Class

Half-Day Camp: Get Into Character: Acting 101 for Ages 15 to 18

Welcome back to Summer Youth at Open Book! Join us for a week of writing and all day creativity!

Drawing on fundamental techniques of Method Acting, students learn to build great characters piece by piece. Each session focuses on one of Stanislavski’s key principles, guiding students to create authentic heroes from “the inside out.” Step into your protagonist’s shoes; walk away with a proven system for creating memorable characters. Students will learn to create realistic and compelling characters by exploring their interior lives through Konstantin Stanislavski’s groundbreaking approach to acting. Over four engaging sessions, participants will develop characters “from the inside out,” building their motivations, emotions, and actions layer by layer to bring to life on the page.
Explore the Magic If, a powerful tool for putting students in their characters’ shoes. We’ll also learn to identify scene-level objectives and understand how these small, specific goals work toward achieving a character’s super-objective—the driving force behind their story.
By the end of the course, students will walk away a toolkit for building characters that feel real, dynamic, and emotionally resonant. Characters who grow and evolve from the beginning to the end of the story.
Whether for novels and stories, film, or creative nonfiction, this course equips young storytellers with a proven system for bringing memorable characters to life.