Overview

Overview:
Competitive college theatre departments are looking for applicants who are not only strong performers, but well rounded individuals who are willing to take risks and work well collaborating with others.

“Yale’s acting department admits talented and committed individuals who possess an active intelligence, a strong imagination, and a physical and vocal instrument capable of development and transformation….Not only is each class of actors a working ensemble as it trains, but also each actor works as part of a larger company.” - College Admissions

The Pre-College Theatre Lab offers high school students a fun, intensive curriculum that will prepare and position them for both college and professional opportunities.  

The curriculum has been created by industry experts who have a passion for developing the next generation of theatre artists. Students develop performance and communication skills that will serve them throughout their professional careers.

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Core Classes

Core Classes:

Acting:
Students access truth in performance by engaging with foundational acting methods.  Focus is placed on connecting thought, emotion and speech to create living, breathing, three dimensional characters on stage.

Musical Theatre Voice:
Students learn to harness vocal strength exploring how we use our voices and how that translates to live performance. This class covers healthy vocal production, storytelling through song, how to select material and where vocal trends are shifting in the business. Students leave with a better understanding of their instrument and with personalized song cuts to use for auditions or performance.

Shakespearean Verse: 
The study of Shakespeare in performance is essential for every performer. The Theatre Lab demystifies Shakespeare by uncovering the humor, joy and universal relevance of Shakespeare’s text. Shakespearean Verse asks students to explore the power of words though ensemble scene work, text analysis and speech.

Physical Theatre:
Physical theater tackles character, storytelling, and emotion.  Through this creative and rigorous training, students develop physical awareness, learn to get “out of their heads”, and gain confidence on stage. Through object manipulation, physical comedy, clowning, mime and physical conditioning students gain a range of practical skills that can be applied to all styles of performance.

Auditioning for Film and Theatre Workshop:
Students work with a seasoned New York casting director to delve into current industry standards for audition etiquette.  Topics include what makes great audition material and techniques to make your audition a success. Each student receives individual resume consultations.

Additional Masterclass Workshops with Established Industry Artists :
Students round out their training with a series of masterclasses meant to expose them to unique forms of performance and theatre-making. Past topics include:

• Musical Theatre Performance

• Choreography
• Directing
• Auditioning

• Stage Combat

• Acting Plus

• Devised Theatre
• Artist Wellness through Yoga & Meditation

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Biographies

2022 Teaching Artists to be announced soon.
Below are last year's Master Class Artists.

2021 Past Session Teacher Biographies Listed Below:

Anna Holbrook (Acting Instructor)
NY Stage: Miss America’s Ugly Daughter (Marjorie S. Dean Theater), Daniel’s Husband (Westside Theater, Primary Stages, Penguin Rep),Raising Jo (Theater Row), Skeletons (Broadway Bound Festival), Natural Life, Hot L Baltimore (Gloria Maddox Theater) Regional: Crimes of the Heart, Three Viewings, My Fair Lady. Film: Hallmark’s Christmas at the Madison(1&2), I Love Trouble, Those Who Wander Television: Hunters, Homeland, Assisted Living, Blue Bloods, Bull, Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt, Law & Order, L&O SVU, The West Wing, Spin City, One Life to Live, All My Children, Another World (Daytime Emmy). www.annaholbrook.com

Arbender Robinson (Vocal Performance Interpretation)
Arbender Robinson (Actor) Broadway: In Transit, Shuffle Along (Revival), LesMiserables (revival), Beautiful: The Carole King Musical, Disney's The Lion King, Book OfMormon, Hair, Ragtime(revival), Disney'sThe Little Mermaid, Hairspray. T.V.: The Last O.G., Nurse Jackie, Little Voice, Tony Awards, Good Morning America, The Today Show, CBSSunday Morning.He made his Broadway debut in the TonyAward-Winning Production ofHairspray,where he covered the role of Seaweed. In the original cast of Disney'sThe Little Mermaid,he covered the role of Prince Eric. He also served as the Dance Captain and Swing for the Broadway revival of Hairand was seen in the Broadway revival of Ragtime. His Broadway credits continue with Disney's The Lion King, Broadway's 6th longest running and all-time highest-grossing show. Since then, he was in the original cast of Beautiful The Carole King Musical and the 2014 of LesMiserables and is the cover for Marius. He is also the first African American ever to play Mariuson Broadway. Arbender starred in the 2016 hit music Shuffle Along alongside many Broadway Legends,including Audra McDonald, Brian Stokes Mitchell, Billy Porter, Brandon VictorDixon,and Joshua Henry. The show was directed by Tony Award Winner George C Wolfe and Choreographed by Savionne Glover.

