In keeping with the NST mission, the Performing Arts School teaches actors, directors, and stage crew the importance of achieving effective emotional communication between the playwright’s characters and audience members, resulting in high quality theater. The Acting as Truth Class guides students to their innate talent and teaches that all of us are different - as we should be! Our differences are what makes us each the fantastic people that we are.

New Surry Theatre’s Performing Arts School offers numerous classes in performing arts. Each of these classes are open to inexperienced and experienced adult students from thirteen years of age to octogenarians. The last class of the semester will be an “Open House Performance” for the community, bringing all of the classes together.

Private music instruction with Lori Sitzabee available for voice, winds, guitar, beginner piano, and acting. Contact lori@newsurrytheatre.org to inquire about available times.

Class Descriptions

Acting As Truth

This nine week class teaches acting as truth and the craft of acting using improvisation, mind occupation, creative team scenes and discussion. The methods of renowned American acting teachers will be used and discussed, enabling students to begin to understand the actor's responsibilities to the playwright, the audience, fellow actors and to themselves. Improvisations will help the actor to hone the skills of listening, sharing and creating a character with truth. These skills, when fully understood and mastered, enable and empower the actor to convey the playwright’s feelings with such strength that they and the audience become one with the script. Experienced and non-experienced students of all ages will share the stage and learn together. Age range from 18 and older, Thursday evenings from 6-8pm at the NST Performing Arts School at 26 Hinckley Ridge Road in Blue Hill.

ACTOR/DIRECTOR SERIES

THE BASICS OF ACTING FOR THE STAGE (ACTOR/DIRECTOR SERIES STEP 1)

This class is open students high school age and older with any level of experience, wishing to learn the basics of stage acting. This class will be facilitated by Lori Sitzabee. This course introduces you to the techniques and processes essential to the actor’s craft.  Whether you have acted before or are exploring it for the first time, this course expands  your expressive capabilities, hones your imagination, and enhances your spontaneity as you acquire the tools for developing a character and a basic narrative. In this class, we engage in physical and vocal exercises, improvisation, monologues and/or scene work. The instructor will direct each scene during class as if it were in rehearsal. The scenes will be performed for an audience of friends and family at the end of the session. 

Scene Study (ACTOR/DIRECTOR SERIES STEP 2)

This class is open to experienced acting students. Students perform a scene, selected by the instructor, from a contemporary American or English play. Each scene will perform for the instructor and fellow students every other week during class. During the week that they do not perform, the students will be the audience for the other students' scenes. The students will be expected to meet with the other actors in their scene to rehearse on their own time in order to progress in performance quality between each in-class performance. They will also be expected to comment on each scene they see with dialogue that will be helpful to their fellow actors. The instructor will direct each scene during class as if it were in rehearsal. The scenes will be performed for an audience of friends and family at the end of the semester.

Directing (ACTOR/DIRECTOR SERIES STEP 3)

Students will be given one or two plays to read. The students will break down the responsibilities of the director for these plays and suggest casting ideas. One of the plays may include a scene that will be acted by students in the Scene Study class. The student will observe the directing of the scenes in Scene Study class and then work with the actors as a director of the scenes between classes, to bring their own direction of the scene to class. Students will practice scheduling of casting, rehearsals, and the other details of directing a play and, most important of all, the student will discuss at length with the instructor how to convey their and the author’s feeling to the actors and the audience.

BROADWAY READY SERIES

Singing for the Stage (BROADWAY READY SERIES STEP 1)

In this upbeat and energetic, nine week class, students will explore a variety of musical theater numbers while learning techniques to improve projection, breathing, posture and performance. No experience is necessary, just a willingness to learn and have fun. The class will engage in ensemble work while learning blending techniques combined with movement to be performed at the end of class. Age range from 13 and older at the NST Performing Arts School at 26 Hinckley Ridge Road in Blue Hill.

Singing Master Class (BROADWAY READY SERIES STEP 2)

This class is for the singer that has a bit of training and has already taken the Singing for the Stage class. Using Broadway musical songs, students will work on solos and in small groups to expand vocal performance skills. Focus will be given to each individual to improve and enhance vocal techniques. Class limited to eight students.

Kids Theater Workshop

This ten week program is designed for students age 8-12 and will focus on acting skills through theater games and activities. Students will delve into activities that improve acting skills, as well as, skills in public speaking, creative thinking, working as a group, improvisation, leadership, self confidence and self esteem, as well as a positivie approach to problem solving. Classes will be held at the NST Performing Arts School at 26 Hinckely Ridge Rd in Blue Hill.

