There are a hundred and four days of summer vacation before school comes to an end and sometimes we need something to do over the summer break because we can’t just stay at home all day and sleep, although we can if we want to. Sometimes we want to go out and try something new or we sometimes want to continue to do the things we love while over break. Luckily FCPS has an amazing program for us students whether you’re an art student, a theater kid, a band kid, or even a newcomer to the arts. This program is right for you. It’s called the Institution for the Arts also known as IFTA. IFTA has offered kids many opportunities over the summer from art classes to theatre classes, and even writing classes.
IFTA has many classes for any form of the arts. From 3-D art or 2-D art and they even offer other art-related classes like fashion classes, sewing classes, and baking classes. They even offer music and they’re willing to teach you how to play instruments and they have dance classes too. They also offer writing classes and one of the classes is about storytelling, best of all they offer theatre classes for theatre kids, one class is entirely improv, and one class is entirely Shakespeare, and there’s even one class for tech theatre kids where they teach you about tech theatre. There’s also a stage fighting class and a sword fighting class where you can learn how to fight with swords and also learn how they make punches look real on stage. They offer even a makeup class where you can learn how to do makeup for theatre shows and musicals, they also teach you how to do SFX Makeup “You can craft your schedule and how you spend your day at camp, and then at the end of the camp, there is a gallery/ performance showcase to demonstrate what you learned” said Kylie Murray, theater teacher, and director.
Ms Murray taught last summer in the theater program, she taught students about acting and audition techniques you can use when you audition for a show, she taught tech theater, and also coordinated the end of Camp Showcase. They got to do a lot of hands-on stuff, like learning how to program real lights in technical theater. In the audition class, students learned about how to prepare a monologue, and the devised theater class wrote their play based on their own experiences in their lives
Every year the program’s cost is something different. This year It is $820 but if you sign up for free Reduced lunches the price will reduce, I’m not sure by hope much it’ll reduce but hopefully by 100, the program goes from July 7th to July 25th, and you can sign up for two weeks or four weeks, the camp starts at 8:30 am and ends at 2 pm and some buses pick you up if needed and take you home too. There’s also a kiss and ride.
You don’t have to be eligible for anything at the camp, you just need to be a rising sixth grader through 12th grader or just have some art skills or want to do theater either way if you’re not an artist or theater kid, you could still go to the camp and have fun. They offer music and storytelling and writing classes and even makeup classes so it’s really for any kind of art.
The classes are great. But what’s better is the community there! When you go to IFTA you meet a lot of kids who are either neurodivergent or part of the LGBTQ community and you feel like you fit in more because there are people there who understand what you go through and understand the feeling of being different, when I went to IFTA, I felt like I was with my people because everybody there matched my energy and excitement, we were able to bounce ideas off of each other when we were in our classes and we formed many friendships and we were also able to give each other a safe space if needed.
