The Dexter Leader
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Teacher a fun and familiar role for Mountain
Classes teach kids the skills and excitement of acting
By Terry Jacoby, Heritage Newspapers
PUBLISHED: June 12, 2008
Michelle Mountain has several loves in her life. First and foremost comes family, followed by acting, the Purple Rose Theatre, kids, teaching and last but not least, enjoying life to the fullest.
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Mountain has brought to life many characters during her years at the Purple Rose. She has won several awards, earned plenty of praise from her peers and has even taken a turn as a director. But in all her roles - both on and off the stage - one characteristic has stood out more than any other, her enthusiasm.
So when she was asked if she wanted to take the "lead role" as a teacher to young and aspiring actors and actresses, she jumped at the chance. Teaching acting to youngsters at the Purple Rose - it doesn't get any better than that.
"I've taught at kids camps since I was 18," says Mountain, who helps run both the "Kid Purple" and "Teen Intensive" camps at the Purple Rose. "After I graduated college, my husband and I moved to La Jolla, Calif., where I taught kids camps for the La Jolla Playhouse. And it's this camp that the Kid Purple class is modeled after."
Kid Purple is a two-week day camp for children ages 8 to 12 scheduled for Monday through Friday with two sessions available: June 16-27 or July 14-25. Limited spots still remain for both sessions.
"We do the same things with the kids that we would do here with the cast for a play," Mountain said. "We want to make it as real as possible. For example, the kids do yoga everyday because that's what actors do.
"We also do some theatre games to teach them various skills. Everything we do in camp, we've done in rehearsals or in adult classes."
This approach is not only entertaining and real, but effective.
"I've heard from kids and parents over the years that what they like the most is that they are doing adult work," said Mountain, who most recently starred in "The Poetry of Pizza." "The theatre games we do everyday are geared to learn concentration, observation, making the scene about your partner rather than you."
While Mountain does the teaching, she leaves plenty of creative decisions up to her students. A big part of the class is creating, rehearsing and presenting their own play.
"I tell the kids that we are going to make up a play and ask them what they want it to be about," she said. "Is it going to be a drama, comedy, mystery...what do you think? And we brainstorm. Everyone writes down ideas and we come up with something unique. Then we decide on what kind of characters everyone wants to be."
For the next few days the class will try to mesh the story with the characters and create some scenes. Mountain then invites a playwright to watch the class for a few days to see what the class has come up with. The playwright then spends the weekend putting together a script of the final play using as much as possible of what the kids have come up with.
"It's their words and their ideas, but with some structure to it and all written out," Mountain said. "The playwrights have to navigate all the different story lines the kids have come up with and make it flow."
The class is then presented with a script. They spend a good part of the second week designing and building sets and rehearsing the play for a performance on Friday for family and friends.
"We go through blocking and what blocking is, why it's important to face the audience and these kinds of things while we rehearse the play," Mountain said.
The cost for Kid Purple is $375 and takes place at the PRTC's rehearsal space in the Chelsea Center for the Arts.
Teen Intensive also runs for two weeks and features a smaller class size to facilitate more one-on-one work. Designed for students ages 13 to 18, Teen Intensive meets Monday through Thursday, with two sessions available: June 30-July 10 or July 28-Aug. 7. The class meets from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. at the Chelsea Center for the Arts.
"You don't have to have acting experience to be in this class, but you do have to come in with a one minute, memorized monologue from a published play," Mountain said.
Teen Intensive takes the realism approach even further.
"I teach them how to work on monologues the exact same way I would an adult," Mountain said. "This year were are going to work on how to audition. We are going to have a day of film, which is new. We work on scenes and teach the style of acting we do here at the Purple Rose.
"Good actors make the scene about their partners, not about themselves and that's what we try to teach here and it's not an easy thing to learn," Mountain said. "If both actors approach a scene like this then something wonderful can happen."
Students explore the acting process and the principles that guide professional actors in their work, including voice, movement and acting for the camera. While Teen Intensive focuses on the skills and how to play certain parts, the class is still designed to be fun.
"It's fun in a lot of ways but mostly because of the confidence they gain," Mountain said. "Hey, we are all going to mess up while we learn. So let's go mess up, learn and get better."
And how can it not be fun with Mountain in the lead role.
The cost for Teen Intensive is $300.
For more information or to register, call 1-734-433-PRTC. Registration forms can also be printed from the PRTC Web site: www.purplerosetheatre.org.
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