The Story Slams Continue!

2025 Slams – 7 PM Saturdays –
May 10 Hiding in Plain Sight
July 19 Strange  Days
Sep 20 Frenemies
Nov 15 Synchronicity

Dec 7 Sun 6 PM Super Slam – Family Matters

UPCOMING EVENTS

Improv Workshop Class Performance 

When:  April 21, 2025
Mon:  7pm

list of upcoming calendar of events

TAKE A CLASS

Classes currently meeting:

Cold Reading Classes

Wednesday evenings and
Thursday & Friday mornings

for more details

Intro to Improv with Ethan Jule

Tuesday evenings, 7:00pm – 8:30pm
February 25 – April 15, 2025
(no classes March 18 & April 8)

for more details

Upcoming Classes

Next round of: Improv with Ethan Jule

Monday evenings  7pm to 8:30pm
May 5 to June 23, 2025
(no class May 26th & June 9th)

for more details

learn about our full selection of classes

A note from our Executive Director

To me, joy is an element much like earth, air, fire, and water, something vital to life. Coming together and experiencing joy as a community is what The Actors Studio of Newburyport is all about. How do we do it? How do we promote joy? We commit to the primal reason for theater since the first story was told: to teach and expand our consciousness through the revelation of truth.

Truth is not always pretty or comfortable, and it is certainly not simple, especially where human behavior is involved, but it is endlessly interesting. And that’s where theater comes to life! If not for human fallibility, we might have no theater at all – comedy or tragedy.

I often wonder if all people had behaved well throughout history, would there be theater at all? Most plots are built around the consequences of free will. Theater art is fueled by the novelty of personal choice and the infinite opportunities for flawed thinking and questionable actions. The effect can be inspiring or horrifying and everything in between.

A good laugh or a good cry can really move our personal energy, allowing us to exercise our full capacity for understanding the human condition, offering us a chance to experience a certain kind of omniscience.

If you ask any director, writer, or actor what it is they are after at any given moment in the process, they will say ‘the truth’ or ‘authenticity’. Audiences are the same. We are all curious about our intentions and motivations, and commonalities. And we recognize the truth when we hear it or watch it being played out in a well written play.

So where does joy come into the mix, you might ask? The creative process offers countless opportunities for joy. For some, It’s the intangibles of participating in a collaborative art. It’s the ephemeral of expanding into our gifts of intuition and compassion and the thrill of authentic expression.

The theatrical process can be challenging, often pushing us outside our comfort zones. It can be equally liberating as we confront our own parochial beliefs and feel ourselves expand into greater awareness.

That makes sense for the actors, directors, writers, and designers. What about the audience experience? It’s all about the audience. The audience is the community we seek. Every participant wants a chance to have a collective experience, the opportunity to see life from a new perspective, to laugh and cry together and, ultimately, to celebrate the human experience.

Come celebrate with us!

Marc Clopton
Executive Director

The Actors Studio of Newburyport is a 501(c)(3) corporation.