Statement of Purpose

The theatre program at the Shades Valley Theatre academy allows high school students the opportunity to study their craft in a professionally-oriented program intended for serious theatre and dance students. A select group of students are chosen each year to attend the theatre academy that is housed at Shades Valley High School. These students attend Shades Valley as regular students and become members of the nationally-acclaimed SVTA.

International Acclaim

In April 2008, SVTA was selected to perform at the American High School Theatre Festival in Edinburgh, Scotland in August 2009 as part of the Fringe Festival. This is the largest arts festival in the world and one of the most prestigious honors that any high school theatre program can hope to achieve.

On four separate occasion, productions from SVTA have been selected to perform at the International Thespian Festival held annually in Lincoln, Nebraska. All four of the productions were original works. In addition to those productions, SVTA has been awarded Best of Show in the State of Alabama nine of the last ten years. SVTA was selected to represent the state at the Southeastern Theatre Conference Secondary Play Festival three of the last five years.

SVTA has developed a program that reflects the changing diversity of both urban and rural schools. Because of the focus on both excellence in performance and academics, we have been able to obtain college scholarships for most of our graduates. Students have averaged between 1.5 and 2.5 million dollars in scholarship each year for the past eights years.

Program Goals

The training at SVTA is firmly rooted in a production-based philosophy of education. While classes are offered in all areas of acting, musical theatre, dance, design, and technical theatre, the department is in almost constant production. The thrust of the program is to develop highly-trained theatre students who want to pursue theatre and related fields as their intended professions. All students in the advanced program will be immersed in class and production work that enables them to develop their skill in an appropriate way.

SVTA provides services for the entire Jefferson County School System. Students from all over the county may audition for an opportunity to become a part of our program. Additionally, students from outside the system may audition and pay tuition if they are accepted to be part of the academy.