East Lynne Theater Company to Host Student Workshop

CAPE MAY – Applications are available for the award-winning East Lynne Theater Company’s Summer Student Workshop – and several students have already signed up. This year, it’s “An Evening of Fables,” presented in storytelling fashion, with a minimum of props and costumes. Like last year’s workshop, the focus is on the storytellers themselves, working as a tight ensemble, and the imagination. Fables and stories will be from a variety of sources including “1,001 Arabian Nights,” the Brothers Grimm, and Aesop.
The last six productions, “Alice in Wonderland,” “The Little Princess,” “Hans Brinker,” “Connecticut Yankees in Queen Guenever’s Court,” “Little Women,” and “Storybook Theater” were performed by students in front of standing-room only audiences! This year, twelve students ages 11-16, will once more have the opportunity to work with ELTC’s professional staff, including Sally Bingham, who is heading up this year’s workshop.
For twenty-five years, Bingham has been involved in theater as an actor, director, and playwright in Chicago and Philadelphia, participating in productions ranging from full-length improvisational plays to fringe festivals to children’s musicals. She has taught acting skills and creativity to both corporate executives and children. With her husband, playwright Ken Bingham, they founded the professional theater company Edge Productions and Over The Edge Comedy Troupe.
Currently, she is part of ELTC’s artist-in-residence team for Wildwood School District’s after-school program, and in March, forty fifth through seventh grade students performed plays they had written, under the guidance of Bingham and her co-artists. On April 23 at West Cape May Elementary School, students are performing “Macbeth” under her direction. She started West Cape May’s after-school theater program last year, working with students on “Hamlet.”
Technical Director, Lee O’Connor, and Artistic Director, Gayle Stahlhuth, will be around to help ELTC’s Student Workshop.
The workshop dates are June 18, 19, 20, 21, 25, 26, 27, 28, July 1 from 12:30 p.m. – 3:30 p.m. On July 2 at 8:00 p.m, students perform in front of an audience, open to the public, and admission free.
ELTC has a long standing tradition of working with students and is the only non-profit in South Jersey that has consistently conducted in-school and after-school residencies in Cape May County. For thirteen years, our artists-in-residence have taught acting and playwriting to fourth grade through high school students, culminating in admission-free performances for the community, in venues in Lower Township, Middle Township, Ocean City, Whitesboro, Cape May, West Cape May, and Wildwood.
ELTC procures funding for these residencies through grants and other sources, so that not one cent is derived from schools or local taxes. ELTC is now part of Wildwood Middle School’s new five-year after-school program due to the district receiving the federal 21st Century Learning Centers grant.
The location for the workshop and the performance is The First Presbyterian Church, 500 Hughes St. (corner of Decatur and Hughes) in Cape May, where the company is in residence, and the fee is $200. To receive an application form, visit www.eastlynnetheater.org or call the office at 609-884-5898 to receive one via snail mail. For questions, contact Artistic Director, Gayle Stahlhuth at eastlynneco@aol.com or call the office.