All About Adult Programs!

By MaryAnn Lyons

Since 2010, The Academy Theatre (TAT) has been producing enjoyable plays with adult casts. Read below to learn more about the adult programs at TAT!

The cast of Deceiving Granny, produced in 2017. This was an ADP production

The Adult Drama Prgram

At least once a year, TAT founder and director Angel Arredondo holds an open cast call for adults aged 18 and older. Anyone, regardless of experience, can sign up to be in a play. Some actors have acted before, perhaps years before when they were in high school. Some actors are TAT veterans who act in a new play every year. Others still begin acting in the ADP with no experience at all.

Once the signup period ends, Angel holds an initial meeting with all actors before selecting a play. Angel selects a play based on the actors who have signed up. For example, if eight men and four women sign up, Angel will search for a play with eight male and four female characters.

TAT holds no auditions, and every actor is guaranteed a role. How does Angel determine what roles an actor will play without holding auditions? After an initial meeting where Angel introduces himself and TAT to all of the actors, he gets to know the newbies and places everyone in roles based on their personalities. It is important to Angel that new actors are eased into acting with roles that suit them. As actors start to return to TAT and become veterans, Angel challenges them with different roles.

The ADP cast performed Madder Than a Box of Frogs in 2023.

Director’s Troupe

Unlike the ADP, which is open to any and all aspiring actors, the Director’s Troupe (DT), functions differently. For this group, Angel selects the play first and the actors second. Typically, the actors he selects are ones who have appeared in previous productions at TAT. There have also been occasions where Angel decides to produce a play that is a sequel to a play that has previously been performed at TAT. For these sequels, there is no casting call, and Angel tries to keep the same actors in the roles they previously played.

Rehearsals

Regardless of whether the production is for the ADP or the DT, rehearsals follow the same pattern. The group meets once a week on Wednesday nights. For the first several weeks, the cast reads through the script to get a sense of the story, characters, and setting.

After several read-throughs, the cast will often continue to read the script aloud at rehearsals, but their focus shifts to character development. Will this character have an accent? Should this line be spoken in a different tone of voice? These are some of the questions that the cast will work on.

The next step is blocking. This means the cast members go onstage with their scripts in hand and work on movement. They will determine when they enter and exit a scene along with discovering when to sit, stand, or walk. This process continues for several weeks or even months.

Once all blocking has been set, the actors will start to run through entire scenes without their scripts, going “off-book.” It’s around this time that Angel sets a date for the performances. Most adult casts perform three shows in a single weekend: Friday night, Saturday night, and Sunday afternoon. If the cast is exceptionally large, additional shows may be added.

The cast of Exit Laughing. This was at DT production from 2021.

Future

Does this sound like something you’d like to be a part of? There is an open cast call for the ADP right now! Sign up by July 6. Rehearsals start on Wednesday, July 15, at 6:00pm. Visit theacademytheatre.net for more information!