Houston SCENES Theatre Camp

After offering an inclusive high-quality musical theatre summer camp to West Houston for more than a decade, Houston SCENES Theatre Camp almost had to close their doors last year when they found themselves without a home base. 

Summer 2019 The Outreach Center of West Houston opened their doors to SCENES in partnership with Family Point Resources, allowing them to offer two summer sessions over a three week period serving more than 80 students ages 7-18 in our West Houston community.  

This summer SCENES faced a whole new set of challenges, but with the faithful support of The Outreach Center of West Houston, they were still able to offer a single one-week musical theatre camp to a group of 30 passionate and talented middle and high school students the week of July 20-25.   

The students were split into two casts and in a single week auditioned, rehearsed, and filmed “SCENES from Godspell” under a unique and complicated set of circumstances.  They sang, danced, acted, and collaborated all week while staying six feet apart with masks on and being followed around by a sanitation crew. 

Certainly, they would have preferred to be preparing to share their hard work in front of a live audience, but instead became screen actors even as the entire Outreach Center facility became a movie set.  After four full days of rehearsals, filming took place both inside and outside on Friday and Saturday.    The cast and crew will gather together one last time this week for a watch party before the final production is sent to parents.  

For most of these young people, the stage is where they come alive- and being unable to create, perform, or socialize has been one of the most challenging things for them about the quarantine. 

According to Founder and Director Cece Prudhomme and Business Manager Laura Spaulding, “It was such a joy to see them all walk in on Monday morning unsure about what this week would look like given all the restrictions and fears about the virus, and then watching each of them slowly come alive doing what they were born to do!”