Orcas Center Presents:
Summer Theater Intensive
A launchpad for youth ages 10-18 to learn performing arts skills and have an epic summer of fun!
This intensive is split into two different camps:
Both cohorts will work together to produce and perform the 1-act musical James and the Giant Peach, JR. based on the fantasy book by Roald Dahl. This intensive will work towards a full production and culminate with a performance weekend on Orcas Center Mainstage!
PERFORMING ARTS INTENSIVE
4 Week Intensive, July 5th-August 1st
Monday-Friday, 9:00am-2:00pm
Final Performances: 7/31 and 8/1 at 12pm and 6pm
Pay what you can tuition: $550, $1,110, $1,750
Directed by Chelsea Sherman and Jamey Moriarty
Explore acting, singing, dancing, and other theater essentials in this month-long creative adventure. Participants will gain more knowledge and confidence in their performing arts skills, spend the summer with an amazing cohort of creators, and most importantly, learn how to channel their inner spark and apply it.
Daily Intensive Schedule Sample:
9:00-9:30am: wake up and welcome
9:30-10:00: warm up + technique
10:00-12:00: rehearsal block
12:00-12:30: lunch break and outdoor time
12:30-1:30: rehearsal block
1:30-2:00: games or special activity
THEATER TECH INTENSIVE
2 Week Intensive, July 20th-August 1st
Monday-Friday, 9:00am-2:00pm
Final Performances: 7/31 and 8/1at 12pm and 6pm
Pay what you can tuition: $275, $550, $1,200
Directed by Cameron Sherman
Explore the world of audio, video, lighting, set design, basic construction and other backstage activities. Both creative and technical skills will be fostered to assist in creating a collaborative design and final product for the overall theater camp production. Lessons will include familiarity with equipment and materials and their uses to create interactive and dazzling sets, props, and the more intangible portions of productions. Students will learn the basic roles of various technical staff and take on that role for the final production of the 2026 camp production, including operating together as a behind-the-scenes production team.
CASTING PROCESS FOR THE PERFORMING ARTS INTENSIVE
We will be holding open-call auditions for James and the Giant Peach Jr. for the performance arts intensive. However, there is no audition required to participate in the camp. If you sign up, you can join the fun!
We strongly encourage every participant to give the audition process a try, especially those who’d like the opportunity to play larger roles. Every participant will have the opportunity to play one or multiple roles in the show. Dual casting for leads is a possibility.
No experience is necessary to participate, although all participants must make an active effort to perform at least one role in the show- courage is required!
AUDITION INFORMATION
In-Person Auditions:
Monday, May 4th 3:30-5:30pm, and
Thursday, May 7th, 3:30-5:30pm
In the Orcas Center Blackbox Theater.
Auditionees will be seen on a first come, first served basis. Please enter and wait in the black box lobby. You only need to attend one of the two open-call dates.
Self-Tape Auditions:
Self-tape auditions are due to chelsea@orcascenter.org by Friday, May 8th at 5:30pm. Tapes do not have to be of professional quality- using a phone or ipad works great. Please make sure we can hear any audio in your self tape clearly.
All Auditionees:
Please prepare 30 seconds-1 minute of a song that shows your range and personality. If auditioning in person, please provide a backing track link of your song to chelsea@orcascenter.org. There will be no accompanist available at in-person auditions. In addition to your song, you’re welcome to present another special skill, such as dancing, skateboarding, acrobats, etc.
For in-person auditions only:
You might be asked to read a scene from the script.
Casting will be announced by Friday, May 15th, 2026 for those who participated in the audition process. Script and songs will be sent out by June 1st.
PERFORMANCES
Friday July 31st, 12PM and 6PM
Saturday August 1st, 12PM and 6PM
Strike and cast party Sunday August 2nd in the afternoon
MEET YOUR COUNSELORS
Chelsea Sherman has spent her entire life exploring the world of performing arts. Over the last decade alone, she has crafted dozens of grassroots performances, including one musical, four records, and a multitude of dance theater works. Her compositions and courses are supported by her advanced training in music, dance, theater, and voice. Sherman also founded the co-led Orcas Dance Collective in 2021 and has taught performing arts on Orcas Island for the last five years. She leads with the belief that every person has a right to self expression and that all performing arts skills can be learned.
