We enrolled our 7 year old in an improv comedy class in Studio City. The school offers classes for all ages. We've found Studio LOL has played a huge roll in building Madeline's self esteem. If your looking for a fall camp or winter camp to enroll your kids in this year Studio LOL offers a space fro everyone!
I asked Studio LOL's instructor and founder Katy Kraus about the how beneficial a class like this is towards child development.
We believe that our classes do a wonderful job of encouraging creative thinking, spontaneity, teamwork, courage, and of course performance skills. The material is challenging in just about every way imaginable. It's quite intimidating for a child to get on a stage and "be funny" on command. By jumping in to such a challenging task, the students are able to face a fear and learn a lot in the process. We mask these lessons with games and exercises that are full of playfulness and laughter. We've seen this approach pull even the shyest of students out of their shell.Ryan and I opened Studio LOL because we saw a demand for a creative place for kids to learn the basics of improv that we had been studying for years. There are so many programs out there for kids. There are sports programs, academic programs, and even performance programs. But we felt that there was nothing being offered that encouraged growth in all of these areas at the same time. Also, it seems we were able to create our dream job. We combined our two favorite things- children and comedy. We feel so fortunate to get up and teach comedy every day.At age 17, I moved to New York City and studied film acting at The New York Conservatory for Dramatic Arts. I continued my improv studies at The Peoples Improv Theatre, The Upright Citizens Brigade, and Chicago City Limits in Manhattan. While living in New York, I started teaching some basic improv classes in public and private schools throughout the city. My specialty was school assemblies for up to 600 students at a time. This is where I began to see the impact that these skills could have on young children. In 2006 I moved to Los Angeles where I performed at various comedy venues as an improviser. I continued to study and perform at The Groundlings School, UCB LA, Complex Comedy, and The Hollywood Improv. I also worked as an actress in various film and television projects, most notably in many national commercials and in a TV pilot titled "You're So Dead!" In the meantime, I worked as a professional nanny for many years in New York and Los Angeles. I worked for a few years as a full-time cheerleading, dance, and gymnastics coach for girls ages 4 to 16. I also went back to school to study the science of child development, and sought to apply it to the various work I was doing with children. Studio LOL opened in June of 2010 and I have been operating the school full-time ever since.My goal for Studio LOL is to first see our original location grow into a community of young people who study and perform on a regular basis. There is nothing ilke seeing a group of children encourage each other in a supportive environment. Improv comedy lends itself to terrific social bonding, and I look forward to the time when our "LOL Family" feels like a home away from home for our students. Next, I'd love to see our community grow as we branch out into other parts of Los Angeles. We opened in Studio City because it has been my home for many years and I am quite partial. But we've had lots of requests for a beach-side location and I look forward to fulfilling those requests and spreading the laughter.:)
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-Katy
1 comments:
Great interview. LOL is so fun!!!
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