Dan Micchice - Song Interpretation
Dan is the music director and conductor for WICKED on Broadway and was the music director for the national tour of CHICAGO.  As an actor Dan has starred on Broadway in CHICAGO as well as the national and international tour of the show.  He has sung solo at Carnegie Hall, The Kennedy Center and Baltimore Symphony with Bernstein’s MASS w/ Marin Aslop.

Omen Sade (Commedia Dell'Arte, Physical Theatre)
Omen is a NYC based actor, writer, physical theater creator, and teacher. Omen is a veteran performer at STONC, and a co-founder of Bros Do Prose. Synthesizing extensive physical and classical theater training from London, the Netherlands, Italy, and the Lecoq School in Paris, Omen has taught at Broadway Classrooms, Circle in the Square, and Hunter College in New York City. This will be his 7th season teaching at the Pre-College Theater Lab. www.dramaticspace.com

Kelly Loughran (Ballet Styles)
Originally from the sweetest place on earth: Hershey, Pa, Kelly began studying classical ballet at Central Pennsylvania Youth Ballet when she was 13. After high school graduation, she was invited to study with the San Francisco Ballet. She started her professional ballet career at the age of 18. After a year dancing abroad in Germany, Kelly relocated to NYC where she discovered a love for musical theater after working with Broadway choreographer Josh Prince as a member of “Dance Lab New York”. She is grateful to have realized that, though everything is beautiful at the ballet, her heart sings for Broadway. She made her theatre debut in Summer Theatre of New Canaan’s “West Side Story” & was fortunate to return the following summer for “Singin’ in the Rain”. Kelly is beyond grateful to be apart of the STONC family & is extremely excited to be teaching this summer at their Pre-College Theatre Lab. Prior to the Covid shutdown, Kelly was performing on Broadway with “The Phantom of the Opera”. She can’t wait to return to Phantom once everything begins to open back up. In the meantime, she continues to dream of new possibilities: looking towards a future in TV/film while maintaining training in both dance and signing. Outside of the performing arts, Kelly loves ice cream, horseback riding & her dog Barley.

Matthew Glasner (On Auditioning)
Since working in casting full-time, Matthew has had the privilege of being on the casting team for projects such as the Academy-Award Winning Film, ‘Spotlight', DreamWorks' ‘Girl on the Train', ‘Marvel's Jessica Jones Season 1', Amazon's ‘Good Girls Revolt', the hit NBC Series ‘Chicago Justice', Netflix Feature, ‘Alex Strangelove', Season 3 of 'Quantico', Seasons 2 & 3 of 'The Sinner’ and ‘Little Women’ and the upcoming Wes Anderson film, ‘The French Dispatch’ When working independently, Matthew has cast numerous Short Films and full-length features: ‘Braid' (TriBeCa Film Festival 2018), 'Hurricane Bianca: From Russia with Hate', and ‘Milkwater’ (Brooklyn Film Festival 2020 & Atlanta Film Festival 2020) starring Molly Bernard.