Sherman graduated with honors from Indiana University in 2019 with a degree in Interdisciplinary Performing Arts and Composition. Notable stage credits include Eurydice (Eurydice), Into The Woods (Cinderella), Still Now (Annie), A Feminine Ending (Amanda), The Arboretum: A New Musical (Three) HOUSE HOUSE HOUSE: A Play with Dance (Carrie) and Footloose! (Wendy Jo)
Jamey Moriarty is a longtime theater artist and performer who loves acting, directing, stream-of-consciousness improvisation, dancing, and having fun. He studied theater at Whitman College in Walla Walla, Washington, graduating in 2014 with a degree focused on acting and performance.
Jamey spent approximately four years working at the Orcas Center, where he specialized in technical design work including lighting and stagecraft. He made his directorial debut at Orcas Center in 2024 with the magic comedy She Kills Monsters and followed it up the next year with a theatrical spoof of Harry Potter called Puffs. He also has an extensive background working with kids, including time at YMCA Camp Orkila, teaching theater classes at the Orcas Center, and working at private schools in Seattle.
This will be Jamey’s fourth year teaching theater camp at Orcas Center. He is very excited for this summer’s production of James and The Giant Peach, especially since he’s often been told the claymation version of James from the original movie is his doppelgänger. We’re gonna have a peach of a time!
Cameron Sherman began his foray into stagecraft from his secondary school drama classes, high school sound crew and video production, and a focus on set and lighting design, construction and media arts in college, and furthering his career by becoming an IATSE stagehand. He is an adamant supporter of education in the performing arts for youth, specifically from the backstage perspective. With 30 years in the industry involved in every aspect of production, including managing crews of large scale concerts at venues across the PNW, working on school, local community theater and national/touring productions in theaters throughout Washington State; a brief stint into acting and directing, and even returning to his alma mater as the Theater Advisor, he continues to find ways to further the creative and technical drive and prowess of himself and others looking to express themselves through stagecraft of all types. He welcomes technical challenges and seeks the best possible team solutions right up until the curtain opens.
ABOUT THE SHOW
Based on one of Roald Dahl’s most poignantly quirky stories, Roald Dahl’s James and the Giant Peach JR. is a brand new take on this “masterpeach” of a tale. Featuring a wickedly tuneful score and a witty and charming book, this adventurous musical about courage and self-discovery is destined to be a classic. The possibilities for creative costuming and puppetry abound, and young actors will love playing the outlandish and larger-than-life human and animal characters!
Featuring music and lyrics by the Tony-nominated songwriters Justin Paul and Benj Pasek and book by Timothy Allen McDonald, James and the Giant Peach JR. is based on the beloved book by Roald Dahl and tells the story of a young orphaned child who finds a loving family in a most peculiar way. Sent by his mean, conniving aunts to chop down their old fruit tree, James discovers a magic potion which results in the growing of a tremendous peach that rolls into the ocean, and is occupied by some not-so-normal characters. From the center of the gigantic fruit, James and the unlikely crew launch a journey of enormous proportions. Together they discover that while we are all born into a family, we then go on to create a family of our own.
Paul says, “Behind its wit and whimsy, James and the Giant Peach explores some sophisticated themes. How do we define our family? How do we start over after a big loss? We’ve always planned to make it available for performance by schools and educational theaters groups as soon as possible, because – and we think Roald Dahl would agree – young people are capable of amazing things”
McDonald says, “I was a dyslexic student who hated reading when my third grade teacher, Mrs. Spencer, introduced me to the wonderful world of Roald Dahl. His stories instilled in me a love of reading and I have never looked back. Through their production these students are celebrating the power of story-telling, teamwork and imagination. We hope you’ll join us in applauding them.”
