Aimee Art Productions is comprised of talented teaching artists that work with your child to write, collaborate, create and perform in their original theatrical experience. Theatre classes specialize in various techniques including Intro to Acting, Musical Theatre, Improvization, Comedy, Creating a Character, Original Work, Poetry, Storytelling, Shakespeare, and Playwriting. Classes are provided throughout Burbank, Glendale, Los Feliz, North Hollywood, Hollywood, Pasadena, Altadena and Silverlake. Theatre classes culminate with a final performance where your child shares their experience with friends and family.
Children’s Plays are also produced at many schools throughout the Los Angeles area. Classic productions such as Cats, Wizard of Oz, and Alice in Wonderland are led by experienced directors, musicians and choreographers to create fun, dynamic performances.
Most of the following classes are also offered in a Parent-and-Me option, geared for students ages 18 months to 5 years and their caregivers. Contact us for more information!
Acting in Television: What it’s like working on the set of your favorite shows (Workshop)
Teaching Artist: Bob Bledsoe
All ages
Bob Bledsoe is a comedian and actor who has worked on numerous television shows. His Disney and Nickelodeon credits include sitcoms such as Jessie, Good Luck Charlie, Hannah Montana, Big time Rush and others. This workshop will cover what to expect when auditioning for this type of show, tips for giving your best audition, and what’s expected of you once you book the role and are working on set. This workshop can be tailored for any age group and will include time for kids to get up and try a scene (only if they want to) as well as a Q&A session.
Acting Scene Work for TV/ Film
Teaching Artist: Stacy Highsmith
Grades 6-12/Middle School and High School
Are you looking to break into the television and film business? Then this is the class for you! This is a scene study for film and television. You will get an insight into the audition process while learning how to properly prepare for the role from an actress with notable television credits.
On Camera Audition Classes
Teaching Artist: Stacy Highsmith
Grades 6-12/Middle School and High School
Wondering what it’s like to audition for a major TV or Film role? In this class you will audition on camera, learning what it takes to book a role in the TV and Film business.
“Acting for Young People – Grades 1st – 5th
Teaching Artist: Nancy Friedman
Would your child or teen like to be an actor? Explore the basics of acting in a safe, positive and encouraging environment. Learn how to break down a script or prepare for an audition. Create and develop believable characters through effective use of imagination.
Fun With Improvisation – Grades 1st -5th
Teaching Artist: Josh Ssettuba
Improvisation (or Improv) is a theatrical art based purely on instinct and creativity. Kids will participate in theatre-based exercises and onstage scenework geared towards getting them out of their “shell”, saying yes, and supporting each other’s choices.
Over the course of the session kids will be taught how to take the stage with confidence, and create comedic scenes purely from their imagination.
Continuously building their skills, the session will culminate in an (optional) end of session comedy show!
Breathe life into every scene and move people emotionally. Work on film and TV scripts with scene partners. Overcome fear and have fun. All levels of experience are welcome.
Educate/Create
Teaching Artist: Ali
Grades 4-5/Middle School
We study developmentally appropriate musical theatre songs from the classics; talk about story, character, protagonists, antagonists, moving from text to song (to dance), examine the songs for rhyme schemes, musical terms, character vernacular, and writing for the moment. We also discuss some musical theatre history, in broad terms.
Grades 4-5
We create an original musical. Story, book (including where songs will manifest); then lyrics, music, casting, staging; add costumes/sets; lighting and sound; perform!
Middle School
Students work alone/in pairs to create a slice of an original musical: a scene and a song, with the rest of the musical mapped out, scene by scene, including song placement and titles of songs. Then we cast, stage the pieces, and perform!
Theatre Acting Tools and Technique
Dual Language Theatre [DLT] with David Guerra
50/50 model – Spanish/English
Theatre for Youth
Ages: K-12
This class is designed to promote enjoyment and the appreciation for all aspects of theatre. Teaching artists will guide youth participants through various movement and voice exercises, character development, theatre games, improvisation, music and acting. Developing critical thinking skills and confidence, the class culminates in a grand performance. Download program here.
Create An Original Musical
Teaching Artist: Ali
Do you love to perform as well as write and sing your own songs? Then this is the class for you. We will start with the storyline, where we incorporate everyone’s ideas; then collectively write a script; insert song lyrics at appropriate points in the story; then put melody lines to our lyrics. All is done as a cohesive group! When it’s done, we cast, rehearse and perform our original piece for the community on the last day. This is a class to let your imagination run wild and have a chance to work with other creative artists like yourself.
Drama Soup
Teaching Artist: Ali
Do you like to write and perform your own stories? Then this class is for you!! Just like a soup with many ingredients, our piece that we will perform will incorporate all of your ideas–because YOU are all the CHEFS!!! We do all our work as a cohesive group. When it’s done, we cast, rehearse and perform our original piece for the community on the last day. This is a class to let your imagination run wild and have a chance to work with other creative artists like yourself.
