: Jeff Goldblum, JoBeth Williams, Jon Cryer, Gregory Itzin and Armin Shimerman are a only a few of the gifted professionals who have led Arts Camp/Workshops. Photos by Tito Deveyra.

Keywords

"arts camp" "workshops" "myrl schreibman" 

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