Academy Festival

CharacterWorks Academy Festival - June 3-5, 2022

The Academy Festival is a weekend of performances from CharacterWorks' Academy classes. Academy classes are year-long, application/audition-only classes that offer more focused curriculum and training. Each June, students have a chance to apply online and gain acceptance before regular fall registration opens in July. The Academy classes are excited to showcase their work! 

When: June 3-5, 2022
Where: The Lynn Theater at John Tyler Community College Midlothian Campus
Tickets: $10 Academy Festival Pass (access to every performance), or $5 tickets to individual performances.*

*Passes and tickets sold at the door only. General seating. Class parents receive 2 free tickets (per student) to their child's performance. Academy students will receive a free Festival Pass and are invited to attend the other performances.  

Audition Info for Academy 2022-2023 will be posted soon!  

2022 Academy Festival Schedule

Friday, June 3rd
7PM - Acting Academy: Comedy - The Importance of Being Earnest (Cast B - Enter Merriman) 

Saturday, June 4th
11AM - Junior Academy: Acting - Big Bad
2PM - Acting Academy: Comedy - The Importance of Being Earnest (Cast A - Exit Lane)
7PM - Advanced Acting: Musical Theater - Big Fish (Cast A)

Sunday, June 5th
2PM - Advanced Acting: Musical Theater - Big Fish (Cast B) 
6PM - Academy Chorus - Concert
8PM - Junior Academy: Musical Theater - The Wind in the Willows Young@Part

2022-2023 Academy Classes

Information about CharacterWorks' 2022-2023 Academy classes will be posted soon. 

Acting Academy: Comedy - The Importance of Being Earnest

Friday, June 3th, 7PM (Cast B - Enter Merriman)
Saturday, June 4th, 2PM (Cast A - Exit Lane)
 
The Importance of Being Earnest, A Trivial Comedy for Serious People by Oscar Wilde is a madcap farce about mistaken identities, secret engagements, and lovers' entanglements. The classic play still delights readers more than a century after its 1895 publication and premiere performance. First performed on 14 February 1895 at the St James's Theatre in London, it has become a mainstay on stages and theater programs around the world. 

This year in the Advanced Acting: Comedy class, students applied acting technique to the art of comedy. Students focused on comic theory and timing, creating believable characters, script and scene work, finding objectives, using acting tactics, and dialect work. 

Advanced Acting: Musical Theater Academy - Big Fish

Saturday, June 4th, 7PM (Cast A)*
Sunday, June 5th, 2PM (Cast B)*
 
Based on the celebrated novel by Daniel Wallace and the acclaimed film directed by Tim Burton, Big Fish tells the musical story of Edward Bloom, a traveling salesman who lives life to its fullest… and then some! Edward’s incredible, larger-than-life stories thrill everyone around him – most of all, his devoted wife Sandra. But their son Will, about to have a child of his own, is determined to find the truth behind his father’s epic tales. 
 
In Advanced Acting: Acting Through Song Academy, students worked on applying acting technique to both scene and song. The class worked on finding objectives, urgency, and filling the air of each song. Students spent time analyzing their characters and learning to build relationships on stage, as well as working on proper vocal technique and understanding lyrics with our music director.  

*Parental guidance suggested.

Junior Academy: Acting - Big Bad

Saturday, June 4th, 11AM

Big Bad by Alec Strum is a fairy-take courtroom comedy with all your favorite story book characters. The most notorious criminal in the fairy-tale world, Big Bad Wolf, is being slapped with a class-action lawsuit by the countless quirky characters he has wronged. Was he born a criminal, or made one? Perhaps he does deserve compassion instead of condemnation? What will the verdict be? Only the jury can decide! 

In the Academy Junior: Acting class, students studied character development, vocal expression, creating acting objectives, and building believable characters for the stage. Students were introduced to essential acting techniques through improv, theater games and exercises while working on a play.

Academy Chorus - Concert

Sunday, June 5th, 6PM

Singing songs in unison, 2 part and 3 part harmony, the inaugural Academy Chorus will perform selections from classical, traditional folk, spiritual, golden standards and Broadway literature. They will be representing the works of major composers from the past two centuries such as Cesar Franck, Irving Berlin, Aaron Copland, Stephen Schwartz, Frank Loesser and Z. Randall Stroope.

CWorks Academy Chorus has spent the year rehearsing a variety of choral standards (with some musical theater arrangements thrown in), making for a fun, technical and musical year-long adventure.

Junior Academy: Musical Theater - The Wind in the Willows Young@Part

Sunday, June 5th, 8PM

This riotous comedy follows Mole, Rat, Badger, and the impulsive Mr. Toad, whose antics land him in serious trouble. With his beloved home under threat from the notorious Chief Weasel and his gang of sinister Wild Wooders, Toad must attempt a daring escape leading to a series of misadventures and a heroic battle to recapture Toad Hall. Straight from a hit run in London's West End, The Wind in the Willows Young@Part is full of humor, wit, a gorgeous, soaring score, and heartwarming lessons of friendship.
 
In Junior Academy: Musical Theater, young actors had the opportunity for focused growth and training in musical theater performance. Students were introduced to essential acting and vocal techniques through improv, theater games and vocal exercises while working on a shorter full musical production.