Paramount Camps
2021 SUMMER CAMPS
The safety of campers and staff is our top priority. In order to offer a great experience where kids can sing, dance and perform all out, our 2021 Summer Camps will be hosted digitally on Zoom. Attend from anywhere!
You might already be familiar with our award-winning in-person camps, but what about our digital camps? We went virtual in 2020 for the first time and it was a great success! Over 100 young people in 1st–9th grades found their artistic voices at our camps last year.
This summer, we’re offering full day camps: Camp Paramount and Camp Story Wranglers, where campers can have fun learning singing, dancing, acting, prop-making, creative writing, and performing. And reinvented for a digital format, our Summer Songwriting Workshop is a class for middle and high school students, offered once a week for nine weeks, and ends with a socially-distanced showcase at the State Theatre!
Camp Paramount
Session 1: June 14–25, 2021
Session 2: July 19–30, 2021
For rising 1st–10th graders
Two Weeks with Full Days, Monday–Friday
$550 (Scholarships available)
In this fun and fast-paced musical theatre camp, campers will learn and perform Broadway-style musical numbers and iconic pop hits! Campers will receive training in voice, acting, dance, and production from professionally-trained theatre artists. Each camp is unique; join us for both sessions!
Our professional team of teaching artists that you know and love engage kids in guided classes and activities. We have a balance of direct online instruction and planned materials campers will work on offscreen each day. After each scheduled lesson campers will have the ability to ask questions and review content with teaching artists in a small group setting. Campers will learn how to use web-based software to record audio and video of themselves performing.
Students will receive a “Camp-in-a-box” by mail or pick up at the theatre prior to camp. Supplies included: camp t-shirt, lyric sheets, and art supplies to create props and costumes in tech class (headbands, construction paper, glue, paint, card stock, string, socks, googly eyes, sunglasses, jewel stickers, etc.).
Enjoy camp forever with a final professionally-edited video performance celebrating the hard work of our campers that can be shared with friends and family.
All campers and their families are invited to a socially-distanced Camp Movie Night at the Paramount Theatre on Monday, August 9 at 6:30pm. Admission is free and the event is exclusively for campers and family. We will showcase video performances from all camps and then watch a movie together, with the title chosen by you!
Camp Story Wranglers
July 5–16, 2021
For rising 3rd–8th graders
Two Weeks with Full Days, Monday–Friday
$550 (Scholarships available)
This camp is for kids who love creative writing AND performing! Inspired by our award-winning and hugely popular in-school Paramount Story Wranglers program, campers will explore story-writing, songwriting, costume/prop design, and acting. It all leads up to the creation of a new, thrilling, hilarious, weird, poignant, SNL-style, you-name-it digital performance.
Our professional team of teaching artists that you know and love engage kids in guided classes and activities. We have a balance of direct online instruction and planned materials campers will work on offscreen each day. After each scheduled lesson campers will have the ability to ask questions and review content with teaching artists in a small group setting. Campers will learn how to use web-based software to record audio and video of themselves performing.
Students will receive a “Camp-in-a-box” by mail or pick up at the theatre prior to camp. Supplies included: camp t-shirt, a Story Wranglers journal, and art supplies to create props and costumes in tech class (headbands, construction paper, glue, paint, card stock, string, socks, googly eyes, sunglasses, jewel stickers, etc.).
Enjoy camp forever with a final professionally-edited video performance celebrating the hard work of our campers that can be shared with friends and family.
All campers and their families are invited to a socially-distanced Camp Movie Night at the Paramount Theatre on Monday, August 9 at 6:30pm. Admission is free and the event is exclusively for campers and family. We will showcase video performances from all camps and then watch a movie together, with the title chosen by you!
Summer Songwriting Workshop
June 8–August 3, 2021
For rising 7th–10th graders
9 Week Workshop
Tuesdays 4pm–5:30pm
$800 (Scholarships available)
Calling all aspiring musicians, lyricists, and students that want to learn more about songwriting! This workshop is for you. The Paramount and State Theatres are known for hosting legendary songwriters from around the world. Our 9-week workshop will help foster the next generation and end in a socially-distanced showcase at the State Theatre! Prior musical experience or playing an instrument is a plus, but not required.
Students will learn the basics of songwriting and explore different genres of popular music, led by Jenn Hartmann Luck and an all-star roster of guest musicians including Gina Chavez, Ruthie Foster, Graham Reynolds, and SaulPaul. Learn more about them in the dropdown below.
Students will create their own songs, both in groups and by themselves.
Families are invited to a socially-distanced Songwriting Workshop Showcase with live performances from students on Monday, August 9 at 5pm at the State Theatre! Workshop students from out of state can still participate in the showcase digitally.
Following the Showcase, workshop students and families are welcome to stay for a Camp Movie Night starting at 6:30pm. Admission is free and the event is exclusively for summer students and family. We will showcase video performances from all camps and then watch a movie together, with the title chosen by you!
