BUFFALO, N.Y. — While some musical theater camps may revolve around learning and performing an existing Broadway show, at Shea's, the campers are also the writers, directors, and choreographers.
"We got the prompt city creatures," Alden High School Sophomore Claire Estrada said. "So our show is about New York City and the creatures that are living outside of an Italian restaurant in New York City, and how they're trying to save their dumpster from a health inspector."
Each group developed a 10-15 minute long mini-musical, and they're all going to hit the stage at the camp's final performance at 6 p.m. Friday.
"I know for the past two weeks we have been working hard and practicing every day so I can't wait to see everybody else's musicals." Sweet Home Middle School Eighth Grader Isabella Rainey said.
"We're all super excited, we have a lot of fun things planned in my group too, and we're really excited to share our show with our families and the community and everyone," Estrada said.
The students also wrote the opening and closing numbers that the whole camp will perform together.
"There's just a tremendous amount of agency that's granted to kids when they are creating something from the ground up, as opposed to being assigned something," Lead Teaching Artist and Camp Director Alejandro Gomez said.
Gomez says that hopefully, the students will take what they learned at camp and apply it to their school work and future careers.
"We're not necessarily trying to find the next Broadway star," he continued. "What we're pushing is the idea of creativity being transdisciplinary. When they're in the writer's room and they're collaborating with each other and they're bouncing ideas off each other and they're all working towards one goal, that translates to the theater, it translates to a classroom, it translates to a laboratory. So we're really building those skills for whichever path they decide to take."