Record number attend RRCA's Theatre Arts Camp thanks to local grants
Everyday objects became imaginative props last week at the River Raisin Centre for the Arts.
A small, orange cone was a beak, and a wooden stick, a golf club. A camper named Luke saw a baseball bat in a dishwashing brush with the encouragement of drama/acting instructor Jennifer Bezeau at the RRCA’s Summer Theatre Arts Camp.
Across the street, at the theater’s Cass Street Studio, camp director/dance instructor Lisa Lewandowski choreographed a routine to the song “Freak Flag” from “Shrek Jr.”
The lively song is about proudly and openly celebrating and embracing differences. The students learned the lyrics from camp instructor Kathleen Foulkrod.
The campers’ arms and hands became the flag and the puppet mentioned in the song. Then, Lewandowski added movement to the number, and the campers traveled stage right and stage left across the dance studio floor, which doubled as a stage.
“Step, touch, step, touch,” Lewandowski told the campers, who watched their feet in the large wall mirror. Lewandowski also taught the campers about the importance of being together in their movements.
“If you hit that same stop at the same time, it will be powerful,” she told the campers, ages 7-14.
The students’ new skills all came together on the last day of camp, in a demonstration for families.
“Each group got a chance to show the skills they worked on during the week. Then we performed excerpts from ‘Shrek Jr.,’” Lewandowski said.
This summer, more area children than ever got to experience the drama, music and movement of Summer Theatre Arts Camp because of two Community Foundation of Monroe County grants. The grants covered full tuition plus lunch and snacks for two sessions of the week-long camp.
Tuition is typically $175 a week for each camper.
“Last year we had 39 kids. We’ve more than doubled it. It’s more financially accessible to people,” Andrew Felder, the RRCA’s director of community outreach and fund development, said. “We budgeted $12,000, based on $175 tuition in the past. We budgeted for 60 kids. We had 82 enrolled in the program in two sections. It had a greater impact than even what we expected.”
The additional students also attended camp for free.
“We were so glad that we are able to offer these classes at no cost to the family with the help of our partners,” Claire Bechard, RRCA associate director, said. “The kids have done a wonderful job this year.”
Summer Theatre Arts Camp at the RRCA began more than 20 years ago. New this year were a music segment, food, and daily dress themes, such as favorite color and character day.
“I have been a part of STAC since the summer of 2000,” Lewandowski said. “The only years I haven’t taught a session of camp were in 2008, when my daughter, Mariska, a current camper, was born, and 2020, when STAC was canceled.”
This year’s larger enrollment and expanded offerings posed some challenges, Lewandowski admitted. Finding places for so many kids to eat lunch was difficult, and it was a task to give each camper individual attention.
“In a discipline such as drama, there are many activities that may benefit from taking turns, and that uses a lot of instructional time,” Lewandowski said.
But she and the two other instructors got help from Stacey Bellino, RRCA box office manager, and parent volunteers.
“Our instructors really stepped up to make it happen,” Bechard said.
Lewandowski said Summer Theatre Arts Camp is enjoyed by the students, some of whom return for a second session.
“I think most campers enjoy the friendships they make and maintain at STAC. I also think they enjoy learning about different musicals and the personal experiences of their teachers,” she said.
In the spring, the RRCA received two grants from the Community Foundation of Monroe County: the Manausso Family Endowment Fund and the Rewarding Academic Excellence Summer Enrichment Fund, for a total of $12,000. The grants completely funded this year’s camps.
“I was hunting to see what eligible funds would fit in the goal of this project. I applied to the Community Foundation through its quarterly giving initiative,” Felder said.
Felder joined the RRCA in October 2021. Before that, the RRCA received few grants.
“The grant writing prior was almost non-existent. They only had two full-time staff members and didn’t have any capacity to write grants, so I was brought on,” Felder said.
Since then, the theater has received a number of awards, including a $10,000 in-kind grant from Google and $5,000 from the Michigan Municipal League to bring an Underground Railroad series of programs to downtown Monroe.
“In the 2022-23 season, we gave away (thousands of) free tickets to shows. We could do that because of a $20,000 grant from the Ralph C. Wilson Award through the Community Foundation of Southeast Michigan,” Felder said.
“Since Andrew has been with us, he has increased our partnerships and presence within the community and has secured several grants to help us expand our programs,” Bechard said. “He has made himself into an indispensable part of our team. The grants that we received recently have had a tremendous impact on how we are able to serve the students and audience. We’ve been able to expand our programs and accessibility to the arts throughout our community. With the work he has been doing, we have been able to increase enrollment and hope to hire more instructors. We are also looking at capital improvements and professional development grants.”
While grants for next year's Summer Theatre Arts Camp are unlikely, Felder has a plan to continue this year's expanded offerings.
“(Grant providers) want to fund new projects (each year). They help kick you off and get you going,” Felder said. “We’ve reached out to different summer camps. There is one in Monroe, two in Frenchtown and two in Dundee. They are asking us to partner with them to provide instruction for their programs. We will expand to provide programs at their facilities and give us more places around the county."
This article originally appeared on The Monroe News: Record number attend RRCA's Theatre Arts Camp thanks to local grants
