Building Forward
The Past, Present and Future of Our Reimagined Next Actors Program
Next Actors: Summer Theatre for Teens celebrates its 26th year this summer. The free summer arts program has evolved since it first started in 1998. Over the years, however, it has continued to provide a vital community space for young people. We sat down with Education Manager Pia Russo to discuss where the program came from – and where it’s going.
The Past
Next Actors: Summer Theatre for Teens began in 1998 when Next Act Theatre absorbed the assets and program structure of the Schneider Arts Academy. The program was “briefly called Next Actors: Summer Theatre for Youth, until we found out that the acronym was NASTY,” says Pia. She also notes that, at 26, the Next Actors program is two years older than she is.
The program has always been offered completely free to any interested students, a point of pride for Pia. “For most of its history, it’s been a four-week program, Monday through Friday, where students create their own musical, about an hour in length, with the help of a couple of adults that know a lot about musical theatre: a composer, a director, a choreographer, that sort of thing. That’s been followed by one week of tour.”
The tour has taken students to Boys & Girls Clubs, senior living facilities and other venues around the City of Milwaukee where the Next Actors have presented their original work to members of the community.
The week has been capped off by a public benefit performance at Next Act.
“In more recent years, it has switched [from a musical] to an hour-long play or an hour of programming made up of a bunch of smaller plays,” says Pia.
Over the years, the program has enjoyed the leadership of recognizable artists including Ray Jivoff, Doug Jarecki, Karen Estrada and Grace DeWolff as well as Pia herself.
The Present
“This year, we are breaking up the four weeks before the tour into two two-week sessions. Students can do one or both of them, and any student who does is invited for tour. We have some kids doing just session one, but they’ll come back for tour at the end,” says Pia.
“This was for a couple of reasons. Mostly, I was noticing that a lot of students were visiting family or doing this or that, and would have to miss more than a week of [the four weeks of] camp. So, this allowed students to join later while not having them miss anything.”
Pia has been developing and changing the Next Actors model to respond to the evolving needs of students in a post-pandemic world.
While enrollment in the program had declined since 2020, this year “we had 27 kids audition, so clearly, they like this new format. This will be the most kids we’ve had since 2015.”
Despite the evolution of the program, the heart of Next Actors is staying the same. “Next Actors, as far as I’ve been around it, has been a camp that is focused primarily on community and collaborative creation. That is still very much at the core,” says Pia.
“This past year, we talked with other theatre education professionals to begin working on a more specific mission, and we know that the collaborative piece and the creating piece were really important to us.”
“We are still going to be making a theatre piece. It will likely be a variety show with a couple of smaller pieces. We’re really trying to place accessibility at the forefront of what has always made Next Actors good. It’s for anybody that wants to come together and make stuff with other people.”
“It’s whatever they want to do. I show up with some ideas, and usually they have better ideas. We still go on tour, which will be super fun.”
When asked what she’s most excited about for the summer, Pia lights up: “the puppets!”
“We have one guest artist almost every single day that’s going to come in and teach the kids something that I can’t teach them. I don’t know anything about puppets, so we’re getting some guys who know stuff about puppets in. As well as a bunch of other skills, including some taught by friends of the Next Actors program Karen Estrada and Doug Jarecki. Plus, other theatre educators from around town, theatre designers, actors, directors and more.”
“I’m very excited to be able to work with adults with different disciplines to see what the kids respond to. Hopefully, we can incorporate some things into our piece that we haven’t been able to in previous years. I’m really looking forward to that.”
The Future
“I think that Next Actors is a unique place to build community,” says Pia. “I feel very lucky that we are able to place accessibility at the forefront so that the kids can have this opportunity to share what they need to share.”
“We are uniquely situated to build a really impactful community. The kids who are coming back [from last year] have expressed so much gratitude and so much joy. One has said, “this is the first place where I really feel like I can be myself all day.” It’s about theatre, but it’s also about that. It’s theatre as a tool to work with other people, talk about the stuff you want to talk about and work on the stuff you want to work on. I’m very proud to do that. For free, especially, because that means anyone can do it. And the kids I’ve met already are delightful! It’s going to be a really fun summer.”
Join us on Saturday, July 27 at 2:00 p.m. for the finale performance of Next Actors: Summer Theatre for Teens 2024! Purchase tickets online or over the phone (414-278-0765). Tickets start at $5 but, if you are able, we encourage you to add a further donation at checkout to support the future of our program.