MOSES LAKE — Moses Lake students can immerse themselves in the world of improvisational theater at a new camp coming in August.

“It’s an entry point for 7- to 18-year-olds into theater and improv comedy,” said Columbia Basin Allied Arts Director Shawn Cardwell. “They’ll go through the games and the thought processes behind improv acting.”

The week-long camp, called Yes, And Academy, will take students through four different classes with multiple instructors, where they’ll learn scene work, devising, improv fundamentals, and performance through fun, interactive improv games and exercises, according to an announcement from CBAA, which is collaborating with MG Teams of Spokane to produce the camp. Students will get to explore a variety of games and activities tailored to their age group, according to the announcement. Classes will be 9 a.m.-3 p.m. Monday-Friday, with a lunch break. Students should bring their own lunch, according to the announcement.

Yes, And Academy is led by professional improv comedian Michael Glatzmaier, who has done several shows in Moses Lake at Moore Brewing Co. Glatzmaier has taught improv for more than 15 years, he said, including at a theater academy in Georgia, where students spent eight to nine hours a day for four weeks at a stretch. That gave him the idea to do something on a smaller, less intense scale in Moses Lake, he said, focused specifically on improv.

The students will be separated out by age group, Glatzmaier said. Ages 7-9 will learn basic improv skills with paper bag puppets, with an emphasis on creativity and play. There will be separate classes for the 10-13 and 14-18 age groups.

Starting at an early age equips a child with more than just theater skills, Glatzmaier said.

“The older we get, the more we grow away from play, the more we start building walls around ourselves and becoming in our own bubble,” he said. “Improv teaches you how to break out of that. It teaches you how to listen to others’ ideas and how to build off of other ideas ... It teaches collaboration skills. And it's a fun thing. Students are thinking about these skills they're building, and they’re in there having fun playing improv games. Some of them get interested in theater, but I would say only like five, 10 percent of them do it for theater. The rest of them are doing it because they want to have fun, or they're trying to build like public speaking skills or using it for debate or just want to do something new.”

Glatzmaier is still accumulating his teachers for the camp, he said. His plan is to have two teachers per age group, so there’s plenty of one-on-one interaction. The cost of the camp is $300 per student, but there are full and partial scholarships available through donations from Granco Credit Union, Moore Brewing and other sponsors.

“I want to make sure we never say no to a student,” Glatzmaier said.

Glatzmaier’s love of improv stems from a lifelong disability that prevents him from memorizing things like lines or songs, he said in a previous interview. At a performance last year at Moore Brewing, he invited audience members to submit a slip of paper with a word or phrase on it, and used that to compose and perform a song on the spot. 

The skills used in improv comedy translate into skills people can use all their lives, he said.

“We do it even as adults,” he said. “All of us have (been in situations) where we try to tell somebody about something and they want to respond and try to fix it without fully listening. So this is a skill that we need to be trained to do. We've done this for students in college who want to work in a medical field, to use it for patient care. We've taught improv to lawyers. There's a lot of different ways improv can help people.”

More information, including registration, is available at www.YesAndAcademy.org. Questions about camp or scholarship opportunities should be directed to [email protected].

Yes, And Academy

Aug. 3-7, 9 a.m.-3 p.m.

Immanuel Lutheran Church

1020 S. A St.

Moses Lake

www.YesAndAcademy.org

    Michael Glatzmaier, right, and David Honeycutt are among the teachers at the Yes, And Academy improv camp coming to Moses Lake in August.
  

    Starting children young learning improvisational theater gives them skills they'll use their whole lives, said Michael Glatzmaier, who's leading an improv camp for kids in Moses Lake in August.