Media Contact: Carmen Ramos Chandler, carmen.chandler@csun.edu, (818) 677-2130
Eric White, program director of California State University, Northridge’s acclaimed Teenage Drama Workshop (TADW), said he knows that there is a moment each summer when a five-year-old child sitting in the audience looks up at a TADW performer not too much older than them signing and dancing on stage and realizes “I could do that.”
“The magic of theater is that it makes what seems impossible possible,” White said. “It’s one thing to see a performance on television or at the movies, but it’s totally different when it’s happening right in front of you. It makes you think about things you didn’t know you could think about — the possibilities that you didn’t know were possible.”
For 70 years, TADW has offered a conservatory-style program on the CSUN campus for young people between the ages of 12 and 18 that gives them the opportunity to develop skills in the theatre arts. Each summer, TADW, housed in the Department of Theatre in the Mike Curb College of Arts, Media, and Communication, produced theatrical productions that showcase their talents. This year is no exception.
The students are spending at least eight hours as day in CSUN’s classrooms and theaters as they prepare for this summer’s productions of “The Wonderful Wizard of Oz” and “The Addams Family Musical young@part.” TADW’s performance of “The Wonderful Wizard of Oz” opens Wednesday, July 1, and “The Addams Family Musical” opens Thursday, July 9. Each show has seven performances that run through Saturday, July 18.
Tickets for the performances are $19, including fees, per person for general admission and $14, including fees, per person for children 12 and younger. Tickets can be purchased here.
Teenage Drama Workshop launched in 1956 when the CSUN campus was a satellite of what was then Los Angeles State College, now Cal State LA. The workshop continued when the campus transitioned to San Fernando Valley State College in 1958 and then to California State University, Northridge in 1972. Its only interruption occurred when the COVID-19 pandemic prohibited indoor theater performances.
“TADW started to promote theater and give youth in the area an outlet,” said White, a graduate of CSUN’s theater department who as a student worked behind the scenes at TADW 10 years ago. “The fact that is has been around for 70 years shows that this program has tapped into something unique in that theater education brings people together in a way that a lot of other things don’t. For 70 years, when you look at everything that has happened in the world, TADW has survived through it all and continues to form these magical bonds and a passion for theater that lasts forever.”
The program’s alumni include Marley Soleil, who recently appeared at the Hollywood Pantages Theatre in “Hell’s Kitchen;” singer and actor Daniel Stewart, who recently starred in the science fiction drama “For All Mankind;” actress and singer Julie Lester, who started in the Disney+ series “High School Musical: The Musical: The Series” and was nominated for a Tony for her performance in “Into the Woods;” and Grammy Award-wining singer Sabrina Carpenter. Other alumni include acclaimed actors Mare Winningham, Bill Irwin, Alex Borstein, Robert England, Elizabeth McGovern and the late Wendy Jo Sperber.
This year’s 85 students spend three mornings a week in core classes of acting, voice and dance. Twice a week, their morning curriculum includes electives such as musical theater, directing, improv and costume design. Afternoons are spent in rehearsal or performances.
The students come mostly from throughout the San Fernando Valley or Los Angeles’ westside. There is one 17-year-old student who catches the bus each morning about 4:30 a.m. in the Antelope Valley so he can make the program’s 8:15 a.m. start time.
“I tell the students — whether they want to do theater or not — they are learning how to work as a team, how to be an ensemble and how to build that bond,” White said. “Those are things that you can take anywhere. When you go out into the world and people see you have theater experience, they immediately know you’re a team player, you know how to work with others and you know how to have a voice in the room.”
White noted that there was something “special” about TADW’s theater education experience that “touches the soul.”“We have kids who are exploring parts of their personalities that they don’t geel safe to do anywhere else,” he said. “Theater gives them that outlet. It gives them a place to feel that they’re home. So many of these kids say that TADW is their home away from home. I think the soul of TADW is that we build this community for people to feel that they can be what they need to be.”
Learn more about Teenage Drama Workshop’s history by listening to CSUN’s Matador Memories Episode 6, which features an interview with CSUN alumnus and former TADW dance instructor and choreographer Candy Sherwin.
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