Mapping It Out
During a typical year, preparing for a summer at camp can seem like a lot. Eight weeks is a long time to keep coming up with creative theater programming or camp-wide fun for kids of all ages.
Don’t panic! With some thoughtful planning and a carefully considered Activity Outline, you can break your summer down into bite-sized chunks that will be much more manageable to plan and execute.
An Activity Outline gives your summer structure, keeping you focused and on task, and provides you with a clear map to get where you need to go.
For Theater Directors: a Production Outline
A production outline is a rehearsal schedule: a list of all the rehearsals you will have and what you hope to accomplish in each one. Links to the production materials (musical tracks, scripts, etc) are in the resources section above. Please see the links below for a sample production outline, as well as a template for you to use when you create your own!
Most of you already know the timeline for the productions you are directing (whether they are Triple Threat Academy or a Full Production), including approximately how many rehearsals you’ll have, and how long they will be. If you are unsure, feel free to contact us at artists@mainstages.com and we will be able to offer some guidance.
Rehearsal
When creating your production outlines, you should overplan while accepting you will underdeliver. You’ll have about 25% less time than what you actually think you’ll have! Camp can get crazy and life happens: it rains, someone is sick, there’s an all-day camp-wide event you find out about at the last minute . . . you get the picture. The easiest way to account for this is to plan to lose approximately 10 minutes from each rehearsal OR leave three or four rehearsal marked TBD at the end of your rehearsal process so that you have extra time to block a scene that you just didn’t get to or work on that choreography number that totally bombed when you first tried to teach it.
One last piece of (unsolicited) advice: leave time for run-throughs. The kids may know the show perfectly, scene by scene, but it won’t matter if they don’t know what comes next and are running around during the performance in a blind panic because they don’t know where they need to be next. A stressful theater performance does not equal fun!
Sample Production Outline
Production Outline Template
For Teaching Artist: Activity Outline
An activity outline is a week-to-week breakdown of the summer, with a theme assigned to each week and a short list of activities to make up a lesson plan. Craft activities that fall under that theme and cater to a broad variety of ages. You can click the link below to see a template that you can use when you create your own.
Remember, you’re not likely going to get the same group of campers twice in one week. If you follow the week-by-week theme model, you can use the same lesson plans again and again for the different rotations that come through, as long as you remember to adjust for age.
Program Outline Template