Students focus on the art and craft of acting and directing through creative projects, emphasizing the collaboration between actors and directors. All students learn performance techniques for actors and camera techniques for directors.

Workshops in Acting:

• Improv Games: Through games and exercises, students develop the ability to react spontaneously, live in the moment, and bring intensity and joy in their performances.
• Crafting Characters: Create believable characters and understand subtext, objectives, and dramatic context.
• Scenes: Learn cold reading skills and the performance of believable dialogue through the technique of listening and action-reaction.

Workshops in Directing:

• Script Analysis: Learn how to closely read material in order to define the objectives of the characters, understand arcs, beats, and make choices to heighten the drama or comedy of a scene.
• Staging a Scene: Learn how to block a scene for the camera and shoot for coverage with effective staging that keeps continuity in wide, medium, and close-up shots.

Combined Workshops:

• The Art of Rehearsals: Collaborate as actors and directors and create a film project. Rehearse blocking, camera movement, and develop the final performance. Rehearsals are the time to experiment and create the magic in the scene.
• Shooting Day: Everyone will participate, collaborate, and shoot their scene!

Through these series of workshops, CSU Faculty instruct students in improvisation, monologues, scene work, camera technique, script analysis, and blocking. Each camper films a selected scene for the final showing, demonstrating their class work and creative progress. At the conclusion of the program, students will be provided with a copy of their filmed scene studies for their portfolios.

Students attend sessions Monday–Friday from 10:00 a.m. – 5:00 p.m. Lunch is provided.

Day Camp: $1200  Monday, July 13 – Friday, July 17, 2026

This program was made possible by a generous gift from Lee and Ageleke Zapis 

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