Light, camera and makeup: Johnson County camps focus on tech-savvy youth

Learning about theater is more than just hitting the right notes for a song or finding a mark on the stage. This summer, kids have the chance to develop skills in costume and scenic design, lighting, makeup and more at a series of camps offered at the Johnson County Arts and Heritage Center.

Introductory camps have been offered for several years, but this is the first year for intermediate-level camps.

“We want those campers to be able to have a place to go that they’re not learning the same things they have before,” said Guy Gardner, associate artistic director for Theatre in the Park.

Depending on the particular camp, these serve kids from age 8 and through high school.

For example, the introductory costume design camp teaches how to measure someone, stitch a hem and use a pattern, in addition to describing the job of a costume designer in a real production.

An intermediate workshop for those already well-versed in these basics and how to use a sewing machine would focus on creating a costume for a performer for one of the theater camp shows.

With any of the camps, the exact content depends on who signs up for it.

“All of our teaching artists have a lesson plan for the camps but then mold it after the first day when they learn what the participants within actually need from it,” Gardner said.

He especially loves the lighting design camp, a discipline he said works well for a tech-savvy generation.

“It’s not just plugging in a light and turning on a switch anymore. That (LED) light has so many pieces of information and how that information gets to the control board — they’re going to learn that. They’re going to learn how to focus some lights, and they’ll even learn how to program some on the light board itself,” Gardner said.

One of the more popular camps focuses on stage and special effects makeup. The makeup they’ll learn goes beyond what you would put on an everyday contemporary character.

“They’ll go into some special effect techniques like latex and blood, transforming the face into a monster or transforming the face into a 90-year-old person,” Gardner said.

He likes that the kids take a portfolio of their work with them to show their high schools what they can do for school productions, like making prosthetics for the Beast in “Beauty and the Beast.”

For more advanced students, there are camp opportunities to work as the tech crew for the performance camp productions of “Beetlejuice” and “The Wizard of Oz.”

The teaching artists who lead the camps have lots of practical experience in professional settings. One has been a makeup supervisor for performances at Worlds of Fun. Those teaching scenic and lighting design apply their skills in theaters all over Kansas City.

Gardner said he enjoys seeing kids thrive with the new skills they’ve learned. He remembers how a few boys on the tech crew for a camp production of “The Lightning Thief” learned how to sew and had a good time creating a costume.

“They were really, really proud of that piece, and I think at the beginning of the week if you had asked them, ‘What do you think you’ll do by the end of this?’ they would have never said, ‘create a costume piece,’ Gardner said. “But they had so much fun using the mechanical aspects of the sewing machine and learning about all the gears and engineering of it. It’s those surprises that I love the most about it.”

Olathe resident Boston Ward, 11, took part in an intro to tech theater camp that let the kids try all the different disciplines over the course of a week. He’d previously done a performance camp for “Frozen Jr.”

“You learn something new every day. You’re looking forward to that, and sometimes you do what you learned already but at a higher level,” he said.

He got to take a script and plan character appearances and scenic designs based on the text. Boston also said the camp has given him a better idea of what’s involved in stage management.

To sign up for any of the camps that still have open spots, visit jcprd.com, click on activity search and use the keyword “tip.”