WILTON – As part of its fall learning-through-the arts-series, the Foothills Arts Center is offering several theater classes for various age groups. Theater Scenes, for adults and students grades 4 and up, 6 Tuesdays, 6:30 to 8 p.m., starts Oct. 14. Monologue Class for high school students will be held on 4 Mondays, 6:30 to 8 p.m., starting Oct. 20.
Creating Characters, for grades 1 through 3 will be held on 6 Tuesdays, 3:30 to 4:30 p.m., starting Oct. 28. Children will learn beginning acting techniques that provide life-long learning skills such as self-confidence, oral presentation, and teamwork. They will explore characters through movement, voice, and costume, and play with a setting where all these characters will meet. The final open class will be a sharing of their created characters.
Ayla Kapiloff of Farmington, will teach Creating Characters. She is a recent graduate of Bennington College in Vermont where she studied theater and elementary education. This summer she combined those interests in Italy while teaching English as a second language through theater activities.
Robin Lisherness of Strong, is the Scenes and Monologue classes teacher. Robin just retired from 35 years of teaching English and performing arts at Skowhegan Area High School. His extra-curricular programs have won top honors at Maine and New England film festivals.
The Scenes class will focus on character development, interaction with other actors, blocking, and motivation. Working in pairs, students will create and rehearse a scene from a play or movie script and improve it with feedback from Robin and the other teams.
In the Monologue Class, students will have fun working on acting skills, the memorization process, and character development. They will select, memorize, block, motivate, and create real characters.
Upcoming offerings at the Foothills Arts Center also include clay classes for adults and children grades 3 and up with Jeanne Bruce, and pre-school art classes with Kim Jacques. In addition, Jacques will be teaching a charcoal drawing class, Working with Shadow, for adults and high school students.
All of the classes will take place at the Foothills Arts Center, located in the historic Bass-Wilson Building in downtown Wilton. The bright, cheery community arts center on the water is a gathering place for creative learning and friendship-building.
To receive a class brochure and registration form, contact the Foothills Arts Center at 645-7117 or info@foothillsarts.org.