Silly Songs
Teaching Artist: Ali
Do you like to sing? Do you like to laugh? Then this is the class for you! You will learn some new songs like “The Old Family Toothbrush,” “Polar Bears Cuddle Up,” “Penguins Go In Water,” “The Cantaloupe Song;” as well as old favorites, “On Top of Spaghetti,” “Froggie Went a Courtin’,” “Do Your Ears Hang Low?”, “The Ants Go Marching,” “Old MacDonald,” “This Old Man,” and many more. And if you have a song that you love to sing, we will incorporate it into our repertoire. W might even write a song of our own! The class will culminate with a silly song recital on the last day!
Let’s Write a Play!
Teaching Artist: Naomi Carrington
Grades: 4-6
In this creative class, students learn how to collaborate in groups by writing a play together. They will learn how to work with one another, building communication and social skills. This class will begin with an exploration of character, plot, genres, and description and will end with a performance of the group plays. Get ready to explore your creative side!
Group Games and exercises for the theater
Teacher: Karl Steudel
Ages: 9-17
These games are some of the most fun, and excellent for any child.
We start with warm ups that are very simple to create body awareness,
such is visualization exercises. and progressing group games that are very easy, to somewhat more advanced.
The ideal group setting is from 7-12 children who are within 3 years age range.
I can offer this a substitute for most any theater class,
or as its own regularly scheduled class.
Private coaching for the audition
Teacher: Karl Steudel
Ages 9-17
Please see the link here…
http://yourauditioncoach.com/
Shakespeare Workshop
Teacher: Kathy O’Mara
Grades: K to 5th
Students will be introduced to the works of William Shakespeare. Using original text students will learn and work with sonnets, monologues and scene work. The original text will be adapted and modified to each student’s interest and learning level. Students will have exposure to Shakespeare’s work and learn about the different plays and select the text that they wish to rehearse for the production. All students will participate in voice, combat, movement, mask, and stage presence classes. This program is a process oriented class and will culminate in a performance celebrating the original text of Shakespeare.
Write! Star! Direct!
Teacher: Ellen Lawler
Grades: 4th to 12th
Here is a chance to create dynamic theatrical “events” by being the author, actor, designer and director of your work. Using techniques from a multidisciplinary palate, students are engaged in exercises to create mini plays and solo performances based on fact and fiction. Students will sketch each other to create portraits, which then morph into characters. They will draw maps from their memories and current environments, which then develop into set designs. Storytelling techniques are explored for text; then props, costumes, lights, sound, music and movement are all integrated to create a full theatrical experience.
The Dreaded Monologue
Teacher: Chad Hamblin
Grades:
Do you hate finding the right monologue? Memorizing all those lines? Making the right character choices? Keeping our confidence throughout the process? Without the right preparation, the pressure of performing alone for two or three minutes can feel like and eternity! Private monologue coaching can help every step of the way! Wheterh preparing for an audition, play, speech team or college entrance, students will learn how to choose a monologue with confidence, gain simple memorization, techniques, understand character analysis and discover how to make their performance unique and exciting. From Shakespeare to Simon, private monologue coaching will help you command a room and transform your cold-sweat into feverish applause! Taught by award-winning and critically acclaimed Los Angeles actor Chadbourne Hamblin.
Character
Creating Your Own Unique Character
Teacher: Rita Renee
Grades: 5th and up
In this class, students work up a character analysis/biography creating a unique character with vocal and physical qualities different from themselves. They then present a final performance of the character relating a story or monologue as that character. This class would need to meet at least 4-5 sessions for the best success. It would also contain preparatory improv games.
Clown
Clowning Around with Improv
Teacher: Abel Arias
Grades: 3rd and up
Students will have a chance to really clown around! The course will begin with basic improv games that increase listening skills, build confidence and encourage support for other actors. Activities will then teach students basic clowning skills such as entrances and exits, basic physical comedy bits, and interaction with everyday objects. Students will use these games and exercises to develop their own clown routine that will be performed in a brief clown show at the end of class.
Improvisation
Improvisation Relation!
Teacher: Staff
Grades: Preschool and up
You are the playwright! You and your cast members create scenes through games and your own experiences “in the moment” Having fun “playing” you will learn the rules and boundaries of the theatre, while exploring relationships, feelings, space and pantomime to name a few!
Improvisation Creation!
Teacher: Scott Sayre
Grades: 3rd and up
Students learn to make choices that work on the stage and, through theatre games and collaborative exercises, they begin to build confidence, teamwork, and drama literacy.
Ensemble Theatre
Theatre Production Intensive
Teachers: Aimee Young Hopkins & Kathy O’Mara and team
Grades: K to 12th
Students put on a performance of a major musical (abridged and adapted for their age level) such as The Sound of Music, Oliver, Grease, Annie, The Nutcracker, Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory, The Wizard of Oz, Alice in Wonderland, The Hobbit, Treasure Island, Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, Aladdin, and more. Students memorize lines, learn choreography, experience costumes, lights, sound and stage directions. This immersion process can be facilitated with 20-50 students.
