Spring Theater Classes Enrolling at Oddfellows

Oddfellows Playhouse Youth Theater is pleased to announce its Spring 2013 Session will begin the week of April 1.  Oddfellows’ programs use theatre as a vehicle to build essential life skills, while exploring highly educational and artistic themes and plays.  There are a variety of performance options and technique based classes for students ages 3-18.



Oddfellows Playhouse has a 38 year history, and is the largest comprehensive theater program for young people in central Connecticut.  Students participate from 40 different towns from throughout Connecticut, allowing young people to create new friendships and broaden their perspectives.  The Playhouse employs a staff of talented and skilled, working professional theatrical artists.  As a theater arts center, Oddfellows Playhouse is dedicated to innovation, diversity and inclusion.  The goal of the Playhouse is to nurture the creative spirit and promote skills that will serve children throughout their lives.  

Classes for the Little Fellows (ages 3-4) include Around the World and Animal Adventures. Classes are offered on Saturday mornings.  Participatory classes include Parents & Tots and Arts Explosion on Thursday mornings at 10am. 

First Act (Grades K-1) offers Creative Drama courses themed around children’s books and adventures such as Tales of Peter Rabbit and Lyle, Lyle Crocodile.  Story Starters (Grades 2-3) encourage creative expression and promote confidence, self-esteem, and communication.  Once a week classes focus on skill building, while classes that meet twice a week short productions put those skills into action.  Classes include Anansi Tales and Mystery Theater and a mini-production of the West African fairytale Mufaro’s Beautiful Daughters. 

The Kids Company (Grades 4-5) is the stage that students begin to focus more on skills and techniques.  These courses help develop the next set of vocal, physical and emotional skills.  Technique classes include Comedy and Improv, Create a Character and Fundamentals of Musical Theater. The mini-production is the classic Wind in the Willows driven story, Adventures in Toad Hall.

The Junior Repertory Company (grades 6-8) offers technique classes for students in Actor Technique: How to Deliver a Monologue, Intro to Playwrighting and Behind the Scenes: Stagecraft.  A Circus Skills class in partner acrobatics, ACROJAM, meets on Monday evenings.  There are also private audition coaching and voice lessons available.   

Interested high school students can take an Intro to Directing class on Tuesday evenings, which will build budding director’s ability to think about story, staging and working with actors.  There is also a Intro to Playwrighting class offered.  A full list of program offerings and public performances can be found online at www.oddfellows.org.




Oddfellows programming is made possible through the generous support of the CDBG Scholarship Program, Citizens Bank, the CT Department of Economic and Community Development, the CT Department of Education, Daphne Seybolt Culpeper Memorial Fund, Elizabeth Carse Foundation, the Fund for Greater Hartford, the George A. and Grace L. Long Foundation, the Irving Kohn Foundation, the J. Walton Bissell Foundation, Liberty Bank Foundation, Maximilian E. & Marion O. Hoffman Foundation, Middlesex County Community Foundation, Middlesex United Way, the Middletown Commission on the Arts, Middletown YSB, the National Endowment for the Arts, Pratt & Whitney, Price Chopper Golub Foundation, the Stare Fund, Stop and Shop Foundation, Thomas J. Atkins Foundation, Triple Frog, LLC and WESU (88.1FM).