Rebecca Lopkin, artistic director and founder of Envision Theater, has been providing actor training to children in the Bergen County area for the past eight years. This fall, she is excited to announce her newest endeavor, Sunday Theater Workshop Courses, offered to girls from pre-K through high school.
According to Lopkin, Envision Theater is an educational theater company, established with the goal of bringing performing arts opportunities to Jewish day school students who otherwise would not have them. Her company currently runs programs in many of the Bergen County yeshivas and this new program was created to accommodate those who cannot attend weekday classes or who prefer a weekend class.
“A parent reached out last spring for a theater class for her daughter. She helped find the space and get students, and helped put it together,” said Lopkin of the program’s impetus. “Now, Shaare Tefillah in Teaneck houses our Sunday acting school for girls.”
All girls are welcome to join, but the program is being promoted in the Jewish community because that is where she feels it is needed.
“I am not interested in repeating what they get in school. This is something they can’t and don’t get. We focus on technique and learning to be actors,” Lopkin remarked.
“I planned the program during the summer, trying to provide theater opportunities for girls. I want them to be comfortable being creative and taking risks, feeling confident and working collaboratively,” she continued. “I want them to grow and gain confidence through acting.”
Response thus far has been positive. “I have had people from Highland Park show interest and register,” Lopkin added. “I’m hoping to get girls from Clifton/Passaic, Monsey, Bergen County, just all over the area.”
The goal of the program is “not to put on a big, splashy performance,” she said. “It is all about the ‘showing.’ At the end we will have a ‘showing,’ where the girls will perform something they worked on, like a short scene, songs or, for high school students, maybe something they wrote themselves.”
The classes are called “workshops” because, as Lopkin stated, “It is more about the craft and the collaboration and really being actors. It’s all about the work.”
Lopkin has been involved in theater and acting since middle school. Once she realized her “passion and skill set,” she decided to study theater in college, and majored in educational theater at NYU. She worked in theater and then as a teaching artist in New York City for a number of years before starting her own company.
“I started small and just grew,” she said. “I started making connections and got a warm reception at the schools here.”
The teachers at Envision Theater are “all professionals; they are actors, most with theater degrees, who love to work with children,” she added. “Our teachers facilitate the actor training through teaching technique.”
Lopkin lives in Teaneck with her husband, Benjy, and their three children, who all attend Bergen County yeshivas. The family davens at both Netivot Shalom and Arzei Darom.
For a schedule of Sunday classes, to enroll or for more information on Envision Theater, visit envisiontheater.com, or contact Lopkin at [email protected] or 617-821-3097.