Dan Renkin (Stage Combat)
Dan Renkin works widely as both actor and fight director/stunt coordinator. At STONC, he has created fights for H4/Henry IV, Big River, Carousel, West Side Story, Singin’ in the Rain, The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (Abridged), and Kiss Me, Kate, while his fights for BDP’s touring productions of Peter Pan, Treasure Island and Robin Hood have played to excited audiences at STONC and in Chicago. Film and television: As the World Turns, See You In September, Asylum Seekers and a variety of independent films. Additional stage: assistant to B.H. Barry on Broadway’s Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, as well as off-Broadway on Evil Dead: The Musical and A Stone Carver with Dan Lauria. He has fought in Carmen and Otello for the Metropolitan Opera, where he has also coached or fight-captained principal singers, and has staged or coached character-driven fights waged with everything from wheelchairs to axe handles to broadswords for Babel Theatre Project, Penguin Rep, Abingdon Theatre, Shakespeare-on-the-Hudson, New Jersey Rep, Blunt Theatre Company, Hudson Valley Shakespeare Festival, Ensemble Studio Theatre, WORKSproductions, Storm Theatre, JLM Productions, St. Ann’s School, The New Acting Company, and MaskWork Unlimited. His choreography for New Light Theatre Project’s Monte Cristo and Abingdon’s The Boy Who Danced On Air were both critically acclaimed. Faculty: Circle in the Square, American Academy of Dramatic Arts, Five Towns College, and the New York Film Academy, where he is a founding faculty member of their musical theatre department. He a guest instructor/former faculty for HB Studio, Juilliard, John Jay College, Greenwich Youth Theatre, CAP21, Center School and The New School, and is a Master Class instructor with Broadway Classroom

Tyler West - Improv & Clowning

Tyler West is originally from Tucson, Arizona. Where he graduated with a B.F.A. degree in Acting from the University of Arizona. He took those skills and years of unintentional networking to New York City; to work as a clown and physical comedian in burlesque and variety shows. He's created and performed his own acts at places like The Slipper Room, The Box, The House of Yes, and several others. Tyler has never been formally trained with clowning or mime, but he has studied with great clowns like David Shiner, Aitor Basauri, Eric Davis, Amy G, Stefan Haves, and more! 

Matthew Liotine - Storytelling Through Movement

Matthew Aaron Liotine is a NYC-based Dancer, Singer, Actor, Fitness Trainer and Lover of all things performance! Matthew attended LaGuardia High School of the Performing Arts where he studied classical voice and dance. He went on to attend Montclair State University where he received his BFA in Musical Theatre. Matthew's STONC debut was in 2020 during Pippin. He was honored to be the dance captain alongside Kelcey Matheny.  Past credits include: The National Tour of A Chorus Line, The Muny, The Merry-Go-Round Playhouse, Royal Caribbean and more. Matthew is represented by Clear Talent Group and is excited to continue his pursuit to Broadway and Beyond! Check him out on Instagram: @matthewaaronliotine

 All students need to pre-register prior to submitting an audition video.
Please contact This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. should you have any trouble pre-registering.

Audition

How to Audition:
We are thrilled that you are interested in this year's Pre-College Theatre Lab. As part of the application process to this program, we are requesting a self-tape audition from all applicants. The self tape will help our Education Director get to know you better and select the students for the Theatre lab. This year we are putting together an ensemble of students who not only desire to work on their skills individually but have an enthusiastic spirit for collaboration. Space is limited to 10 students. Audition submissions are now being accepted. Pre-College Theatre Lab acceptance will be made on a rolling basis.

Self-tape instructions:
You will need a camera or a device that has a camera (smartphone, laptop…etc) internet connection, a musical track (karaoke style) or musical accompanist.  If you don’t have access to music you can sing a cappella if needed.

When you film make sure that background noise is kept to a minimum and that the camera is at eye-level. The light source should be in front of the student (off camera) and try to film against a plain background. Make sure the camera is stable. Frame the shot from the chest up.

For the audition: 

1. Please state:
   - Your name
   - Age
   - Current grade (grade you are going into)
   - Theatrical experience, if you don’t have any theatrical experience, please tell us what you are most excited to learn.
   - Do you have any special talents (do you play a musical instrument, are you an accomplished dancer, juggler…etc).

     - Please submit your headshot/or photo and resume (if you have one)
       Next please perform only ONE of the following:  

     - 60 seconds of a song, Do your best to sing to a track or have an accompanist.  If not, please sing acapella.  Please do not play the piano and sing at the same time.  

     - 60 seconds of a monologue. This can be from a play or a book. Please do not use material from tv or film.
       Finally, tell a 1 minute story about a meaningful experience you’ve had in the theatre. How did it change you? What did you  learn?

Please email the self-tape audition as an unlisted YouTube or Vimeo link to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. along with a headshot and resume (if you have them) for consideration.  Contact Sky if you have any questions.