Minnesota Acting: Your AWOL - Basic Lessons and Resources for Aspiring Actors and Actresses

MINNESOTA ACTING CAMPS & CLASSES

Camps and classes for Minnesota kids, teens, and adults that have a special focus on acting in the theatre. Many of these Minnesota acting education programs also focus on singing, dancing and music. Most programs present a performance on the last day of classes. Most of the camps are day camps, but some are residential.

Contact each individual organization via their website for updated program date, place, and registration information.

Twin Cities Theater Camp
St. Paul, MN area

Twin Cities Theater Camp is a unique summer theater institute where children learn from professionals in all areas of the theater arts and perform in a full length musical production. TCTC offers children a fun, stimulating experience where they can be themselves, express themselves, and make new friends.

Our program lasts for five weeks each summer during which students will rehearse and take classes from Twin Cities arts professionals. The program culminates in three performances of a full-length musical often incorporating student-created content.

Twin Cities Theater Camp is designed for children ages 7-14 years of age. This age range facilitates a unique mentoring opportunity between older, more experienced children, and younger children who are new to theater and the TCTC experience. It is a value of the staff at Twin Cities Theater Camp that theater education be available to all, and scholarship funds are available to students who cannot afford the program tuition.

Website: http://www.tctheatercamp.org

ChanDT Musical Theatre Camp
Chanhassen/Minneapolis, MN area

Since 1994, more than 13,000 kids and teens have learned about the magic of musical theatre as only Chanhassen can do it!. Students are given opportunities to explore a wide spectrum of musical theatre components including voice, movement, costumes, scenery, stage combat and more!

Website: https://chanhassendt.com/camp/

Guthrie Theater Summer Camps
Minneapolis, MN area

From adult classes to workshops to summer camps for youth, Education and Professional Training offers programming that connects people of all ages and abilities with the artistry of the Guthrie.

Youth: We all need time to play, exercise our imaginations and be inspired by our world and all its characters. Through student matinees, summer camps and year-round workshops, we help theater-loving kids and teens engage their creativity and curiosity through acting, directing, musical theater and more.

Adults: Whether you are an artist who wants to hone your skills, an educator looking for fresh ideas or a theater novice looking to try something new, we have a variety of classes and workshops designed just for you. Browse our offerings to find your perfect fit — and join us in a space where we center diversity and inclusion, accessibility and belonging.

Professional training for college/university students: A Guthrie Experience is designed for M.F.A. actors and theatermakers to engage in a deep dive the summer before their final year of graduate school, offering an opportunity to cross-pollinate a wide range of artistic practices and perspectives that inform our field.

Website: https://www.guthrietheater.org/education

Stages Theatre Company Summer Theatre Workshops
Hopkins/Minnetonka, MN area

Stages Theatre Company is an all-access pass to theatre arts education! Our programs are designed to meet the needs of any young person, organization, or school looking to inspire the imagination, deepen their knowledge of theatre, integrate arts into other subject matters, foster creative expression, and build confidence and self-expression. Various programs are designed for different participant grade and age levels. Inspire the imagination, develop performance skills, build confidence at Stages Theatre Company

School year, Winter break and Summer break Theatre Workshops are available. Discover, imagine, create, and play at Stages Theatre Company

Website: https://www.stagestheatre.org/education

Summer Camps at SteppingStone
Saint Paul, MN area

Classes at SteppingStone Theatre for Youth create space for young artists to express themselves, make cool theatre art, and be who they are. Professional Teaching Artists and on-staff specialists design each class to bring young people together in an artistic exploration of theatre.

We believe young people are artists, makers, and doers. They need to belong and to contribute to their world. When young people make art together, they change themselves and the world around them for the better.

SteppingStone ignites belonging, generosity, mastery, self-advocacy, and inspiration by creating art with young people to share with the world.

Classes for adults: Your Theatre for Life. Park Square Theatre and SteppingStone Creative Learning are pleased to offer a storytelling workshop series for adults. Intergenerational classes are available as well as programs specifically for adults age 50 and above.

Together, the programs will immerse you in learning that will cumulatively build your skills and comfort in speaking out and sharing your stories. Deepen connections with friends and family, forge new relationships, and share the joy of theatre!

Website: https://www.steppingstonetheatre.org

Youth Performance Company
Twin Cities, MN area

Youth Performance Company offers theatre classes and workshops for students in grades K-12 with different programs for separate grade level groups. From beginners to experienced – explore your potential and fuel your passion at YPC!

