FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: 10/7/2011
Morgan Arts Council -- Berkeley Springs, WV
www.macicehouse.org

Press Contact only: Mary Hott-- 304-258-2300

INNOVATIVE THEATER CLASSES AT ICE HOUSE

BERKELEY SPRINGS, WV ---- The Morgan Arts Council (MAC) announces another series of innovative classes for adults and teens aimed at continuing development of theater skills.

Ice House costumer, Marti Sikes, continues the successful Extreme Costume Challenge weekend she invented for MAC in 2009.  Classes begin on Saturday, October 15 at 9am and conclude on Sunday, October 16.  Sikes promotes the 12-hour weekend program as "a great way to make your Halloween costume and have it previewed for an audience."  Students learn a variety of design, sewing and attachment tricks then stage a runway show with prizes at the conclusion of the weekend. The runway show is open to the public and begins at the Ice House at 1pm.   In addition to the performance aspect, students are being molded into a ready team of costumers for Community Theater.  Sikes has designed and managed costuming for theaters throughout the Washington, DC area since 1984 and for the Ice House Theater Project and various local school productions for the past six years.

On Saturday, November 5 and 19 from 10am to 12:30pm, Kirsten Trump presents intensive classes in dialects.  Students may take one session or both.  Trump teaches theater at Shenandoah University and has extensive experience as a professional dialect coach including work with the Contemporary American Theater Festival in Shepherdstown.  "Kirsten offered a single dialect session for MAC a couple years ago and it proved so popular we decided to offer it again," said Mary Hott, MAC's Executive Director.

Gary McDaniel begins an intensive three semester program of acting classes in the famed Meisner Technique on Thursday, December 1, 6pm at the Ice House. After a break for the holidays, classes will be continued.  Two more eight-week sessions follow. According to McDaniel, Meisner offers students solid technique for building a character, developing real emotion, creating relationship, working off a partner, and engaging in real behavior on stage.  Drawing on his own graduate level training with a protege of Meisner, McDaniel has created memorable characters in recent Ice House Theater Project productions including Captain Hook in Peter Pan.

Those interested in developing acting skills that can easily be transferred to daily life situations can anticipate a series of classes in improvisation taught by Jill Klein Rone in early 2012.

"It is exciting to see new people get involved in theater through these classes," said Hott, "and offer longtime actors specialty classes to help them continue to develop their skills."  Hott invites potential students to experience Ice House Theater activities as audience for "The Crucible," opening for a seven-show run on October 21.

Theater classes at the Ice House School of the Arts are funded in part by the WV Commission on the Arts as well as student tuition.  For more information or to register, call the Ice House at 304-258-2300.