Welcome to the Manhattan Experimental Theater Workshop

Please visit MXTW's Minneapolis Fringe 2010 website.
MXTW will be performing at the fringe festival, during August, in Minneapolis Minnesota.

2951 South Lyndale Avenue
Minneapolis, MN 55408-2111
(612) 822-4002
jungletheater.com

Thursday 8/5 5:30 p.m.
Friday 8/6 8:30 p.m.
Saturday 8/7 8:30 p.m.
Sunday 8/8 2:30 p.m.
Tuesday 8/10 10:00 p.m.

For 22 years, the Manhattan Experimental Theater Workshop for High School Students has been one of the most unique creative experiences in the Midwest. Alums of the program tell us again and again of the positive effects of the workshop on their continuing lives. Those who go on to work in the theater often claim that their workshop performances were better than almost anything they have done or seen since, and the alums who went on to have careers outside theater tell us that they are grateful for the sense of self confidence and ability to look at things from different perspectives they gained from the workshop.

The workshop is unique in that we give power over all creative choices to our young participants. The participants choose what story they will tell and what style they want tell it in; and these choices give them just enough structure to let them really stretch themselves creatively to form their new works.
The workshop is also unique in that our high school participants have real working knowledge of dada, symbolism, Brecht, Artaud, Beckett, Akalaitis, Mabou Mines, Foreman, Müller, or whatever style or playwright they ultimately choose to influence how and what they themselves will write and how they will perform.

They write every singe word included in the performances and they do the hard work of structuring and revising until their pieces are just as they want them, which creates a sense of creative ownership of the work that translates to an incredible sense of accomplishment and pride when their performance is successful in front of an audience.

And our audiences will tell you that they are successful. Their performances are always exciting, sometimes they are terrifying or hard to watch, sometimes they are hilarious and full of infectious abandon, but they are always interesting and intelligent.

Audiences are impressed with our participants’ intelligence, ability, power, and passion. The workshop offers the young people who participate in it the experience of having something entirely of their own doing turn out successfully because of their respect for each other and for the work and because of their creative courage, at a time when such an experience can be truly life changing.

The workshops are performed at the Manhattan Arts Center in Manhattan, Kansas.

Please consider becoming a member of the Manhattan Arts Center!