Into the Woods (2024)

SSF

SCRANTON
SHAKESPEARE
FESTIVAL
YOUTH ENSEMBLE

Education programs built for innovation, collaboration, and community.

YOUTH ENSEMBLE HIGH SCHOOL PRODUCTIONS

Applications are now closed for our high school productions.

Enrolled participants will be completely immersed in the professional theatre process from auditions all the way through to performance.
They'll begin to build first-hand knowledge of theatre etiquette and will gain the valuable experience of putting on a show in collaboration with industry professional theatre-makers.
Participants will also have the opportunity to access masterclasses with our versatile, international company of professional main-stage performers.
Students will have the additional opportunity to perform in a cabaret of selected songs, dances, monologues, and scenes that are curated, directed, and acted by students in the Youth Ensemble meant to promote students’ repertoires of performance and push their creative boundaries.
They will also have the opportunity to grow an industry based network of their own.
Based on available opportunities, students will have the chance to serve as an associate director, production assistant, or perform in our main stage productions.
This program is audition-only; admission is granted only for students who complete an application, interview, and audition process.

Testimonials from our 2024 Youth Ensemble:

"I loved getting to build a community and understand each other better during the process. What makes SSF so special is the team building games that help us all connect with one another."

"All of the teaching artists were amazing company to work with and be around. All of them were great extremely helpful if you needed advice with a scene, acting choice, or just if you had something to tell them. They were very creative with work and always held a positive demeanor in the space."

"I feel like the master classes are a unique educational experience that not many places in the area offer to students in the arts. The classes were super fun and interesting and many of them provided me with tools to better myself as a performer. The teaching artists were all super cool and nice and I learned a lot about myself as a person and performer from these educational opportunities."

CONTINUING EDUCATION INITIATIVES

Hear more about Spring Awakening and our alumni production on WVIA ArtScene

Alumni of the Youth Ensemble Productions

The Youth Ensemble is not just a summer program. The Youth Ensemble aims to engage with students after they graduate, whether they go on to study the arts or not. Our Alumni of the Youth Ensemble program hopes to utilize tools and knowledge learned from the high school programming to apply it to college-age appropriate productions with community-based messaging.

Most recently, our college-aged alumni produced Spring Awakening, the transformative rock musical, in collaboration with our community partners the Catherine McAuley Center and Scranton Friends of the Poor. Through our talkbacks, resources packet, period product drive, and more, we hope to help bring awareness to period poverty in Scranton and use theatre and the arts as a tool for positive change in our community.

Junior Producers

The Junior Producer position is a professional apprentice track meant for early-career artists interested in administration, marketing, education, design, direction, or producing who want to experience a "boots on the ground" approach to learning more about the craft. Junior Producers join the Scranton Shakes team specializing in a field of their choice and are integrated directly into the operations to help run our organization, and ultimately, creating their own art and projects.

HISTORY OF OUR EDUCATIONAL PROGRAMMING

Summer 2021 saw the launch of our Youth Ensemble, a sister company to our Main Stage theatre company, of 14-18 year olds artists. In 2021, we performed the magical Peter and the Starcatcher. In 2022, we nearly doubled in size and presented Heathers: Teen Edition, as well as our first student-produced cabaret, The Player’s Piece. 2023 saw the implementation of two full-length productions, and the Youth Ensemble’s first Shakespeare production of Twelfth Night, alongside The Lightning Thief: The Percy Jackson Musical. We have housed over 50 students from over a dozen NEPA school districts - and counting!

In Summer 2024, the Youth Ensemble expanded to offer a number of programs for students of all interest levels, including our Youth Ensemble: Foundations program, Student Designer program for technicians and designers, and Youth Orchestra program for student instrumentalists. We now offer programming additionally for Alumni of the Youth Ensemble with college-aged productions meant to continue students' education in the arts beyond high school, which began in early 2025 with our production of Spring Awakening. Many of our alumni also go on to return to SSF to perform in our main stage, volunteer, design, and teach with the Youth Ensemble.