Maple Grove Theater Camp Teaches Stage Skills, Confidence

The art of performing on stage requires talent, hard work, and confidence. It also helps to have instructions from people who know what they’re doing.

Liz Smith is one of the people leading a summer theater camp in Maple Grove, presented by Bunce Backyard Productions.

“We thought, let’s do a camp that is affordable,” Smith said. “Cause one of the things, you go around to Children’s Theatre, which they have fantastic camps. Chanhassen, all those, have fantastic summer camps. But a lot of them are really expensive.”

This five-day theater camp for children ages 8-11, costs $100 (a two-week camp for children ages 12-15 costs $185). For that price, the kids experience the outdoors, and learn a show in the process.

“We have fun with it,” Smith said. “We learn about what it looks like to play a character on stage.”

One of the theater camp participants is Trevor Mills, an 11-year-old from Plymouth.

“My mom thinks I have a slight talent for music and I really love being on the stage, so my mom thought that this would be a fun thing to learn in case I actually wanted to do one over the summer,” Mills said.

Mills said he has already learned a few new tricks several days into this theater camp experience.

“I have learned acting skills and to be more expressive with my facial expressions,” Mills said. “And I just learned how to kind of get more into it, because when you are able to get into your character, it’s just so much fun. It is awesome.”

Theater Camp is for Everyone

While the camp certainly enhances theater skills, camp counselors say anyone can take part, because in this summer camp the children build confidence.

Throughout the course of the week, Smith says the children become better at projecting their voice and performing on stage.

“That transfers over in to a school setting of, ‘I’m just more confident to talk to people I don’t know,’” Smith said.

It’s a life lesson that can come in handy both on and off the stage.

“It’s a nice environment to be around,” Mills said.

The students in the age 8-11 camp will have a free performance featuring songs from ‘Matilda The Musical’ on Friday at noon.

The older camp students will have a free performance of ‘The Lion King’ next Thursday at 7 p.m.

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