MARGARETVILLE — On an unseasonably cool August afternoon, over 120 people filled the auditorium of Margaretville Central School to witness the World Premiere of Timestruck, a dystopian musical set in the 1980’s and touching on themes of human nature, independent thought, and the importance of chosen families. But the impressive part? The authors’ average age is 13, and they had finished writing it that morning.
Timestruck is the finished product of the Summer Theatre Workshop – a full day summer camp put on by the Delaware County School of Performing Arts (DCSPA), which is the education wing of the 501(c)3 non profit the Margaretville Arts Center (MAC). Founded in 2024 by Garth Kravits and Julia Rugg, the MAC and DCSPA have spent the last year bringing extensive professional performing arts education and experiences to the Delaware County community on a fully pay-what-you-can basis. Part of their mission is to make world class performing arts education easily accessible for the passionate young artists of the Western Catskills.
The crown jewel of their programming is the Summer Theatre Workshop where 28 kids – ages 8 – 18 conceive, write, compose, stage, and star in their original musical. In its second year, this performance has quickly become a community favorite – attracting a diverse and discerning audience (whose reviews were overwhelmingly positive)! With their resident playwright Christopher von Rinteln, and their director/composer Garth Kravits, the young artists write and compose the entire story themselves in one long game of “Yes, and…” an exercise that is foundational to improvisational acting.
Kravits stresses in his curtain speech that every word, every note, every theme is from the minds of the students – and inevitably he must repeat this at the end of the show when the audience is blown away by the complexities of the plot, clever lyrics and melodies, and are thinking, “the kids wrote all that themselves?”
Kravits is used to this question and replies, “Creating an environment where there are no bad ideas and where students trust each other and trust us as their mentors allows for this beautiful blooming of creativity. I’ve done this program all over the country, with students of varying levels of experience everyone asks me how it can possibly be done– and without fail, audiences are blown away. That’s what happens when you give children agency and expect them to rise to an occasion – not only do they rise they surpass any expectations including their own.”
The Summer Theater Workshop is not just about creating an original musical. It’s also about teaching Young Artists the intrinsic value and impact the Performing Arts can have. To help drive this point home, Kravits and Rugg orchestrated a trip to NYC for their students, and parent/chaperones, to see the Off-Broadway smash hit ‘The Play That Goes Wrong’ and to dinner at the historic, family style, Italian restaurant Carmines, in Times Square. “Seeing live theater, learning the etiquette of, and how to behave in, the theater, is a lost art.” says Kravits. “Giving young people the chance to understand what it means to sit down for two hours and watch actors and musicians perform live for you, is such a wonderful privilege, but I also think it’s an incredible teaching tool.”
The theater staff and parents commented on how impressed they were at the kid’s collective professionalism.
“We are incredibly proud of how our Young Artists handled themselves.” Added Rugg. “They were so inspired by watching live theater, and could not wait to get back to work on their own show.”
Their days at camp this summer were also full of theater games, art projects, Uno card game championships, dance training with Choreographer Kristin Vignona, and morning yoga led by professional instructor Alana Dauter.
With the world premiere performance of Timestruck complete, the next step was to immortalize their work by producing an Original Cast Recording. Kravits and Rugg worked with Josh Druckman, owner of The Outlier Inn Recording Studio, in Woodridge, NY to bring the kids in for a full day, professional recording session.
Druckman greeted the excited group of 20 young singers with a quick orientation and let them know that they’d be singing in the same studio, and on the same microphones, used by artists such as SZA and Solange.
Recording Engineer Greg Castro worked seamlessly with the kids to record the 8 track album. 12 year old Amelia, who played the Protagonist in Timestruck said “The people at the studio were really nice and supportive. It felt so special to record our own lyrics, and songs, that represent our own ideas.” Her 8 year old sister Sofia , who played the bumbling Guard #14 in the show added “I am so grateful for the amazing opportunity to sing and record what we had written and I loved seeing my friends one more time!”
The Original Cast Recording is now available on Spotify. Click the link to listen now!
Next up for the Margaretville Arts Center is producing The 21st Annual Cauliflower Festival, running their Fall Dance, Acting and Voice class sessions, and their big news: Producing the first Countywide Teen Musical. Auditions for the legendary Broadway show ‘Pippin’ will be held at the end of September, with rehearsals happening once a week starting in October. The performances will be in late April at The Walton Theater.
For more information on all of this exciting programming, visit https://www.mvillearts.com/
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