Boot Camp Theater students visit

The Boot Camp is project of the NYC Department of Education and Lincoln Center Education, established to give 2 intensive weeks of audition/portfolio training to assist rising 8th graders preparing to apply for entrance into the specialized high schools.  Each August, The New York Public Library for the Performign Arts collaborates with the project by giving orientations, special experiences and library cards to the participants.  Since the students are between 7th and 8th grades, I am listing them as Young Adults, but some of them may have been under 13..

The Studio of 35 Theater students was split so that each group could access TOFT and discover sources in the collections.  By request of the teacher, teach group viewed the final scenes from the TOFT videotaping of the Denzel Washington revival of A Raisin in the Sun.   The groups also learned the range of materials available in the Library for actors of any age, from the "blue books,"  staff-created scrapbooks in which they could see the reviews for the premiere and each successive revival of the play.  They also learned about archival materials, such as prompt scripts, designs, photographs, correspondence, and media holdings.   They were introduced to the Circulating CDs , books on theater, published scripts, biographies, and  DVDs.