News Release

Northshore School of the Arts adds 'Summer Theatre Program' for high school juniors, seniors June 4-24


Contact: Christina Chapple

5/9/08



     HAMMOND – The Northshore School of the Arts, Southeastern Louisiana University’s innovative after school arts program, is adding theater to its curricula this summer.

     Scheduled for June 4-24, the summer theater program is open to high school juniors and seniors and will be taught by James Winter, a member of the Southeastern theater faculty and a professional actor, director, playwright and producer.

     “The NSA Summer Theatre Program is a performance-based class designed to jump start the college careers of students interested in participating in drama at the university level,” said Bryan Depoy, assistant dean of the College of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences and interim director of the NSA.

     “Through a series of improvisational activities, students will learn basic acting techniques for live and media performance. This hands-on class exercises the body, mind, and the imagination,” Depoy said.

     Students who complete the course with a “C” or better grade may earn three college credits at Southeastern. The course serves as an equivalent of the university’s “Introduction to Acting” course (Theatre 234).

     The application deadline is May 23. Students interested in participating should contact 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 such topics as improvisation, physical theater, mask work and stage combat in the inaugural Summer Theatre Program.
     Under his direction, students will learn, rehearse, and perform scenes and monologues, with the public performance serving as the course’s final examination. The program will utilize Southeastern’s state-of-the-art 400-seat Vonnie Borden Theatre, home of Southeastern’s award-winning theater groups. 
     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.”
     Plans call for the new theater course to be offered this fall at the university's St. Tammany Center, located in the parish government complex on Koop Drive, north of Mandeville, DePoy said. Also new this fall will be a music theory class at 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 all three locations. 

     Since the program’s inception in 2006, more than 100 students have participated in the Northshore School of the Arts.



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