L/A Arts program teaches kids to be serious when the world is funny.
AUBURN – Brandon McLamb meticulously sculpted his smile, a faraway grin that made him look like a funeral-home greeter.
But then, distractions filled the hall.
Footsteps swished on the linoleum floor. Metal chairs scraped. Every now and then, a bug went splat between clapped hands.
“Stay in character,” director Wendy Poole warned. “Don’t let it slide and get wishy-washy.”
Brandon gasped, gulped a bit of air and returned to his smile.
It’s a bit of discipline he’s been working on for two weeks, ever since the L/A Arts Summer Youth Theatre began its course.
In the hall of the Auburn United Methodist Church the program’s 15 kids, ages 9 to 16, have been studying films, learning how to improvise their dialogue and finding characters.
Brandon’s role – the king of the good kingdom – is all happy, all the time.
“I think I still have some work to do,” said the Rumford teenager. “I’m playing him calm. I’m trying to see what else I can do.”
Hannah Horrigan, a 14-year-old from Minot, said she has had few character questions. She understood her role as an arguing misfit the moment she was assigned.
“It’s not that I’m a misfit,” she said, trying to malign no one. “I do feel like I can fit in with them.”
Her biggest challenge: not laughing.
Keeping stoic, whether as a misfit tree or a too-good king, is something Brandon and Hannah have both worked on.
They predict their play, “The Good, the Bad and the Misfits,” will be interrupted by few crack-ups when it is performed Thursday and Friday for family and friends.
One of Poole’s rehearsal exercises – titled, “Honey, I Love You” – was particularly helpful.
In the exercise, the young actor must try to be calm and serious as the remaining company members take turns getting close and saying the words, “Honey, I love you.”
To giggle-prone teens, nothing is funnier.
“It teaches you to focus,” Brandon said. “If you can be serious through that, you can be serious through anything.”
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