MANILA, Philippines—Earlier this year, the Philippine Educational Theater Association (Peta) opened its doors for aspiring stage performers through their annual Workshop Weekends. Different people, from college students to young professionals flocked to the Peta Theater Center to enroll in various courses ranging from Theater Arts to the more advanced courses like Basic Acting and Creative Musical Theater.

Starting on October 11 and ending on December 7, Peta is giving another opportunity for aspiring thespians to further their skill in acting and theater.

An in-depth look into the courses

For the second batch of Workshop Weekends, Peta is offering additional classes in order to accommodate more enrolees ranging from beginners to intermediate aspirants. The courses for the Workshop Weekends 2 are: Theater Arts, Basic Acting, Creative Musical Theater I, and Creative Musical Theater II.

Beginners may take their first step into the theater world with the Theater Arts and Creative Musical Theater I courses. These courses do not require prior theater experience; instead it is more of an introduction for those who have the passion for theater but haven’t really gotten to it yet.

Theater Arts is more focused on building a background for theater newbies; teaching them to learn and appreciate the art of theater production and history while also touching upon the subjects of group dynamics, visual arts, and creative music. Creative Musical Theater 1 provides students the chance to study the principles of composition and organization in performing for musical theater that is geared towards developing the enrolees’ basic musical theater skills.

For those who’re looking to take on a challenge, Peta offers two advanced courses in Basic Acting and Creative Musical Theater II. Basic Acting provides its students the chance to apply the elements of the arts and composition in executing a good performance through their body, voice, and imagination in acting while also tackling techniques on improvisation and text analysis. Lastly, Peta opens up Creative Musical Theater 2, a course that focuses on identifying and learning how to make the most of the enrolees’ strengths and weaknesses as a musical performer. Its curriculum centers on the influence of the history and forms of both Western and Filipino Musical Theater styles.

Integrated Theater Arts approach

All Peta workshops make use of the basic integrated theater approach wherein they incorporate the five fundamental theater disciplines—creative drama, body movement and dance, creative sound and music, creative writing and visual arts. Not only this, enrollees will be given the chance to fully experience this approach when they perform in an original production to conclude the workshops.

Enrollment procedure

Enrollment is just as easy as before wherein aspiring enrollees may simply just download the application form found at the Peta Theater website (www.petatheater.com) and walk in every Tuesdays to Friday at the Peta Theater Center to be interviewed and settled to with the course they wish to enroll in. For more details about the Workshop Weekends, interested applicants may contact Tina Sablayan at 09053696003 or [email protected].