Irondale Ensemble Project Announces Creation of 'Young Company' Teen Training

The Irondale Ensemble Project, on top of launching their brand-new off-Broadway venue in October and mounting 2 Off-Broadway productions, are announcing the creation of Young Company. The initiative is to teach ensemble training for teen at the new Irondale Center between the ages of 14-18 years old. Members are selected by the professional company after a series of workshops beginning in January. Please call 718-488-9233 ext. 224 to register.

Irondale will train teens in the arts of performing and theater making. Young Company members will mount and produce their own shows, as well as being eligible to audition for major Ensemble productions. Irondale is particularly looking for Brooklyn teens with a strong interest in theater. Participants are invited to attend a free workshop in Irondale's performance techniques, taught by Irondale's artistic director Jim Niesen and members of the ensemble. The first workshop series begins Saturday, January 17, from 10 am to 12 pm at the Irondale Center. The series continues for the next three Saturdays-January 24, January 31, and February 7--at 85 South Oxford Street, Brooklyn, NY.

Irondale's Young Company will train the next generation of Brooklyn performing artists-actors, directors, writers, designers-and will mentor and produce high quality, professionally mounted work. "There's a lot of talk these days about helping emerging artists, and we see this as a way to get in on the ground floor of their development," says Irondale's Artistic Director, Jim Niesen. "We don't see the Young Company as an after school program where kids can socialize while sampling some theater games. Here we will nurture new talents and encourage serious artistry."

Home base for the Young Company will be Irondale's new Center, in Fort Green, Brooklyn, in the former Sunday school loft of the Lafayette Avenue Presbyterian Church. The Church is at the heart of Brooklyn's New Downtown Cultural Center and Irondale is the first permanent ensemble company to have a home in the neighborhood. The opportunity to get in on the ground floor of a cultural Renaissance is significant, but so is the actual building and its founders are significant. The Lafayette Avenue Presbyterian Church, founded in 1857, was originally a bastion of abolitionism, and has had, for years, a racially and socially diverse congregation. The neighborhood is a hotbed of culture, of tolerance, of experiment, of optimism. What better atmosphere in which to begin a Young Theater Company?

In spite of the revival that downtown Brooklyn is undergoing, young people in Brooklyn, particularly poor and minority youth, are culturally underserved. Brooklyn is a diverse borough, but upon
occasion this diversity manifests itself as "separate but equal"; children who attend Packer Collegiate or Brooklyn Friends do not intermingle with those who attend Brooklyn Tech or the Bedford Academy. Even the nearby Brooklyn H. S. for the Arts lacks space for theatrical performances. The Irondale Young Company offers an opportunity for diversity to manifest itself through integration. If the young people backstage and onstage have community ties, it stands to reason that they will attract a diverse, neighborhood audience.

Irondale's mission has always included a commitment to education. What better way to continue this than to offer young people the opportunity to "carry it forward" in a strong, neighborhood setting? Ultimately, some of the Young Company members, both those who work onstage, and those who work behind the scenes, will be invited to perform and teach with the Irondale Ensemble Project, as full-fledged members.

 

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