From Script to Stage
Teacher: Scott Sayre
Grades: 3rd and up
Students create and mount a play that they write themselves, from the very first idea to the final script, to rehearsals and finally to a production. Depending on length of residency and age level, plays can be simple one-acts, ten-minute plays, monologues, or full-length plays, even musicals. Writer/director teaching artist helps students develop ideas and shape their scripts, as well as cast and perform it with flair!
From the Page to the Stage
Teacher: Kathy O’Mara
Grades: 4th to 12th
Students will create and produce an original performance piece based on the skills, talents and interests of the students. Students will participate in Theater games, voice class, fight combat, movement, and line study. Students will participate in a Rehearsal/Production process that will culminate in a final performance. The performance will include students reciting monologues, scene work and poetry, a dance and/or fight combat movement piece and an ensemble closing curtain call. Students will participate in the writing of script, music selections, choreography creation and costume design.
Musical Theatre
Create Your Own Musical
Teacher: Ali Mandelbaum
Grades: K – 3rd or 4th and up
Like to write? Sing? Perform? Then this is the class for you! We start with a blank page and write a mini-musical from scratch! All ideas welcome! We culminate with a performance at the end of the course!
Heritage
Teacher: Ali Mandelbaum
Grades: 3rd gr and up
Want to create and perform a musical about your ancestors? “Heritage” is a collaborative project where you choose the ancestor you’d like to portray in the show, and then we create it together. For the very creative who like all parts of musical theater!
Storymakers! Child-Led Musical Theatre Class
Teacher: Elizabeth Hurwitz
Grades: Preschool to 2nd
This class combines creativity, music, and child-centered choreography to create a nurturing environment in which kids create their own Broadway-style Revue! Students will sing, act out and choreograph Broadway songs so that each number tells a story. By using the music, the storylines, and their imaginations, the children will create movements, characters, and short snippets of dialogue and narration, which evolve organically into their own little one-of-a-kind performance. This is a highly collaborative, mixed-age class where the children run the show and get to use their ideas. The differentiated teaching model is used to accommodate the needs of each different age group, so that children can be challenged accordingly and can enjoy the theatrical process, each at their own level. Though the emphasis is on the process rather than the final product, we invite parents and the community to watch on the last day of class for an informal cabaret-style show, in which the students will get to share all they have learned.
Musical Theater
Teacher: Michelle Hanley
Grades: Preschool to 12th
Creative Movement class with a focus on basic Musical Theater (song and dance) technique, building classroom skills, motor-skill development, and learning to create song and dance combinations. We will build on skills and our routine each week to culminate in a performance demonstration.
Drama 102 / Irish Dance Drama
Teacher: Maire Clerkin
Grades: 5th and up
In this 15 week course, Máire Clerkin leads her student performers to create a theater performance from a Celtic folk tale, involving improvisation, ensemble speech, movement skills, character development, body percussion, teamwork and Irish Dancing. This will culminate in a spellbinding show that displays the talent and abilities of the cast, in all their glory!
Oral Presentation – Performance,
Poetry and Storytelling
Fairy and Folk Tales
Teacher: Alina Hevia
Grades: Preschool to 5th
The class will read stories from around the world, finding similarities and differences in the stories of varied cultures, learn about archetypes and structure, and produce our own collection of stories. We will also incorporate the musical narrative tradition, and explore the differences between telling a story through song, and other mediums.
Shel Silverstein Celebration
Teacher: Kathy O’Mara
Grades: K to 5th
Students will participate in Theater games, voice class, movement, and line study of Shel Silverstein’s poetry. Students will participate in a Rehearsal/Production process that will culminate in a final performance. The performance will include students reciting poetry, a dance movement piece and an ensemble closing curtain call. Students will participate in the selection of poetry, music choice, choreography creation and costume design.
Kid Rap
Teacher: Clara Presby
Grades: 3rd to 12th
KID RAP is an innovative literacy program designed to encourage students to write stories from their own personal experience, read the stories created by their peers, and work collaboratively in the editing, rewriting and performance of these stories. By connecting the student’s literacy development to their own life experience KID RAP fosters a personal connection to the written word that would otherwise be absent. KID RAP culminates with a show where the students perform their stories for family and friends.
Oral Presentation – Performance/ Poetry, Storytelling and “The Newscaster”
Teacher: Rita Renee
Grades: 5th and up
Students work with putting poetry performances to music, storytelling and delivering their own “news event”. Students learn to feel confident with different methods of oral presentation and work on various oral techniques of communication such as vocal articulation and expression as well as physical gesture. Several sessions
Playwriting
Writing Your Experience as a Play
Teacher: Scott Sayre
Grades: 7th to 9th
Students write their own experience as a play, using writing exercises to trigger memory and free the mind to write what is truthful. Through these exercises, young writers begin to see humor, pathos, drama, conflict and redemption in their own lives and to get it down on paper for actors to perform. When possible, professional actors are brought in to read the students’ work at the half-way point and for the final performance, culminating in a staged reading of these works-in-progress.
