Private voice lessons with Jennifer Almeida. Eight weeks; 30 min lessons. Please register here and Jennifer will contact you for scheduling

Jen is incredibly excited to be teaching voice at the Academy where she is proud to be the President of the board and The Director of Education. She has an extensive background in teaching and performance. Jen has directed musicals, plays, and concerts and has taught private voice and classroom music as well as classes in acting and musical theater.

As a singer and actor in the community, she recently performed as The Woman in Death of a Salesman in the black box at CCFTA, Maria in The Sound of Music, Justice in Rock of Ages, The Fairy Godmother in Cinderella, Laurey in Oklahoma, Mary Poppins in Mary Poppins, Sarah Brown in Guys & Dolls, and Sister Amnesia in Nunsense at the Academy of Performing Arts and with Falmouth Theater Guild as Marian and Chiara in The Bridges of Madison County. She performed the role of Emily Hobbs in Elf the Musical at Cotuit Center for the Arts along with her son, Lucas as Michael Hobbs.

Jen completed her undergraduate degree at the Hartt School and her graduate degree at the New England Conservatory where she was a member of the opera theater program. Jennifer has sung as a soloist with the Kansas City Symphony Orchestra and was a regional semifinalist in the Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions. She was a young artist with PORT (Opera Maine) and has performed in several seasons with them. 

Class taught by Denise Page & Ryan Van Buskirk

Kids: Acting

Ages 11-14

Mondays 4-5 pm

Classes Start the week of 9/22 and end the week of 11/10

A slightly more accelerated class from the younger age group, this is an ideal course for

the middle school student who is either completely new to the stage and acting, has never tried

it but wants to OR for those experienced actors who have performed here and there but want to

elevate their skills. All actors will get a chance to shine in our end of course show case! We will

cover (a review for some) the basics, stage direction, diction, emotions, body language, facial

language. We will more intensely review, discuss and practice audition prep, tactical

approaches to conquering an audition as well as the anxiousness and confidence issues that

can sometimes plague both the inexperienced actor and those who have been doing this a long

time. (hint: most people don’t like auditions, but we have some tools to share to help cope with

that!) Included in this course will be a mock audition day! For most of the course time, we will

be focusing on a small play/skit for presentation at the showcase and breaking this down to

better understand our characters and how they fit in the story, and how knowing both of those

things makes us better at our craft. Part of this course will include a little improv work and how

that relates to staying in character, being in the moment and exploring creativity while remaining

true to someone else’s written work and the vision of an overall production… “improv with

boundaries.” Our focus may be on one small skit or play for presentation, but the skills and

practices taught for this one “micro show” are things that can be brought to all your future

theater endeavors. This course and what we teach will become a permanent part of the tools

for your overall acting, speaking and presentation tool kit. We can’t wait to work with yo

Class taught by Denise Page & Ryan Van Buskirk

Kids: Beginners Acting

Ages 7-11

Fridays 4-5

Classes begin the week of 9/22 and end the week of 11/10

** No classes on 9/26 and 10/31

11/7 and 11/19 will be 2 hour classes from 3-5 pm ***

This kid’s acting class is going to cover A LOT in a short time! This is an ideal course for

the young student who is either completely new to the stage and acting, has never tried it but

wants to OR for those young actors who have performed here and there but want to elevate

their skills. All actors will get a chance to shine in our end of course show case! We will learn (a

review for some) the basics, stage direction, diction, emotions, body language, facial language.

We will cover audition prep, tactical approaches to conquering an audition as well as the

anxiousness and confidence issues that can sometimes plague both the inexperienced actor

and those who have been doing this a long time. (hint: most people don’t like auditions, but we

have some tools to share to help cope with that!) Ultimately, we will be focusing on a small

play/skit for presentation at the showcase, however we will also touch a little on improv and how

that relates to staying in character, being in the moment and exploring creativity while remaining

true to someone else’s written work and the vision of an overall production… “improv with

boundaries.” Lots to do and we can’t wait to get started!

Class Taught by Denise Page & Ryan Van Buskirk

Mondays 5-6pm

Age: adults

Classes run beginning the week of 9/22 qnd end the week of 11/10

“Ok, so I’ve been cast as a tree… AGAIN. I think I need help but I don’t know where to start.”

First, this is not your average acting course! That’s either a spoiler alert, warning or a

test to see if you’re serious about leveling up. Keep reading if you’re still interested - this will be

a group course but with HIGHLY individualized direction and instruction. Ryan and Denise are

back with a next level Adult Acting course, (that’s also suitable for the new actor). For the

showcase presentation we will be presenting monologues (or POSSIBLY a couple of small skit

presentations). As actors, most of what we do is based on what we have seen others do, either

in real life, on stage or on screen… As actors, we are stepping into playing someone (or

something – yes! Even you trees out there!) else. We are studying this every day, whether we

realize it or not. In this class, we will discuss how to be ACTIVELY studying this versus

PASSIVELY studying this. We will begin by having a detailed discussion with each individual

actor about their past roles, if/how they feel maybe they are stuck in their acting and discuss

what areas they want to work on. This will be done via Zoom BEFORE the start of the in-person

classes and will be highly personalized. Are you often playing comedic villain roles and love it

but really would love to just try on the young ingenue role? Are you often drawn to

Shakespeare tragedies but would just LOVE to dabble in some adult comedy loaded with

innuendo? Whatever it is you want to try or work on, we will and we’ll help you identify what to

work on if you aren’t sure! We’ll splash in a mock audition day during the course as well. Does

this sound like a highly personalized, build-your-own acting class? It kinda is… but we are also

going to do it together because that’s half the way we learn, grow, inspire and create. We will

likely also find a play on the Cape this Fall that we can all attend together (not included in the

classroom fee), that we will discuss and analyze as a group, helping learn how to become more

actively engaged in theater and acting not just from the on stage perspective but from off stage

as well. Are you brave enough to step into this course? We hope so. We will push you as

hard as you want to be pushed.