James Luiso, of Kingston, gets into fighting stance.
Act Out Theatre Photo
Group will appear in Disney’s High School Musical 2
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Emma Christianson, of Wilkes-Barre, in the foreground, practices a stage combat move. She has the lead role of Sharpay in Act Out Theatre presentation of Disney’s ‘High School Musical 2.”
Act Out Theatre Photo
Eighteen campers recently participated in a mastercclass with Ashley Bohn, who taught them about vocal performance and audition techniques. Shown are, from left, first row: BellaMcDaniels, Hanover Township; Bethany Santey, Ashley; Ashley Bohn, Clarks Summit; Anna Hubler, Moscow; James Luiso, Kingston; Emma Christianson, Wilkes-Barre; and Ava Nitch, Scranton. Second row: Charlie Grenevich, Kingston; Chase Richmond, Throop; Liliana Gillette,Wilkes-Barre Township; and Avery Renfer, Scranton. Third row: Miguel Rodriguez, Scranton; Clare Grenevich, Kingston; Macie Bennett, Throop; Z Davitt, Archbald; Mallory Smith, Scranton; Gabbi Cigarski, Throop; Maddan Bennett, Throop; and Alaina Scassellati, Jessup.
Act Out Theatre Photo
Performer and director Ashley Bohn helps campers with a basic audition dance combination.
Act Out Theatre Photo
Jahmeel and Beth Powers discuss proper stage combat technique with the campers. The couple owns Powers Performance Coaching and both are teachers in the theatre department at King’s College. They are expecting a son, Ezekial, to join his big sister, Anntoinette, in a few months.
Act Out Theatre Photo
“Take a good fighting stance, and jab with your forward hand!”
“Breathe in, and go!”
“Stand and punch! Jab! Kick as high as you can!”
Near the end of a two-week intensive summer camp for teens at Act Out Theatre’s rehearsal space in Dunmore, 18 youngsters eagerly followed these commands from Beth Powers — who liked what she saw.
“Don’t they look like ninjas?” she remarked with a smile.
Soon Powers and her husband, Jahmeel, who together run Powers Performance Coaching, were demonstrating a lapel grab, a brief struggle and a breaking away — giving budding thespians yet another way to safely show an audience that characters in a play are having a physical confrontation.
Paired off in nine groups of two, the campers followed the shirt-grabbing sequence, practicing big gestures in slow motion.
“A fight scene is as much acting as any other scene, and it’s always a safely choreographed dance,” Beth Powers said Wednesday morning during a break in the “fight choreography” portion of Act Out’s theater camp.
“You have to sell the action,” she said. “And the fighting should never just be fighting. It has to progress the plot.”
“We’re showing them the behind-the-scenes, this-is-how-the-magic-happens,” Jahmeel Powers said.
The couple, who both teach in the theatre department at King’s College in Wilkes-Barre, are certified by the Society of American Fight Directors. They met as MFA students at Regent University in Virginia, where they studied several different kinds of stage combat, from unarmed to rapier and dagger, to broadsword.
“I like ‘unarmed’ the best because that’s in every age (as opposed to just medieval or renaissance),” Beth Powers said. “I also like ‘found-object’ fights, like when you grab a candlestick.”
Studying fight choreography can be helpful for people outside the theater world as well as in it, Jahmeel Powers said. “It makes you feel very comfortable in your own body.”
Act Out Theatre’s two-week intensive camp also included vocal coaching by performer and director Ashley Bohn on Tuesday, and it will culminate on Saturday with two performances of Disney’s High School Musical 2: One Act Edition at the Slope Amphitheater in Pittston.
Fourteen-year-old Emma Christianson from Wilkes-Barre has the role of Sharpay Evans, a manipulative character Emma described as “definitely snarky, and self-centered, and sassy.”
Eleven-year-old Ava Nitch from West Scranton, who was paired with Emma during the fight choreography workshop, described her character, Kelsi, as a gentler persona. “She’s a pianist. She’s shy at first but when she’s with her friends she comes out of her shell.”
While there’s no big physical fight scene in the musical, Emma and Ava said there will be plenty of music and dancing for the audience to enjoy.
“The songs and the dancing and the lines,” Emma said, “everything’s coming together.”
And it’s been coming together during two short weeks.
“We’ve had camps before,” Act Out Theatre owner and artistic director Dan Pittman said, “but not to this extent.”
“It’s not easy to put a show together in two weeks,” he said.
“They haven’t had much time to rest,” agreed Kalen Churcher, the musical’s director. “But it’s really awesome to see what people are capable of when you issue a challenge.”
“This is a great family show,” Churcher added. “So I hope folks come out to not only support the cast but to enjoy some outdoor theater.
The Slope Amphitheater is located behind the Pittston Library at 47 Broad Street. Show times are noon and 5 p.m. on Saturday, July 31. Tickets are $10 and can be purchased online at actouttheatre.com or at the door. A short musical and monologue revue also will take place, immediately following the noon performance.
