Charm City Players

Third year and counting with Charm City Players summer theatre program. My child has been performing in musical theatre productions in our small town on the Eastern shore since she was 5. It is her passion. Our first year she knew no one. My child has a diagnosis of anxiety which I informed the program director about. Her first day jitters were immediately addressed and her first time there 2019 session she got a small, speaking role that suited her. The summer of 2020 the program was able to pull off all of their productions during the pandemic! My daughter was in 2 and over the moon. This summer she is in 2 more productions and thrilled. She has repeatedly told us if she had to pick going on our yearly beach vacation over this program, THE SHOW MUST GO ON! This is traditional musical theatre. Younger/inexperienced children get ensemble parts, older/experienced children get speaking/singing roles. If only we'd found this program years ago. Thank you Charm City Players for making my child's summer fabulous.

Charm City Players is great! My daughter has had the best experience! This summer will be her third camp and she can’t wait for it to begin. She has learned so much, and her love for the theatre has grown! The staff is so professional and knowledgeable. She has made lifelong friendships!

My daughter attended the camps this summer. First was Matilda, then High School Musical and lastly she will attend the Beauty and Beast camp. She has had a fantastic time! She is learning a lot. She has had ample time to sing, dance and act. She loves the fast pace of putting on a production in 6 days. It’s challenging and fun! Chrissy( the director) is super responsive, friendly and accommodating to all needs. This has been a highlight to my daughter Gabby’s summer!!! She’s already asking about next summer. We travel 45 min one way to get here and it’s worth it! If you are looking for a fast paced, fun, high level theatre camp, this is for you! This is a haven for theatre kids looking to expand their knowledge and get opportunities!

My son has participated in the Imagination 101 theater camp for 4 years, and he always wants to go back! He loves the team spirit and back stage feeling of putting together a real play. Although he's never gotten a big speaking role, he enjoys learning the ensemble music and dances as well as the camaraderie of the other kids who appreciate theater and music as much as he does. The camp director is extremely responsive, available every day at drop-off, pick-up and by text, and my son has great things to say about the other staff members as well. Our extended family and friends thoroughly enjoy the show at the end of two weeks, which is really special. It's always in a nice theater with intermission and flowers and feels like a "real show". The only hard part is saying goodbye to friends the kids have made. I feel lucky that we have a camp like this available for our kid who loves everything that comes with being in a musical play! What a great way to spend a couple of weeks of the summer :)

Before I get into the pros and cons, I want to say that my only experience is with their summer "camp". I have no idea what their main stage performances are like. This is labeled a camp but this is NOT a camp. It's a theater intensive... at best. The first day, are auditions but from what I was told it's a formality. The lead roles are pretty much cast from previous performances. This tactic is common in theater groups and we knew this was how they ran things going in. However, in this case, the directors might have wanted to branch out their casting because most of the kids who were leads in the Lion King could not sing and were extremely flat and had almost no facial expressions. The exceptions would be the performers who played Nala as a kid, Timon, pumba, zazoo in the second half, and Sarabi. Those 5 performers hit it out of the park in song, dance, enthusiasm, and acting ability. If your child is not cast as a lead role (which only consisted of about 12 out of 80 kids), realistically, they shouldn't be expected to show up every day. When not rehearsing the kids are expected to sit quietly and do nothing. For 7 hours. This is upsetting because there were various scenes with missed opportunities to have chorus groups in the background. Kudos to the teachers for getting an entire play put together in 8 days but this is very poorly ran for a camp. Theater CAMPs typically have the students who aren't leads build the sets or help in other ways so they feel more involved or have them take theater skills classes to get better at the craft. This camp does not do this. Or anything at all. Other than run the play. Overall, this intensive isn't worth the time or money if you're looking for an actual camp that's going to be fun and improve your child's theater performance.