Young Company
Young Company
2020-2021 Season
Young Company’s 2020-2021 Season will start online, with the hope that we’ll be able to return to our home at South Oxford Street in the new year. We are very excited for a virtual improv intensive fall semester focused on The Harold!
The ultimate challenge for the actor/improviser is a long-form style of improvisation that can simulate a one act play, developed from a single prompt, without preplanning. It is THE HAROLD.
During the nine-week virtual module we will cover:
- Improv Essentials: Who, What, Where, Saying Yes (agreement)
- Space: Making the invisible visible
- The Group Mind: How trust in your fellow player(s) can produce something greater than the imagination of any single player. At the same time everyone’s ideas are incorporated, built upon and celebrated
- How to Construct a Scene: Writing on Your Feet
Every student will become a playwright, director and performer in this exciting improvised creation. The end result: a one aact play performed by a group of actors with no script. The Harold is not just a method of developing improvisational actors, it is beneficial to students of all subjects because it increases our ability to be aware of what is around us and to adapt to whatever circumstances are presented to us. It teaches us how to live more consciously, more effectively and more joyfully.
Semester 1 runs October 17 – December 19, 2020
Most sessions meet 12:00 – 1:30 on Zoom. A password-protected Young Company webpage and Zoom link will be provided upon registration.
Young Company is open to students in grades 9-12. There is no cost to participate!
About Young Company
Entering its 12th season, The Young Company uses the same ensemble training techniques that created the Irondale Ensemble Project. Just as the professional company grew out of the interests and talents of the original members, the Young Company develops work in the same way. Young Company members will create and perform two productions over the course of the school year, travel to see other professional shows, and intern with a professional theatre company.
Young Company members gain hands-on experience and learn what it takes to run a professional theatre by ushering visiting and in-house productions, assisting in youth classes, distributing marketing materials, stuffing programs, and working alongside Irondale’s professional Ensemble on our Equity productions. We are truly grateful for their commitment and are proud to call each and every young person an Irondale family member. The Young Company is generously supported by New York State Council on the Arts, Sonia Staff Foundation, Department of Cultural Affairs, City of New York, and our generous individual donors, providing NYC teens complimentary tuition.
Young Company runs October – June, there is no cost to participate!
I could never find a place like Irondale … it’s about knowing who you are and expressing yourself without being judged… Irondale is life!
Aalyiah Stewart
Former Department of Education Chancellor Carmen Fariña presents the
2015 scholarship to Young Company alumni Dre Knight and Danajha Davis
Scholarship Recipients
Irondale recognizes the continued commitment and contribution of outstanding Young Company members with a $1,000 scholarship upon their graduation from High School, to be used toward any aspect of their higher education.
Past recipients:
- 2019 – Christina Ramsey
- 2017 – David Rosa & Julia Smith
- 2015 – Danajha Davis & Dre Knight
- 2014 – Aaliyah Stewart & Joel Seabrook
- 2013 – Richard Perez
- 2012 – Xerxses Morris
- 2011 – Alex Miyashiro
Visit Us
It’s Easy to Get to Irondale
in the heart of Brooklyn’s Cultural District
85 South Oxford Street
Fort Greene, Brooklyn 11217
