Traveling Players Ensemble

Traveling Players Ensemble was selected as one of the top 25 best Summer Schools in the Arts by the National Endowment for the Arts, Traveling Players Ensemble is a nonprofit educational theatre company in the Washington, DC area, dedicated to bringing great theatre into the great outdoors through an innovative summer camp and year-round acting classes and workshops.

Traveling Players Ensemble’s summer acting camps serve the DMV area, including Northern Virginia/NoVA (McLean, Alexandria, Arlington, Centreville, Springfield, Tysons, Falls Church, Great Falls, Ashburn, Lowes Island, Sterling, Herndon, Reston, Chantilly, Vienna, and Oakton), Maryland (Chevy Chase, Takoma Park, Silver Spring, Kensington, and Bethesda), and Washington DC.

We offer award-winning theatre training for child, tween and teen actors in the DC area.

From our drama summer camps to our pre-college theater conservatories, we bring out the best in every performer – on stage and off – with our holistic approach, which integrates acting workshops with imagination and joy. Our elementary, middle, and high school actors take classes all year and perform in our professionally directed and designed productions.

Summer 2020 — Going Virtual!
PROGRAMMATIC CHANGES DUE TO COVID-19

Still creating bold theatre with brilliant kids
Going forward with safety & joy!
We have crafted a plan that will be as fun, engaging, challenging and rewarding as you have come to expect from Traveling Players.

Our students will learn about classical theatre, acting techniques for the stage and the camera, and filmmaking, too.

What is an ensemble?
high school theater camp outdoors posing by the water
We say that TPE is based on the principles of ensemble theatre, but what does that mean?

The national organization, The Network of Ensemble Theatres defines an ensemble as “a group of individuals dedicated to collaborative creation, committed to working together consistently over years to develop a distinctive body of work and practices.”

At its heart, an ensemble prioritizes the success of the whole over the success of the individual. This is in stark contrast to the way theatre often works: an ensemble struggles against the tendency for the “most talented” actors getting the “best parts.” Ensemble work challenges both of those ideas by valuing the contributions of every member of the cast and crew.

We encourage teens to be responsible to the larger group, rather than thinking of their own interests first. What this means is that everyone in the group gets what they need. If everyone’s focus is in toward the group, they can help, support, encourage, and challenge each other. That way, when problems arise – as they always do – there is enough trust, goodwill, and confidence for the group to sustain itself.

Ensemble practice fosters a collective ownership of the art, believing in actors as creative as well as interpretive artists. Because of its focus on inclusivity and collaboration, all members of an ensemble develop a sense of the whole, and feel supported, trusted, and listened to by the group. In this kind of environment, performers can take greater risks and experience greater growth, knowing that the ensemble will catch them when they fall.

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