Dramatic Opportunities : Redondo Beach Camp Gives Young Thespians an Outlet for Fun

While working with the elite Children’s Theatre Factory in Santa Monica in 1988, drama teacher Pamela Zorotovich-Ament said she thought of starting a similar program for less-privileged young people who had few, if any, creative outlets.

“It was a great thing--a drama day camp--but this one was mostly for Westside, affluent families,” she said. “I wanted to do something that wasn’t going to be just recreation for the rich.”

With that idea in mind, the Torrance resident approached the city of Redondo Beach to begin a day-camp summer program for about 30 children, which culminated in a few performances of one-act plays based on Hans Christian Andersen fairy tales.

To Zorotovich-Ament’s surprise, 55 children--nearly twice the number she anticipated--signed up, and three more instructors were hired on the spot. The rest is history.

Now in its sixth season, the drama camp last fall expanded year-round with the addition of the off-season Youth Theater Program, an abbreviated after-school version of the camp that focuses on stage adaptations of classic literary works.

After launching the off-season program with Israel Horovitz’s stage adaptation of Charles Dickens’ “A Christmas Carol,” Zorotovich-Ament is now in rehearsal for George Orwell’s bleakly futuristic “1984,” which will open in March.

The combined programs now include about 100 children, between the ages of 6 to 16, who perform a repertoire of 15 plays and musicals mainly, Zorotovich-Ament said, to have fun.

“It’s the best experience of my life,” said 13-year-old Megan Shea, a five-year veteran of the program. “I was nervous when I first started, but now it’s really comfortable. You can go as high as you want here. They elevate you if you want to be elevated. I started out as a troll in ‘The Hobbit,’ and I have to admit, I was pretty bad. I’m doing a lot more now.”

Added Shea: “It’s for everybody. Pam doesn’t care if you want to be an actor, just as long as you try.”

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With her bubbly persona and ready laugh, Zorotovich-Ament, 36, is nothing if not a motivator, a woman who scarcely seems to know the meaning of the word can’t.

At a recent rehearsal in Perry Park’s auditorium, which serves as the program’s playhouse, she stood before the stage shouting encouragement to groups of players as they struggled to enact improvisations suggested by the entire group.

As the actors fell to the floor in violent deaths, made animal noises, boarded spaceships and erected Martian houses made of cloth, Zorotovich-Ament applauded, laughing heartily and commenting on innovative performances.

Though some of the scenes made little dramatic sense, each group of three tackled its project with gusto, skipping, flinging themselves on prop furniture and generally taking to the stage as if it were a playground.

Zorotovich-Ament knows from experience how to create something out of nearly nothing.

On a shoestring budget, the camp in its first year staged a full production of a musical written by the children and based on Andersen tales. Though offered through the Redondo Beach Parks and Recreation Department, the drama camp receives no public funding.

It relies entirely on fees, which are $375 for 10 weeks in the summer and $40 for eight weeks of the off-season Youth Theater Program. The program must also give the city 10% of its budget--about $56,000 annually--to rent the auditorium. The city is planning to offer scholarships for drama campers next summer, but amounts and numbers haven’t been established.

In addition to voice, dance, gymnastics and acting technique, the children learn how to build and design sets, make costumes, write lyrics and scripts. The children take turns performing, operating lights and sound boards and directing.

Ashleigh Beck, 12, said she likes the fact that instructors “aren’t there to baby-sit you.”

“It’s a lot of work, like school, and you’re responsible for doing your homework,” she said. “It gives you more confidence. It’s not really about acting. It opens you up.”

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Zorotovich-Ament fell in love with theater relatively late in life. After a stint in the Air Force, she enrolled at Harbor College in 1979. Walking past a campus theater one afternoon, she spied an audition notice and was seized with a desire to try out. Although she didn’t get a part, she wound up being a director’s assistant and the love affair with theater began.

Zorotovich-Ament now recruits many of her friends as summer instructors. The staff peaks at 10 during the summer with eight instructors and two part-time assistants, although the challenge of coordinating classes, rehearsals and production schedules for 40 to 90 young people is still formidable.

Summer is the time for full-blown musicals and fairy tales such as “The Pied Piper,” “Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat” and “Cinderella.”

But the off-season serves as a counterpoint, an opportunity for the children to delve into deeper works such as “1984,” which will have an eight-day run.

Such weighty material doesn’t faze Kimberly Parsons, 13.

“I like all of it--the dancing, singing, acting, reading scripts,” said the seventh-grader, who has a lead role in “1984.” “It’s helped me a lot personally. When I first started camp, I was just looking for something to do over the summer. I wasn’t really interested in acting, and I didn’t even like to talk much. Being in this (program) has helped me overcome my shyness. Plus you make a lot of friends.”

For 10-year-old Daniel Franks, the thrill of being on stage has sharpened his desire to become a professional actor. “I’m not sure what kind of actor I’ll be, but this will help my career,” he said. “You get to do it all here. Some kids have agents and all that, but most people just have fun.”