Founded in 1989, Youth Performance Company (YPC) stands as a unique theatre in the Twin Cities. At YPC, we believe in giving youth a voice in the creative process, fostering their leadership skills, and producing theater that exemplifies the highest standard of artistic excellence.

With an impressive three-decade track record, YPC has become synonymous with inclusivity, providing opportunities for children from all income levels, races, and cultures to come together and explore their potential, engage with thought-provoking theater, and cultivate meaningful connections. Each year, we proudly serve Twin Cities youth through a wide range of classes, camps, performances, and leadership training, making a lasting impact on their lives.

Website: https://youthperformanceco.org/classes/

Fargo Moorhead Community Theatre
Moorhead, MN/Fargo, ND areas

Class for youth and adults are offered. Theatre education embraces many aspects of student curriculum: English, History, Science, Social Studies, Math, Music, and more. Through stories, character development, problem-solving, and critical thinking, students explore these areas of curriculum in order to creatively exist within the world of a play. The goal at FMCT Ed is to expand upon a student’s frame of reference and teach them to make connections between the theatre that they create and the world in which they live. Students learn to collaborate with their peers, connect with people from differing backgrounds, and begin to see themselves as valued citizens on the world’s stage where they develop important ideas about justice, history, personal choices, politics, and humanity.

Website: http://www.fmct.org

RESOURCES

Of course a website cannot tell you all the information you need to know about preparing yourself to be an actor: unions, contracts, agents, casting, auditions, and the myriads of other things actors should learn about the acting business.

Below are a number of resources that will help you learn about such things to get you on the right road to becoming a successful actor.

From Craft to Career: A Casting Director's Guide for the Actor
by Merri Sugarman & Tracy Moss

Practical, positive and uplifting, the advice in this book is designed to lead to the best outcomes possible for you, the actor, making the transition from craft to career. The reader is given insight into the various types of casting directors across the industry and how that practical knowledge can benefit you and increase your chance of success. While providing an in-depth insight into the role of the casting director, this book explains the j...More

Act ALIVE: The Essential Guide to Igniting and Sustaining Your Working Actor Career
by Andi Matheny

Finally - a modern acting method that cuts to the chase of what actors really need to unleash their acting genius! The groundbreaking Act ALIVE approach, with exercises ranging from pragmatic to deeply personal, will give you the tools to quickly bring your skills to the next level, from audition to set. Actor and acting coach Andi Matheny, who has helped launch hundreds of actors on their journey from pupil to professional, writes in an entertai...More

The Actor's Hustle: A Step by Step Guide to Getting Your Foot in the Door in TV and Film and How to Get Paid from Your Craft
by Shana Solomon & Carlington Neil

The Actor's Hustle is a book designed to help Actors on all levels reach their career goals and start booking quality film & TV roles that will help them quit their day jobs and build powerful relationships in the entertainment industry and grow. This easy read is loaded with Shana Solomon's hilarious, in your face tell it like it is personality as she shares her wild experiences jam-packed with lessons of how she went from a girl in the Bronx wo...More

Acting in Musical Theatre: A Comprehensive Course
by Joe Deer & Rocco Dal Vera

Acting in Musical Theatre remains the only complete course in approaching a role in a musical. It covers fundamental skills for novice actors, practical insights for professionals, and even tips to help veteran musical performers refine their craft.Acting in Musical Theatre's chapters divide into easy-to-reference units, each containing group and solo exercises, making it the definitive textbook for students and practitioners alike...More

Acting the Song: Performance Skills for the Musical Theatre
by Tracey Moore & Allison Bergman

Acting the Song offers a contemporary, integrated approach to singing in musicals that results in better-trained, smarter performers everyone wants to work with. In this new, thoroughly updated edition of the paperback, directors and teachers of musical theater will find guidance in developing and leading musical theater elements, classroom workshops, and the world of professional auditions and performances. Subjects for both versions cover: Sing...More

Drama for Teen Actors
by Christine McClure

Christine McClure has more than thirty years of experience coaching actors one-on-one, on set, and in group classes. Her students have appeared in major features and television series and have worked with Oscar-winning directors Steven Soderbergh, Stanley Kubrick, Sofia Coppola, the Coen brothers, and more. Now Christine puts that experience to work for you by sharing her techniques and giving you a literal front-row seat in her dramatic acting c...More

