2018 HPAC Final Video (Adam Dew)
Ensemble Theatre’s Performing Arts Camp is a FREE performing arts summer camp for Cuyahoga County base middle school aged students. Using curriculum developed by Ensemble Theatre, we successfully completed our 8th camp in the summer of 2024, which culminated in a live performance in the Sanctuary of Disciples Christian Church in Cleveland Heights! This camp, led by Ensemble Theatre, offers a no barriers yearly summer opportunity and access to a rich performing arts experience, to youth from schools within Cuyahoga County. Each year’s camp includes these focus areas: Theatre, Film, & Voice Overs!
HPAC 2019 Final Video (Antonio Harper)
Ensemble is dedicated to the responsible production of works that celebrate the human spirit, providing culturally diverse programming that speaks to issues of contemporary life that celebrates our amazing and diverse Northeast Ohio communities, and developing new works for the American stage. Heights Performing Arts Camp was created by Ensemble Theatre in 2017 through a partnership with Building Heights, a group of Cleve. Hts.-Univ. Hts. School District parents, dedicated to facilitating a safe, inclusive, community-focused environment through outreach and programming.
ETPAC 2022 FINAL VIDEO (Jimmie Woody)
Ensemble Theatre expanded this program we created in the summer of 2022, to include students from schools all across Cuyahoga County!
We connect our campers with professionals who work in the performing arts industry both locally and nationally, helping to continue to share the importance of the arts and arts education and their value in our communities in a myriad of ways.
The dates for this summer’s camp are July 14th to July 25th!
with a final performance on Friday July 25th, 2025 at 7pm.
This years camp will take place in the Marinello Little Theatre on the campus of
John Carroll University in University Heights! :: 1 John Carroll Blvd :: University Heights, OH 44118
The deadline to apply for this year’s camp (2025) is June 13th.
MEET OUR 2025 INSTRUCTORS!
Jimmie Woody (Film Instructor) received his M.F.A. in acting from Columbia University. He was a 2019-2020 Cleveland Public Theatre ‘Premiere Fellow’, a 2012 Creative Workforce Fellow in theater, recently a Film teacher at the Cleveland High School for Digital Art and an acting instructor of Acting for the Camera at Tri-C. Some of Jimmie’s most recent directorial credits include: 'Showin Up Black' (Cleveland Public Theatre), Jitney by August Wilson (Beck Center); Election Day by Lee Chilcote (BorderLight Festival); Brownsville Song/B-Side for Tray (Dobama Theatre); Art of Longing by Lisa Langford (Cleveland Public Theatre); To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee, Clybourne Park by Bruce Norris, and Raisin in the Sun by Lorraine Hansberry (Weathervane Playhouse); Lower Depths by Maxim Gorky and The America Play by Suzan-Lori Parks (University of Akron); The Split Show, How Blood Go, and The Bomb by Lisa Langford (Tri-C, Convergence Continuum & Cleveland Public Theatre); Glass Menagerie by Tennessee Williams, For Colored Girls… by Ntozake Shange, Jitney, Two Trains Running, Gem of the Ocean & Joe Turner’s Come and Gone by August Wilson (Tri-C Metro). He most recently played Preston Walker in Nicole Salter’s Breakout Session/Frogorse’ at Cleveland Pblic Theatre, Brucie in Lynn Nottage’s ‘Sweat’ at Cleveland Playhouse and he performed a workshop production of his one-man show Tale of a Geminirising at Cleveland Public Theatre. He served as ETPAC’s film instructor in 2023 and is excited to return!
Cassidy Thomas (Theatre Instructor) With a script in one hand and a lesson plan in the other, Casidy brings the perfect mix of stage magic and classroom sparkle to camp! A seasoned performer, playwright, and educator, she’s passionate about helping young actors find their voice—whether they’re belting showtunes or writing their own scene-stealers. Get ready to break a leg—but don’t worry, she’s got plenty of band-aids (and puns) just in case! She is a recent graduate of Notre Dame College with a degree in Education.
MEET OUR PROFESSIONAL DROP IN ARTISTS FOR 2024!
Lisa Langford (Playwriting/Storytelling Drop-In) is a Cleveland-based playwright and actor. She received her B.A. in History from Harvard University and her M.F.A. in playwriting from Cleveland State University. Her play Rastus and Hattie was a Joyce Award winner (w/ Cleveland Public Theatre); a Eugene O’Neill Theater Center National Playwrights Conference finalist; and a The Kilroy’s List honorable mention. The play was published by New Stage Press. Lisa’s other plays include How Blood Go, which was an August Wilson New Play Initiative reading series selection at Chicago’s Congo Square Theatre and part of Global Black Voices at the Roundhouse Theatre in London UK; The Art of Longing, a Leslie Scalapino Award finalist for Innovative Women Playwrights; and two short plays, The Bomb, published in the anthology Black Lives/Black Words, and Revolt. Ing, which was part of the I Am...Festival at the Goodman Theatre in Chicago. She's received commissions from the Cleveland Playhouse, the College of Wooster and others. A recipient of the Ohio Arts Council Individual Excellence Award, Lisa is a member of the Dramatist Guild and Zeta Phi Beta Sorority, Inc.
Laura Rauh (Professional Actor Drop-In) is very happy to be returning to Ensemble to reach out the next generation of theatre and film practitioners, after performing as Tammie Stockman in Enemy of The People: A Rust Belt Adaptation and as Mother Courage in Mother Courage and Her Children last winter. She has also enjoyed time on the Ensemble stage as The Other Woman in The River and Mariya/Mrs. Petrovna in Describe the Night and, almost a decade ago, in All This Intimacy. She has also perfirmed in many wonderful Cleveland and Chicago stage and screen productions, including King Henry VIII, The Maids, No Exit, Independence & Miracle on 34th Street. She has done commercials for Wayfair, Chevy and Nintendo to name a few. Studies include Second City, Cleveland Play House, Steppenwolf Theatre, and a BFA from Ohio University. She is very grateful to Ensemble, her wonderful boys & her husband for support.
It is our intention to always keep our Summer Performing Arts Camp FREE for the campers!
If you are able, please consider a donation to help support this amazing program!
Ensemble Theatre is a 501(c)3. All donations are tax deductible to the fully extent of the law.
Please include “ETPAC” in the notes of your online donation, or in the memo line of a check!
2017 Heights Performing Arts Camp Inaugural Year! Alma Theatre Performance Camp Photo.
We look forward to working with the residential and commercial communities to continue support for this and future summer camps through donations and sponsorship, keeping this camp FREE for the students. We greatly appreciate your consideration of our request and your expressed enthusiasm for this endeavor.
Questions please contact:
Celeste Cosentino, Executive Artistic Director, Ensemble Theatre.
pac@ensemble-theatre.org | 216-321-2930 (Ensemble Office).
Images below are from our Inaugural Camp's Final Performance (2017 ) in the Alma Theatre at Cain Park. Images by Gabe Shaeffer.
