Northshore School of the Arts adds theater program in St. Tammany to fall schedule -- Apply by Aug. 15
Contact: Christina Chapple
8/5/08
HAMMOND – The Northshore School of the Arts, Southeastern Louisiana University’s innovative professional evening arts program for high school juniors and seniors, has added theater to its curricula for fall 2008.
Scheduled for Mondays Aug. 25-Dec. 5 from 6-8 p.m. at Southeastern’s St. Tammany Center, located in the parish government complex on Koop Drive north of Mandeville, the theater program will be taught by James Winter, a member of the Southeastern theater faculty and a professional actor, director, playwright and producer.
Through the Northshore School of the Arts, students in St. Tammany, Livingston and Tangipahoa public schools may also take Southeastern music and art classes – plus one-on-one instruction in music and with voice faculty – for college credit.
“We’re very excited to add to our courses this hands-on theater program that exercises the body, mind and the imagination,” said NSA Director Charlotte Collins. “The NSA Theatre Program is a performance-based class designed to jumpstart the college careers of students interested in participating in drama at the university level. Through a series of improvisational activities, students will learn basic acting techniques for live and media performance.”
High school juniors and seniors who complete the course with a “C” or better grade may earn three college credits at Southeastern. The course serves as an equivalent to the university’s “Introduction to Acting” course (Theatre 234).
The application deadline for the theater program and other NSA classes is August 15. Students interested in participating may contact Collins at 985-549-2568 or Charlotte.Collins@selu.edu or Winter at james.winter@selu.edu or 985-549-2101 for more information. An application form can be downloaded at www.selu.edu/nsa.
Winter plans to include topics such as improvisation, physical theater, mask work and stage combat. Under his direction, students will learn, rehearse, and perform scenes and monologues, with the public performance serving as the course’s final examination.
Winter, who joined the Southeastern theater faculty in 2005, is Louisiana state chair of the Kennedy Center American College Theatre Festival. He is also a founding member of New Orleans’ Big Easy Award-winning InSideOut theater company. He has performed at Madison Square Garden, The Kennedy Center, 13th Street Repertory Theatre, The Hudson Guild, Cleveland Public Theatre and at other venues around the country and throughout China.
At Southeastern, he has directed innovative productions of plays such as “Waiting for Godot,” “Medea,” “Much Ado About Nothing,” “Crimes of the Heart,” “4.48 Psychosis,” and his own drama, “Dead Flowers.”
Also this fall, NSA will offer a music theory class at the St. Tammany Center and the Livingston Parish Literacy and Technology Center in Walker. Students will also be able to enroll in Basic Drawing at Southeastern’s main campus in Hammond, and Applied Music – one-on-one lessons with college faculty in piano, voice, strings, woodwinds, brass, or percussion – at the Hammond, Livingston and St. Tammany locations.
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