Submitted by Dic Wheeler
(November 7, 2024) — Oddfellows Playhouse Youth Theater in Middletown will be offering professionally-led classes in Playwriting and Acting to young people ages 14 – 20 this winter.
“Playwriting,” taught by Darcy Parker Bruce, provides young writers a chance to develop a one-act play that will be performed at a New Plays Festival on February 15, 2025. The class will meet on Sundays from 5:00 p.m. to 7:00 p.m., on December 8, 2024 and December 15, 2024; January 5, 12, 19, 26, 2025; and February 2 and 9, 2025. All playwrights will have the opportunity to see their plays performed at the New Plays Festival.
Darcy Parker Bruce has an MFA in Playwriting from Smith College and has numerous plays published and produced around the country. Bruce invites teen writers to “explore the enchanting world of magical thinking, where reality blends with the fantastical. Through creative exercises and collaborative experiences, you’ll craft original narratives that challenge conventional storytelling. Unlock your imagination and transform the ordinary into the extraordinary!”
“The Actor’s Laboratory,” taught by ARTFARM Artistic Director Marcella Trowbridge, is a six- week in-depth exploration of acting and performance that will meet on Thursdays from 6:30 p.m. to 8:30 p.m., January 9 through February 13, 2025. The Actor’s Lab provides a safe place for exploration and discovery without the pressure of performance, including Intermodal Expressive Arts, Stage Combat, Voice, Movement, High Stakes Acting and Psycho-Emotional Literacy.
Marcella Trowbridge is co-founder and Artistic Director of ARTFARM and a long-time teaching artist at Oddfellows. She holds an MFA in Theater from Rose Bruford College and is a director, playwright, performer and teacher who has worked throughout the United States, as well as in Germany, Sri Lanka and Iceland.
Participants in The Actor’s Lab will be encouraged to perform as actors in the New Plays Festival on February 15, 2025. The Festival, which will feature staged readings of all the New Plays, is a daylong event in which young actors work with professional directors to bring the new works to life through script-in-hand performances.
For tuition information, visit www.oddfellows.org, or call (860) 347-6143, or email info@oddfellows.org.
Oddfellows Playhouse, founded in 1975, is Connecticut’s oldest and largest theater program for young people. Throughout its history, Oddfellows has remained committed to artistic excellence and social change. The Playhouse’s mission has three parts: 1) an artistic dimension to provide high-quality theater by and for young people; 2) an educational dimension to promote the growth of young people–in skills, knowledge, and self-confidence–through the performing arts; and 3) a social action dimension to offer opportunities especially to underserved and at-risk youngsters to promote the development of a genuinely multiracial, multicultural society.
