Built around learning by doing, encouragement over criticism, and the belief that every person already has something worth saying. Participants speak in every session from week one, building confidence week by week through short talks, exercises, and peer feedback. The workshop also draws on professional theatre training, vocal warm-ups, physical grounding, and the actor’s approach to personal story, to give participants tools beyond a typical public speaking course. By the final class, each participant delivers a complete prepared speech and receives a certificate of completion.

• Adults who fear public speaking and want to overcome it
• Professionals who need to present, pitch, or lead meetings
• Community members who want to speak up at civic or social events
• Theater artists who want to strengthen their offstage voice

Theater is shaped in the rehearsal room, not just on the stage. This workshop offers a grounded, practical foundation in how directors analyze scripts, collaborate with actors, and bring a story to life in space. No prior directing experience is required, only a love of theater and a willingness to lead. By the end of the course, each participant will have directed and presented a scene for a live audience, received guided feedback, and left with tools they can use on any stage.

• Actors curious about stepping into the director’s chair
• Theater enthusiasts who want to understand what directing actually involves
• Community theater members interested in directing future productions
• Emerging artists with little or no previous directing experience

The stage and the screen share a common language, but film directing demands its own grammar. This workshop gives beginners the tools to think, plan, and direct like a filmmaker, covering shot lists, storyboards, directing actors for camera, and basic editing. All films are shot on smartphones: no expensive equipment, no technical barrier, just storytelling. The workshop closes with a curated screening of each student director’s completed short film.

• Theater artists curious about crossing over to film
• Aspiring filmmakers with little or no on-set experience
• Storytellers who want to understand the director’s role in filmmaking

Not a beginner class. Participants receive professional-level training in scene work, character development, audition technique, classical text, and contemporary realism, using Meisner, Stanislavski, and methods developed across six decades of professional performance and teaching. Class size is capped to keep instruction intimate and individualized, ending with full scene presentations and direct feedback.

• Intermediate to advanced actors with prior theater experience
• Actors seeking professional-level training
• Performers preparing for auditions, regional theater, or film and television work

A workshop for adults 55 and older who want to explore acting, storytelling, and performance in a warm, accessible, and supportive environment. No prior experience is required, only curiosity and a willingness to play. Every exercise is paced and adapted for the room, building toward an informal showcase performance for friends and family, with a certificate of completion for every participant.

• Adults 55 and older at any experience level, from complete beginners to returning performers
• Seniors looking for creative engagement, social connection, and mental stimulation
• Anyone who has ever wondered what it feels like to be on stage

A festival built around free submissions of ten-minute plays from local and regional playwrights, staged simply on six to eight black cubes with no additional set pieces. Run across one or two performance weekends, the model generates a free publicity campaign spanning several months, draws new audiences from the surrounding region, and gives local playwrights a real stage, all at minimal production cost to the host venue. Tom Erb serves as Festival Producer, managing submissions, coordinating the reading and selection process, and overseeing the full timeline through to performance.

• Free entry, open to playwrights from the surrounding region
• Ten-minute maximum running time per play
• Staged on six to eight black cubes, no additional set pieces
• Playwrights may direct their own work or request a director assignment

A weekly stand-up comedy competition open to comics at every level, from first-timers to seasoned professionals. Comedians battle across three divisions, novice, intermediate, and professional, until one champion emerges from each. The three division champions then face off in a final, crowning one overall Comic Throwdown Champion. A different panel of community guest judges each week keeps the competition fresh and connected to the local audience. Tom Erb serves as Host, MC, and Throwdown Director for the full run.

• Three divisions: Novice, Intermediate, and Professional
• Five weeks of preliminary rounds, a semi-final, and a final
• Judged weekly by a rotating panel of three community guest judges
• Cash prizes for the overall champion and division winners

A short film competition built around a single creative constraint: one location, one tripod, five minutes. Every team gets the same two-week window to write, shoot, edit, and submit, no production advantages, no location hopping, just storytelling. Films screen at a public festival event where a panel of experienced judges selects division winners in front of a live audience.

• Two divisions: Novice/Intermediate and Professional
• Films of 5 minutes or less, shot entirely from one tripod position
• Teams of 3 to 8 members, all filming and editing within the two-week window
• Judged on storytelling, creative use of the single-location constraint, direction, performance, and sound