Respect for Acting: Expanded Version
by Uta Hagen with Haskel Frankel

Since its original publication in 1973, Uta Hagen's Respect for Acting has remained a durable classic and a must-read for all students of acting. As an acting instructor at the Herbert Berghof Studio, Hagen helped to develop the talents of world-class actors like Robert DeNiro, Matthew Broderick, Gene Wilder, Amanda Peet, Austin Pendleton, Whoopi Goldberg, and more. In this book, Hagen offers an indispensable acc...More

The Complete Stanislavsky Toolkit: Revised Edition
by Bella Merlin

A revised and updated edition of Bella Merlin's essential guide to Stanislavsky. The Complete Stanislavsky Toolkit collects together for the first time the terms and ideas developed by Stanislavsky throughout his career. It is organised into three sections: Actor-Training, Rehearsal Processes and Performance Practices. Key terms are explained and defined as they naturally occur in this process. They are illustrat...More

Breaking Down Your Script: A Step-By-Step Guide for the Actor
by Laura Wayth

This clear, concise and practical guide provides actors with a structured and effective method for breaking down and understanding a performance script. It offers a flexible approach that works with plays from any period or genre, with television and film scripts, and even when preparing for your audition. Inside, you'll find the tools you need for every step of the process, from making sense of the whole script, to breaking it down scene by scen...More

Back to the Body: Infusing Physical Life into Characters in Theatre and Film
By Jean-Louis Rodrigue & Scott Weintraub

Back to the Body: Infusing Physical Life into Characters in Theatre and Film guides you to experience and use your body and its energy as a basic point of departure for performance and expression. You will learn to apply your entire self in acting, with your voice, body, mind, and emotion. This integrated training is designed to combine all these elements of yourself with your material, the environment, and other...More

Activated Script Analysis: An Integrative Approach to Play Analysis Through Creative Expression and Devised Theatre
by Elizabeth Brendel Horn

Activated Script Analysis engages theatre students in traditional formative script analysis through a fusion of devised theatre and various modes of creative expression, dispelling the notion of script analysis as an isolated pen-to-paper task and reimagining it as a captivating and collaborative process. This book uses diverse, contemporary plays to model the script analysis process for each of four Theatrical Elements: Given Circumstances; Character; Setting; and Structure...More

Running a Successful Voiceover Business
by Joshua Alexander

In this "beginner-friendly guide to a voiceover business", notable voice talent, author and blogger Joshua Alexander provides comprehensive and personally-based guidance on the proper formation and operation of a successful business in voiceovers. Leaning heavily into his own operations that have led him to become one of the most frequently-booked voice talent in the industry today, this book is sure to provide you the inspiration and knowledge y...More

The Voice Over Startup Guide: How to Land Your First VO Job
by Chris Agos

Voice over actor Chris Agos walks you through the most effective ways to earn money in today's professional voice over industry, and more importantly, how to keep your career rolling. You'll gain a clearly-defined map of the industry that will open up opportunities you'd never have thought possible. What's more, we've included sample scripts and audio tracks of every important voice over style, so you can hear how the professionals do it...More

The Monster in Theatre History: This Thing of Darkness
by Michael Chemers

Monsters are fragmentary, uncertain, frightening creatures. What happens when they enter the realm of the theatre? The Monster in Theatre History explores the cultural genealogies of monsters as they appear in the recorded history of Western theatre. From the Ancient Greeks to the most cutting-edge new media, Michael Chemers focuses on a series of 'key' monsters, including Frankenstein's creature, werewolves, ghosts, and vampires, to reconsider what monsters in performance might mean to those who witness them....More

An Actor's Guide--Making It in New York City, Third Edition: Everything a Working Actor Needs to Survive and Succeed in the Big Apple
by Glenn Alterman

A Step-by-Step Guide for the Actor Pursuing a Career in New York. A great deal has changed in the industry in the last decade. In this new, third edition of An Actor's Guide--Making It in New York City, Glenn Alterman provides everything actors need to know. You'll discover the ten things that it takes to make it as a successful actor in the city, how to support yourself, where and how to start your life as a New York actor, understanding and marketing "your brand," the best acting schools and conservatories, effective ways to contact agents and casting directors, and more. The author, a successful working actor, also shares many insider tips...More