The Theatre Lab

The Theatre Lab offers theatre training to children, adults and seniors across the Washington, DC area. Since inception, The Theatre Lab has taught thousands of students at all levels of experience. The Theatre Lab's faculty has grown to include more than 40 of the area's most accomplished professional theatre artists. Major segments of The Theatre Lab's programs are as follows: "Life Stories" outreach - free drama outreach programs for seniors, incarcerated and at-risk youth, veterans, people in addiction recovery, low-income DCPS students, homeless women and children, and other historically underrepresented populations. "Life Stories" participants receive the acting and storytelling training necessary to create original dramatic works for the stage and screen from their life experiences. In an atmosphere of collaboration and creativity, participants develop advanced communication, problem solving, and teamwork skills that translate into success at home, at work, and in the larger community. Most important, they build confidence in themselves as people who have a story worth telling and a voice that deserves to be heard. Youth programs - The Theatre Lab offers popular summer acting camps and musical theatre institutes for kids and teens. The kids' camp is a unique two-week actor training program for children in 1st-6th grade taught by some of Washington's top theatre professionals, and is designed to immerse young artists in the creative process- from learning the basic techniques of realistic acting to developing mime and improvisational skills. The Theatre Lab also offers four-week programs in musical theatre and Shakespeare, culminating in full productions, for children in 7th and 8th grades. The teens' acting institute is a four-week intensive training program for young adults aged 13-19. The program is designed to help teens build fundamental acting skills through classwork and participation in a public performance. The curriculum includes audition seminars, improvisational workshops, voice and movement training, and scene study, as well as special programs designed to give interested students insight into the working of the professional theatre community. The musical theatre institute for teens is a program for 13-19 year-olds, which culminates in a full production of a full-length musical. The program is an intensive four-week training program in which participants rehearse and perform a full musical production. The musical theatre institute is offered twice each summer. The institute provides young artists with intensive voice, movement, and acting training as they explore challenging, socially relevant material from the contemporary musical theatre world. The Theatre Lab also offers a series of afterschool and weekend scene study and TV/film classes for kids and teens year-round. Adult classes - The Theatre Lab offers approximately 80 6-week courses/year for adults in the general population in acting, musical theatre, directing, film and tv acting, playwriting and more. Since 2020, The Theatre Lab has also offered adult 6-week synchronous classes online, approximately 15/year. Honors program - in 2006, The Theatre Lab launched a year-long intensive training program for students interested in a professional acting career. The Honors Conservatory serves 10 students each year. The Theatre Lab is a key partner in the Arts Institute for Creative Advancement, a collective impact initiative of the DC Arts Education Alliance, in which young adults receive training and apprenticeships in technical theatre. In 2023, The Theatre Lab served an enrollment of 1,202 students in its adult curriculum, 551 students in its youth programs, and 10 students in its honors program. The Theatre Lab's Life Stories outreach program reached 543 youth and adults. Most of The Theatre Lab's youth classes are available at free or reduced price for financially disadvantaged participants. In 2014, The Theatre Lab inaugurated the Life Stories Institute, a four-day intensive workshop designed to give theatre artists, educators, and service providers from across the country training in the Life Stories curriculum. The Institute served 11 students in 2023.