About the Program
These performing troupes and specialized training programs are designed for teens considering theatre and the performing arts as a career path. Our rich curriculum and program structure offers students a space to sharpen teamwork skills, cooperation, discipline, technique, creative expression, and individual artistry through vocal, movement, and theatre exercises. Many of our students have gone on to post-secondary theatre programs and professional acting careers across the continent.
All students have the opportunity to perform and showcase their work during our annual Winter Shorts Festival in December and Expressions Theatre Festival in May/June. Further performance opportunities may be presented throughout the year.
Auditions
Admission to the Advanced Programs are by audition only. Participants will be placed according to age, experience, skill, and goals.
Auditions for the 2025/26 school year – Sept 7, 2025
For more information, contact theatre@artsumbrella.com
Film Troupe
Ages 13-19
For the aspiring film actor and maker. Students work together to expand their awareness of the different aspects of movie making, gaining tools to be in the moment, finding honesty in their work, and honing their artistry. Throughout the year, students create short films that are shared with audiences.
Musical Theatre Troupe
Ages 13-19
Young performers train with professional musical theatre artists to gain valuable ensemble and solo performance experience. Actors expand audition repertoire, develop their voice, and learn advanced singing, dancing, and acting techniques. In the Fall, students focus on building ensemble, complex harmonies, and choreography. In the Winter and Spring terms, students expand technique and apply it to staging either a full-length or school-length Broadway musical.
Sketch Comedy & Improv Troupe
Ages 13-19
Young comedians and improvisers hone their technique through writing and performing individual and group sketches, learning to take ideas from the brain to the page to the stage. Students learn collaboration, communication, creative problem solving, and to trust their instincts through games and classic improv exercises. Long form, theatre sports, and comedy-based improv are explored once foundations in Spolin-style improvisation are firm. Class work becomes performance-ready over the course of the year as students prepare for public shows in the Winter and Spring.
Theatre Troupe
Ages 13-19
Students prepare for an acting career with professional training in acting, voice, and physical theatre technique, focusing on the exploration of improvisation, character work, scene study, and script work to encourage a sense of ensemble and develop strong rehearsal techniques. In the Winter and Spring terms, students continue to hone rehearsal, performance, and production skills, including elements such as lighting, sound, costume, and set, as they prepare to tour and perform a school-length play for students across Metro Vancouver.
Half-Day Professional Training Program in Performing Arts
Grades 8+
This program supports those training in Musical Theatre, Theatre, and/or Film Acting, providing intensive instruction, professional coaching and mentorship, and performance opportunities throughout the year for students in Grades 8+.
Designed to prepare young actors with the tools to help them prepare mentally and physically for the demands of a career in the performing arts, students spend a minimum of 25 hours per week at Arts Umbrella, with advanced instruction in singing and musicianship, acting tools and techniques, physical theatre, auditioning, stagecraft, and dance.
Students combine their high-level training with academics through a myriad of online and distributed learning options. Many students choose to attend Magee Secondary School’s SPARTS program. Other options include King George Secondary, home schooling, and distributed learning.
Projects & Performances
Shakespeare Redux
This play was originally commissioned by the Arts Umbrella Theatre, Music, & Film department, performed by the Junior and Senior Theatre Troupes and Dramaturgy by Paul Moniz de Sá, Artistic Director of Theatre, Music, & Film.
Musical Theatre Troupe Spring Productions 2020/2021
Musical Theatre Troupe’s year-end projects were staged, in-concert, productions two very different musicals with similar themes about growing up, finding your place, and the value of friendship: Merrily We Roll Along and 13.
Musical Theatre Troupe Cabaret 2021
Our annual Musical Theatre cabaret where students share intimate storytelling performances with an audience.
Children of Eden: Musical Theatre Troupe 2020/2021
Musical Theatre Troupe’s Winter project was an in concert production of Children of Eden; a musical about family, faith, and letting go.
Laboratory Theatre Troupe 2020/2021
This year for Lab Troupe each student explored what it is to tell a story from beginning to end of the creative process. They started as writers and editors, before becoming directors, designers, and finally performers. They worked together to support one another as each individual vision came to life in the form of these six pieces.
NOT A CLUE: A HALLOWEEN MURDER MYSTERY
An audio play written and performed by the students of the 2019/20 Laboratory Troupe.
It centres on a group of high school students producing a 1940s murder mystery play when everything goes wrong during their dress rehearsal. The captain of the football team and member of the cast is murdered… and everyone is a suspect.
A comedic tale of ambition, friendship, and betrayal in which students must work together to solve the case.
