Boot Camp!

When you hear the words Boot Camp you probably don’t automatically think of the
theater, however the Light Theater company has had a Boot Camp for every one of its
productions. Wait, aren’t boot camps used in the military? What does a theater boot camp look
like? Boot Camp, for The Light Theater, is a time of intents training for the whole cast where all the pieces come together on a big stage, pieces like costumes, props, stage directions, and lines.

Unlike most theater companies, the light theater doesn’t have its own stage, so until we go to
boot camp we use our director’s back yard as a stage, making boot camp cool place to see some
of hard work come together. Not every cast member is encouraged to go to boot camp the
reason being that boot camp is very exhaustive and it is also a time when we are very thorough
when running through scenes. This means that we could spent an hour running through a scene
mutable times with only a hand full of people in it. So, if the director is running a scene with
only three people in it, the rest of the cast could be running and memorizing lines, practicing a
dance, working on props and costumes, or just waiting (a lot).

Our boot camps usually last around three days, you get up yearly in the morning, work all day, then stay up late at night. This is why younger cast members, most of the time without speaking parts, are not encouraged to come because of how exhaustive it is, however some of the moms of the cast members do come to help with various things like meal preparation and they also act as adult supervision. Now this isn’t to say that we don’t have fun at boot camp, we like to keep the “play” in “play practice”. We play various types of games, we especially enjoy “Minute to Win It” type games and various group games as well as hind-in-seek in the dark.