Jenn Hartmann Luck
is a singer, songwriter, arts educator, and an accomplished creator of new musical theatre. Notably, she is composer and co-lyricist of Gretel! The Musical, which premiered at the Paramount in 2019 and is now available for licensing through Dramatic Publishing. She is also the composer and co-lyricist of the new musical The Battlefields of Clara Barton, currently in development with the American Music Theatre Project. Jenn’s credits also include two original solo albums, I Admit and Silly Urban Girl, and her one-woman show, Not a Chorus Girl, which played to audiences in both New York and Los Angeles. Jenn most recently served as Director of Partnerships and Programming for Education at the Paramount Theatre, on the Board of the International Association for Performing Arts for Youth, and as a Lecturer in the Department of Theatre & Dance at the University of Texas at Austin. Jenn started writing down her songs at age 10 and now she teaches songwriting workshops across the country to young people and adults alike!
Gina Chavez
is 2020 Latin Grammy nominee for her first all-Spanish language album, La Que Manda. She is a proud native Austinite and a 12-time Austin Music Award winner, including 2019 Best Female Vocals and 2015 Austin Musician of the Year. Her NPR Tiny Desk concert has more than 1.2 million views, and she is a featured guest on Brené Brown’s new podcast, Unlocking Us and The Late Show with Stephen Colbert. Gina’s music is deeply personal. Her passionate collection of bilingual songs takes audiences on a journey to discover her Latin roots through music as she shares her story of life in Texas as a married, queer Catholic. Gina tours internationally as a cultural ambassador with the U.S. State Department and runs Niñas Arriba, a college fund she co-founded with her wife for young women in gang-dominated El Salvador. She is featured alongside Oprah, Beyonce, Mahalia Jackson, Dolly Parton and many more in Southern Living’s new book celebrating “100 extraordinary women who have left their indelible mark on the South and beyond.” Her first all-Spanish language album, La Que Manda (The Woman in Charge), is now available everywhere.
Ruthie Foster
Hailing from the tightly knit musical community of Austin, Texas, award-winning singer-songwriter Ruthie Foster has found herself duetting with Bonnie Raitt, standing on stage with the Allman Brothers at New York’s Beacon Theater, and trading verses with Susan Tedeschi. Drawing influence from legendary acts like Mavis Staples and Aretha Franklin, Ruthie developed a unique sound unable to be contained with a single genre, with some describing it as “some folk, some blues, some soul, some rock, some gospel.” Ruthie has been nominated for four Grammys, and has won multiple Blues Music and Austin Music Awards, plus the Grand Prix du Disque from Académie Charles Cros in France.
Graham Reynolds
Called “the quintessential modern composer” by the London Independent, Austin-based composer-bandleader-improviser Graham Reynolds creates, performs, and records music for film, theater, dance, rock clubs, and concert halls, with collaborators ranging from Richard Linklater and Jack Black to DJ Spooky and Jeffrey Zeigler. He recently scored Linklater’s Where’d You Go, Bernadette for Annapurna Pictures, Happy Jail for Netflix, the Rude Mechs’ Stop Hitting Yourself for Lincoln Center Theater, Ballet Austin’s Grimm Tales, and a multi-year commission from Ballroom Marfa, The Marfa Triptych. Amidst his many other projects, Graham also serves as the Artistic Director of the new music focused non-profit Golden Hornet. Graham recently signed with the London-based label Fire Records and released his original score for Alfred Hitchcock’s silent classic, The Lodger, in October 2020.
SaulPaul
is a GRAMMY nominated Musician with a Message. He has had two #1 Songs on SiriusXM and has toured the world sharing his music. He was featured on America’s Got Talent and has appeared on numerous TV shows. He is also the previous winner of the prestigious Austin Under 40 Austinite of the Year award. His inspiring backstory of transitioning from tragedy to triumph has been told on screen via the documentary Tower to Tower and via his memoir Be The Change, as well as his popular TEDx Talks.
Preview Digital Performance
Watch last summer’s Camp Paramount take on “Phantom of the Opera” using the Zoom grid and masks created from paper plates!
Parent Testimonials
“Paramount Camp is ALWAYS the most impressive camp in terms of organization, professionalism, communication and, of course, creativity. And this year with the major curveball thrown your way, you have done it again!”
“The kids ARE HAVING A BLAST and don’t seem screen fatigued at all. Seems to be just the right balance. Thank you for all your work in pulling the virtual camp together!”
“I’ve never seen [my children] this excited to wake up and get on the computer since the quarantine started!”
“I wanted to tell you how great the whole [camp] team is doing. This experience has made me love and appreciate the Paramount and its programming even more!”
“What a wonderful job you guys are doing! I’ve been so impressed with not only your adaption to a virtual camp but the level of engagement. My son is really having a great time.”
Camp Policies
All students will need access to a Zoom-compatible electronic device (a computer or tablet with a camera) with an internet browser, a secondary device that can play MP3s (a phone, tablet, iPod, etc.), headphones, and a reliable internet connection. Prior to starting camp, each family has an online orientation for an overview of the digital platforms used during the session.
Please review our registration procedures and policies on accessibility, attendance, cancellation, payment plans, photo release, scholarships, and tolerance.
REVIEW ALL POLICIES
If you have any questions, please contact us at summercamps@austintheatre.org.