Dobama Emerging Actors Program

DEAP returns summer 2025!

Dobama Theatre continues its commitment to exceptional education programming as the successful Dobama Emerging Actors Program, our summer intensive theatre program for young adults will return for its 14th season!

We have listened to the feedback that we have received from DEAP participants, faculty, and staff and made some changes for DEAP 2025. This new version of the program will take place Mondays through Fridays, July 7-18, 2025. 

In condensing DEAP from four weeks to two, we are able to focus more on monologues and scene work, to prepare students for college and professional auditions and productions.

We will continue to provide high quality classes in the mornings, exploring the acting techniques that have had the most engagement and positive feedback from DEAP participants of the past three years. Afternoons will focus on in-depth monologue and scene work.

And rather than a full production, DEAP 2025 will culminate with a showcase of scenes and monologues that have been deeply and richly explored in their classes and rehearsals.

Join us for a FREE evening of theatre! The 2025 DEAP showcase of scenes and monologues is on July 18, 2025 at 7:30 pm!

HOW to apply

• Submit an application by completing this Google Form

• The application will ask you:

  • for three references (this could be one of your teachers, theatre professors, the manager at your job, etc.)

  • to upload a headshot

  • to upload an acting resume

  • to enter a private YouTube link to a video of a 90-second monologue

• You will be contacted via email to confirm that we have received your application, and again when we have selected the 2025 DEAP cohort.

• Applications are due by April 1, 2025.

cost

Dobama is committed to removing financial barriers to all our programs. Full tuition for the program is $800, but no student accepted to the program will be turned away based on inability to pay. Need-based financial aid is available, and we are happy to work out details with each student or their family individually. Please contact deap@dobama.org to start this conversation.

OTHER IMPORTANT INFORMATION

• The 2025 Dobama Emerging Actors Program will be held at Dobama Theatre.

• Students are required to provide their own lunch. Students are also able to purchase their lunch at nearby restaurants and grocery stores.

• Students are asked to wear “blacks” for classes and rehearsals. This is a black shirt and black pants that allow for ease of movement. Students with long hair are asked to tie it back. Students are also asked to wear comfortable, closed-toed shoes.

• DEAP is recommended for students between the age of 16 and 20, who may be entering their Junior and Senior year of high school, or in their first two years of college. Attending college is not a requirement for consideration for DEAP.

history

In July 2010, Dobama initiated DEAP, the Dobama Emerging Actors Program, at the time an auditioned, month-long acting program for high school and college students featuring technique-based courses culminating in a full-length production. The education model is that of a college conservatory curriculum.  Guest artists and master teachers teach high-level courses, then students would apply those skills in afternoon rehearsals for a heightened text production. 
DEAP began in order to give students in the Northeast Ohio area an opportunity to get serious, technique-based training to support a process-centered approach to acting.  Now a two-week intensive program, DEAP provides instruction that will help prepare young actors for collegiate acting programs and professional productions, give students a broader perspective of what theatre is, and enrich their performance experiences by changing their approach to creating a character and building their own technique.

the process

Acting is an art form.  This fact is at the curricular center of the Dobama Emerging Artists Program.  In all art forms, technique work is essential to give an artist the greatest ability to communicate.  The dancer builds strength and flexibility, the singer works on vocal support and resonance, and the painter perfects brush techniques and the creation of shape or color.  But in today’s culture, the vast majority of theatre experiences for the young actor place product over process; emphasize parts in plays over coursework in technique and training. DEAP is different. DEAP is a process-centered and technique-based program for serious young actors.

faculty

DEAP students work with faculty with both degrees from respected performing arts programs and extensive professional experience.  These instructors specialize in the coursework they teach and have the singular focus of broadening each student’s understanding of the art of acting. In recent years we’ve had faculty from Case Western Reserve University, Baldwin Wallace, Kent State University, Oberlin College, and Cleveland Play House MFA program.

curriculum

Past DEAP coursework has included:

• Intro to Michael Chekhov technique

• Intro to Meisner technique

• Laban technique for the Actor

• Viewpoints

• Movement for the Actor

• 4 part Vocal Technique

• Script Analysis

• International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)

• Alexander Technique

• Audition Technique

• Improvisation

• Resume Clinic

• The Business of the Business

the showcase

The culminating showcase of scenes and monologues are performed in black box style, so that by stripping away elaborate sets and costumes, students and audience members are left to focus on the actors on the stage.

Combined with the work done in class, and the discoveries made through exercises in their coursework, these performances contain exciting moments of theatre and promote artistic growth for each actor.

The scenes and monologues chosen are based in heightened text and cycle through a repertoire of a Greek Drama, Modern Heightened Text, and Shakespeare.

Applications are due by April 1, 2025.