I did my first workshop at the IceHouse for the summer with PA Youth Theatre’s summer camp and public shows. The PYT folks run different theater camps through out July and invite local artists to do these Tuesday open sessions. There are some public walk-ins but the audience is basically two sets of kids engaged in theater classes. A great opportunity to work with young and hip artists-to-be.
This session was booked as the Jump Rope Party, something I developed last year for this type of workshop/show and was an out shoot of the Playground project. So, I was much more relaxed about mixing my usual interactive kids stuff with some emerging jump ropes ideas.
I did a lot of the standard stuff early, but I found spaces to amp up the theatrical aspects of what I do. It was cool to have these kids to work with. I even got to break out a long jump rope and get some of the kids who knew what they were doing to lead the way. I found out how to have the lead kids show the way. I decided to leave the bag of ropes with the camp for the rest of the week. We/I planted a seed.
It was a great learning experience for me, and, I’m sure, for the theater classes involved.
I love these lab sessions more than anything. I’m assuming I’ll get paid eventually, too.