NCCC Offers Acting Courses

Northwestern CT Community College in Winsted will offer an acting course this spring semester. "Introduction to Acting," in conjunction with "Introduction to Acting: Lab" will focus on the basic elements of acting. This class will meet on Tuesdays and Thursdays from 6:30-8:30 p.m. in Founders Hall Auditorium, beginning January 22. The cost of this course is $253.

Students will learn acting basics including the use of voice and body to create a character, improvisation techniques to develop awareness and emotional honesty, motivational method, the use of special relationships to create symbols in theater, dramatic structure, and text analysis. Students will have the opportunity to apply these techniques in an end-of-term production of two-person scenes.

The course will be taught by Penny Owen, who has taught theater for over twenty years. After acting professionally for ten years in musical theater, she trained classically at the Drama Studio in London, England, and has studied with Douglas Campbell, one of the founders of the Stratford Festival in Canada. Penny has taught at Lansing Community College in Michigan, where she founded a summer theater festival, a studio theater program, directed over 60 productions and was active in using theater in the community's schools, service organizations, social service agencies, and theaters.

In addition to "Introduction to Acting," which is a credit-bearing class, Ms. Owen will teach "Acting: For the Community Interest." This ten-week class, which will meet on Wednesdays from 6-9 p.m. beginning January 16, prepares community members to become more active in community life by increasing their capacity to give oral presentations, participate in local theater productions, and use the medium of theater to tell their own stories.

She will also teach "The Hero's Journey: A Theatrical Structure for Setting Life Goals." This five-week experimental seminar meets from 1-4 p.m. on Sundays, beginning January 14. Students will follow Joseph Campbell's heroic structure in an adventure of their own to discover what they subconsciously wish for, and to confront and eliminate the personal blocks that stop them from achieving their goals.

"For the Community Interest" and "Hero's Journey" are provided free to community members through a grant from the Shafeek Nader Trust for the Community Interest.

For more info on the "Introduction to Acting" credit course, call NCCC's Registrar's Office at 860-738-6314. For more info on "For the Community Interest" and "Hero's Journey," call NCCC's Office of Continuing and Extended Studies at 860-738-6444.