The Art of Theater Makeup

This course uses a hands-on, project based leaning process. The objective of the course is to learn the basic techniques for the design and application of makeup for the stage by individual practice.

The class moves from simple steps to increasingly skillful and intricate practices, using both a solid structure and a personalized and creative format. Students will work individually and as teams, bringing students into close contact as they practice the art on each other. Students learn some basics of human anatomy and become more aware of others as they are tasked to observe and remember different features, colors and aspects of the aging process. The course also enhances self-awareness as it gives participants the chance, perhaps for the first time ever, to look very closely at themselves from a very different perspective. Skillful makeup application can produce a dramatic effect, which can be appreciated by the whole group and becomes a pride for its creator. The process will be documented by taking pictures of the various steps of makeup process and the pictures can be used for students portfolios.

This class is not recommended for individuals with allergic reactions to makeup products, as a wide range of products are used that cannot all be replaced with hypoallergenic street makeup.

Playwriting

Students arrive each week with printed pages from their script and discuss with the instructor what they are trying to communicate through those pages. The instructor then reads the scripts aloud with the feelings that the characters would have on stage, as he and the author dissect the written word to make it visual. They then work together to make each scene meaningful, adding ideas, words and pictures to achieve the end result that the author wants the audience to feel. This continues for the nine weeks of the semester. The ninth week of class can have a reading of the play if the author wishes. 

Instructor Bios

Acting as Truth - bryan lecord

In the last decade Bryan has performed in nearly forty theatrical productions across Downeast Maine venues, including the New Surry Theatre, Bagaduce Theatre, The Grand, MidCoast Actors' Studio, and Schoodic Arts for All Meetinghouse Theatre Lab. Once a student of Acting as Truth and NST’s Directing class, Bryan was chosen by Bill Raiten, NST’s Founding Artistic Director and Inaugural Recipient of the Maine Arts Commission Lifetime Achievement in the Arts Award, to work with him as associate instructor in Acting as Truth as well as succeed him as lead instructor upon his retirement. Bryan is a member of Actors’ Equity Association and has performed in many productions with actors holding credits from Broadway and major regional theatres, and has twice had the honor of serving as assistant director to Patricia Conolly (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patricia_Conolly) at the Bagaduce Theatre. In addition to teaching acting, performing, and directing, Bryan has worked as a K-12 educator in various capacities. He lives in Penobscot with his partner and fellow educator Tarsha, and he is grateful to call this area, along with his family at New Surry Theatre, home.

Singing for the Stage/Kids theater workshop - Lori Sitzabee

Lori has a BS in Music Therapy from Elizabethtown College, where she majored in woodwinds and was a vocal minor. She has been teaching private music instruction in winds, voice and guitar since 1985. She has also performed with many instrumental and vocal ensembles to include jazz, classical, rock/pop and musical theater. Lori has also directed small ensembles to large casts with wide age ranges, including a touring show choir and over 25 mainstage productions.

The Art of Theater Makeup - Elena Bourakovsky

Elena was a professional Costume Designer for more than 44 years; fifteen years in Leningrad, USSR and twenty-nine years here in Maine with the University of Maine, Orono and the New Surry Theatre. She is also a fine artist of miniatures purchased by the Russian Tea Room and other fine establishments in NYC and is presently an Organic farmer, known in the area for her Moxie’s delicious fermented foods that she makes from the vegetables that she grows on her organic Backstage Farm in Blue Hill.

Scene Study - Bec Poole

Bec has worked with New Surry Theatre since 2001 and has enjoyed participating in numerous plays in various roles, including prop mistress, stage hand, stage manager, and set designer.  Currently she is one of NST's lead directors, and has directed 3 musicals, including Oliver! (2012) and Carousel (2014) and six plays including Sylvia (2011, 2017), Proof (2012),Outside Mullingar (2018) and most recently, Constellations (2020). Bec is a retired public school art teacher and holds a Masters degree in art education. She lives in Bucksport with her wonderful husband and two lively corgis!

Screenwriting - Ricky Leighton

Ricky Leighton is a video director and screenwriter residing on the Blue Hill peninsula. His work includes commercial video, award-winning documentaries, 2 feature length screenplays. He graduated from the University of the Arts with a B.S. in Communications focused in narrative video production and screenwriting.