My Nonprofit Reviews

I have been a student and then a staff member for TPE. As a student, it changed my life: it made me more confident because I was constantly valued by the staff and the fellow students for things I was good at (like cooking for the group on tour and on camp-outs) and encouraged in the things I found hard (speaking loudly, asserting myself). I began to feel less alone at that most isolating of times, adolescence, as I met other students who were interested in the same things as I was. I learned more from TPE about theater than from any other theater program, especially about classical theater. Particularly important was the number of people who were theater professionals with master’s degrees in directing, acting, etc. There are a great number of staff trained from the Dell’Arte institute, and this is probably the most specialized place anywhere for students to learn Commedia Dell’Arte. Our stage combat teacher is probably the most valued professional in that area in the entire DC area. We constantly had visiting artists from various theaters in DC. At the same time, once I became a staff member I particularly appreciated how much the program was designed for the personal growth of teenagers as well as their artistic development. Even the youngest staff receive an entire week of training about how to teach students appropriate to their age level, how to manage the group dynamics of the different troupes, great outdoors skills, CPR, first aid and mandatory reporting, etc.
Ultimately, the best thing about TPE is that the small groups of students bond so closely and deeply. I am still very close with many of the students I met at TPE, many more than from my high school. Part of this is a general ethos of openness and creativity that allows for play in every part of the camp. The students are encouraged to come up with bus songs, campout games, and to improvise new things to add to their performances, so that they soon do these kind of independent creative exercises without prompting. And this combination of having a close group of good friends and the freedom to explore is what made much of my childhood at TPE so memorable and what still influences me today.

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