Off Center Teens

WHEN:

July 16 – 29, 2018

Camp takes place from 9:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m., Monday through Friday.
Early drop-off and late pick-up are possible with 24 hours advance notice.

The camp will culminate in two, free public presentations of the campers’ work on Saturday and Sunday July 28th and 29th at 2:00 p.m. each day.

WHERE:

Camp and the public performances will take place at Ground Floor Theatre located at 979 Springdale Rd, Suite 122.

WHO:

Teens ages 13 – 16.

CAMP COST:

$585.00

Sibling discounts, and full or partial scholarships available (see registration form).

For more information or to speak with a Camp Director, you can email us at offcenterteens@rudemechs.com.

PATRICK SHAW

PATRICK SHAW is an Austin-based playwright, performer, and educator. He’s developed his plays at the Great Plains Theatre Conference, Sewanee Writers’ Conference, the Millay Colony, and Norm’s Fish Camp and has choreographed for NYU Tisch Playwright’s Horizon’s School. As a performer, he’s collaborated with Underbelly, The Duplicates, Paper Chairs, Bakerloo Theatre Project, and Spessard Dance, among others. Before earning an MFA in Playwriting from UT Austin, Patrick taught over 150 master classes at universities and colleges across the country on behalf of the Eugene O’Neill Center’s National Theatre Institute. More recently, he’s taught courses in playwriting, acting, and directing at Southwestern University, UT Austin, and St Edward’s University.

MEGAN TABAQUE

MEGAN TABAQUE is a playwright and performer who grew up in Florida. She has her MFA in writing from the Michener Center for Writers at UT Austin and a BA in Literature and Performance from Florida State University. Megan has been a teaching artist with the Texas University Interscholastic League and The Diversity Project at UT Austin. Megan has more than 10 years of performance and writing experience with theatres in Tallahassee, Chicago, and Austin. She is also a Kundiman Fellow for fiction and a 2015 Best New Play nominee by the Austin Critic’s Table.

About Off Center Teens

OFF CENTER TEENS is Rude Mechs’ theatre summer camp for teens. Named “Best Club for Teen Performers” and “Best evolution of teen empowerment” by The Austin Chronicle’s Readers’ Poll, Off Center Teens is a 2-week, full-day camp where teens collaboratively create an original theatre performance from scratch and perform that work in a public presentation.

Teens who participate in Off Center Teens are given space, materials, skills, and guidance as they work individually and as a group to write poems, stories, songs, collages, dances, and drawings from their life experiences. They then craft this material into a live performance and a published anthology which is available to the audience, free of charge, before and after the public performances.

Off Center Teens is directed by Patrick Shaw and Megan Tabaque, along with Rude Mechs Co-Producing Artistic Director Madge Darlington. Each has won awards of merit and critical acclaim for artistic work in the community and have experience teaching acting, performance and writing at all levels. They each hold MFA’s in theatre.

During the first week and a half of the program, teens learn how to speak their stories and find their voices then turn to crafting those stories into dynamic artistic performances. Throughout the program, several workshops are led by guest artist–professionals from the local community who have made careers in the arts. Guest artists have included Terry Galloway, Florinda Bryant, Dr. Omi Jones, sharon bridgforth, Dr. Lisa Moore, Paul Soileau, Aron Taylor, Jenny Arffman, Vincent Tomasino, Liz Doss, Carrie Fountain and Carra Martinez.

About Grrl Action

Off Center Teens evolved from Rude Mechs’ original program, Grrl Action, which began in 2000 as a writing and performance program designed to empower girls between the ages of 13 and 16 to find their public voices while building confidence, interacting with girls from diverse socio-economic and cultural backgrounds, and creating community. From the program, Grrl Action participants learn to expand their practice beyond the theatre space and into their everyday lives and communities, making them not only better writers and performers, but better citizens, activists, and role models. Engaging them through collectivity and community involvement, Grrl Action inspires young women to widen and transcend their definitions of what it means to be an artist.

Summer 2014 marked the 15th anniversary of this groundbreaking summer program!!!

As we worked with girls over the years through GRRL ACTION, we became aware of the need for a space in Austin where boys, girls, and transgender young people can have transformative and rigorous creative experiences that will deepen their knowledge and respect for one another and themselves. Off Center Teens welcomes all genders.

Read more about Grrl Action at:

http://www.impact-austin.org/downloads/press/press_release_20070507.pdf
http://austinchronicle.com/gyrobase/Issue/story?oid=oid%3A280638
http://feministspectator.blogspot.com/2006/08/grrl-action-and-american-fiesta-in.html
http://www.austinchronicle.com/issues/dispatch/2000-06-30/cols_pnotice.html

SPONSORS AND SUPPORTERS

Off Center Teens is made possible by generous support from The John F. Kenny Writing Center Fund, in part by an Arts Respond grant from Texas Commission on the Arts, and by individual contributors committed to the next generation of radical art-makers.

Extra love and thanks to Jordan Steiker and Lori Holleran-Steiker for sponsoring tuition for four students this summer!

Rude Mechs is supported in part by the City of Austin through the Cultural Arts Division and by a grant from the Texas Commission on the Arts.

We are thrilled and grateful to have Whole Foods Market on board as our healthy breakfast, lunch and snack sponsor for the Summer 2018 program.

Deep gratitude to Ground Floor Theatre  for hosting Off Center Teens this summer. We couldn’t do it without you!

Support for The Off Shoot Renovation came from:

The Laos House – Center for Personal Learning made a very generous gift in honor of Robert Bryant, founder/director; and in memory of Charles Smith, chef/philosopher/long time resident of East Austin.

Carrie Kenny and Sarah Sloan of Austin, Texas, generously contributed a gift that honors Carrie’s father, John F. Kenny, by supporting the creation of a writing studio in the renovated Off Shoot, and is now located in Rude Studios.

The John F. Kenny Writing Studio is a place for the teens of Off Center Teens to write privately about their passions and dreams. It is also a space that allows for the participants to meet with their artistic mentors as the they conceive and create long-term artistic projects.