Theater
About Our Theater Program
The North Valley Arts Academies (NVAA) Theater Program explores the unique and transformative power of theater through collaborative creation. Whether your student has dreams of being on stage or behind the scenes, they will learn how to become master storytellers through the progressively rigorous curriculum preparing them for a variety of creative careers.
Students will begin their journey leaning fundamental performance and storytelling skills such as role play, play writing, and performance. Once skills are mastered students will then move on to advanced acting techniques, design, theater history, direction, improv, and musical theater. The road to the opening night may be difficult one, but your child will learn the skills and gain the confidence to become a powerful and creative theater artist.
To join the NVAA Theater Program, there is an application process. Students must complete the application in order to enroll into the Theater Program.
Visit Shadow's NVAA Theater Website
Student-Acquired Skills
Students who are enrolled into the theater program will acquire skills that will transfer into the student's everyday life. Students will continue to build and enhance many of these skills, enabling them to effectively communicate with others verbally as well as through written forms of communication. The students will begin to take on leadership roles and over seeing and management of projects and much more!
- Critical thinking skills
- Ability to work individually and collaboratively
- Creative problem-solving skills
- Performance and presentation skills
- Ability to work under pressure
- Listening, clarifying, questioning and responding skills
Theatre Course Plan
- Movement and Voice for the Actor: 9th Grade
- Set Design and Construction: 9th Grade
- Musical Theater and Film Acting: 10th Grade
- Costume and Makeup: 10th Grade
- American Realism and Shakespeare: 11th Grade
- Lighting and Sound: 11th Grade
- Directing, Playwriting, and Exit Portfolio: 12th Grade
- Technical Director and Exit Portfolio: 12th Grade
Movement and Voice for the Actor: 9th Grade
Set Design and Construction: 9th Grade
Musical Theater and Film Acting: 10th Grade
Costume and Makeup: 10th Grade
American Realism and Shakespeare: 11th Grade
Lighting and Sound: 11th Grade
Directing, Playwriting, and Exit Portfolio: 12th Grade
Technical Director and Exit Portfolio: 12th Grade
Successful Career Pathways
- Acting
- Singer
- Camera Operator
- Fashion Designer
- Makeup Artist
- Teacher
- Reporter
- Set and Exhibit Designer
- Casting Director
- Cinematographer
- Playwright
- Screenwriter
- Set Decorator
- Theater Consultant
- Stage Management
- Costume Designer
- Agent
- Dialect Coach
- Lighting Designer
- Public Relations Assistant
Theater Instructors
Joe Flowers
Joe Flowers is a professional actor, director, and theater educator. Originally from Prescott, Arizona, he received his undergraduate theater degree from Arizona State University where he studied acting with Tony Award-winning director Marshal W. Mason. He received his MFA in Acting from Illinois State University where he studied advanced acting, movement, and voice techniques. Joe has appeared onstage in over fifty productions with theater companies across the country, including two seasons with the acclaimed Illinois Shakespeare Festival in Macbeth, Julius Caesar, Twelfth Night, and Comedy of Errors. He has acted with many companies in the Phoenix area, such as Childsplay Theater Company, Stray Cat Theater, The Shakespeare Theater, Arizona Jewish Theater Company, and Theater Works. A longtime talent of the Leighton Agency, Joe has worked in commercials and industrials with clients such as Toyota, Goodwill, AAA, and KSLX. Film credits include lead roles in A Stray, The Nephila, Rupert’s Ship, and Crossroads of Fate. He wrote and directed the original television pilot The Drama, which won multiple Best TV Pilot and Best Script awards at Moondance International Film Festival, Nevada Film Festival, Las Vegas Independent Film Festival, and the International Family Film Festival. He is a member of SAG/AFTRA.
Teresa Minarsich
Teresa Minarsich is a graduate of Arizona State University’s Theater for Youth doctoral program. The American Alliance for Theater & Education awarded her the 2015 Distinguished Dissertation Award. An educator, scholar, director, theater artist, and puppeteer she is passionate about creating socially relevant theater WITH young people. With over two decades of experience creating theater in a variety of settings with youth from Pre-K to college, Dr. M. believes firmly in the power of theater to inspire and transform youth as they explore what it means to be human through character and story. She received her BA in Theater from Seattle University and her Masters in Education from Pepperdine University.
Keath Hall
Keath David Hall has a BA in History from SDSU and an MA in Literature from NAU. Keath has been teaching for twelve years, but only two at SMHS. He has worked as an actor, director, fight choreographer and technical director around the United States for over twenty years. The father of two boys, he lives with his family in Mesa.