Dear Parents of Town Hall Theatre--
It is with our utmost pleasure--and barely-contained excitement--that we present our semester of classes for the spring of 2012. Looking over the offerings we're presenting to you, you may notice a few different elements this semester than you've seen before. We wanted to outline a few of these changes for you.
Firstly, after great deliberation, we have changed our name from Town Hall Kids to Town Hall Education. The reasons for this are simple: our primary goal for our students is that the experiences they share, the lessons they learn and the company they keep shape them into finer human beings--more well-rounded, artistically-inclined, confident young people. We have a great responsibility to our students, to our community, and to you that we educate these young artists to the best of our ability. While putting on a show is important, what matters more is the self-esteem, courage, and overall respect for the arts that we hope we instill into our students, along with teaching them precisely what "ensemble" means--coming together as a team to create a product. No "stars", no egos--everyone is on equal ground coming together to learn, entertain and inspire. Education is our ultimate priority, and to that end, we felt it should be in our title. (Also, the last thing young people want to be called is "kids".)
This brings us to our next change--the addition of more skills-based classes. We're launching three new classes this spring: a Principles of Acting class for our middle-school students; a Principles of Acting class for our high-school students; and a Shakespeare class for both of these age groups. Speaking to an earlier point, we feel that our performance-based classes are wonderful, but we would like to see our older actors have tools that most of their colleagues do not, preparing them even more for a future in the performing arts. This is not to say that our performance-based classes are disappearing--far from it. The classes you've known for years and have come back to time after time are in no way leaving our schedule.
When you look at our registration page, you'll notice that the names "Bravo", "Spotlight", "Shining Stars", "Little Stars", and "CenterStage" are no longer there. When we've labeled our age ranges for classes in the past, we've had a number of questions from parents along the lines of "my child is right under the limit, but can he/she still join" and "my child will be 7 in two months--does that mean they're not ready for this class" and so forth. We've simplified this and listed our classes by grade-level. For example, "Disney's Cinderella KIDS" is categorized under "2nd-5th Grade", encompassing all age ranges in those grade levels. We feel this will eliminate a lot of confusion and questions.
We always try and raise the bar with our classes semester after semester, year after year. We're offering everything from the Muppets to Gilbert & Sullivan; from Elvis Presley to Charlie Brown. We're one of the few theatre companies in the Bay Area with classes offered year-round, and we wish to not only uphold the quality expected from us, but to supersede it. We've assembled the finest performing artists in the Bay Area to educate your students--they deserve nothing less. It is only with your help, your support, your suggestions and your love that we have been able to provide theatre education for 50 years within this building, and it is only with your dedication that we can continue for 50 more. Arts programs are getting cut everywhere, yet we stand tall, and that is completely due to you.
Thank you for trusting us with your students, for helping us enrich our community, and for continuing to support your Town Hall.
