Traveling Players delivers what bright, talented children need: challenge, discipline, new experiences, consistency, adults who are a step ahead of them and watching their backs, staying with them long enough to know who they are and encouraging them to become who they want to be.
About Us
Our Mission
Traveling Players Ensemble provides professional-level theatre training structured in a way that simultaneously creates community and builds life skills for theatre students in grades 1-12.
We specialize in innovative actor training with substantial contact hours, often leading to transformative growth in our students.
Our mission is to create theatre with children and teens to enhance their self-expression, self-reliance, and empathy while building an inclusive, multiyear arts community. Our goal is to provide an outstanding theatre experience for students that will contribute to their maturity and cultivate a lifelong love of both theatre and the outdoors while meeting rigorous artistic and educational standards.
Our Guiding Beliefs
Artistic Creation
Artistic creation is fundamental to forming one’s identity, especially for teens in their unique and complex transition between childhood and adulthood. We give kids a safe space to explore themselves through artistic expression.
Ensemble
An ensemble (13 actors) provides an ideal structure for fostering creativity and a sense of community, ensuring personalized attention and significant growth as an artist and individual. By keeping our casts small, Traveling Players is able to provide individualized instruction and an enviable 4:1 student-faculty ratio.
Nature
As stated in a 2007 Washington Post article about Traveling Players, “Many kids’ first spiritual encounters take place in nature, where they discover something larger than themselves.” Therefore, we link theatrical work to nature by rehearsing and performing outdoors and by emphasizing nature themes in the plays we produce.
Awards & Accolades
- Arts Education Award, 2020-21 Winner, ArtsFairfax
- Over 850 performances, 50% donated
- Served over 10,000 campers
- Awarded over $456,000 in Financial Aid
- Two Traveling Players-commissioned mythology plays by Judith Walsh White have been professionally published, listing our campers as the Original Cast
- Ranked #1 arts camp in the nation by CampEasy! in 2015
- Named Readers’ Pick Summer Camp by Northern Virginia Magazine, 2016-21
- Featured for 9 years in Catalogue for Philanthropy, “featuring the area's best, vetted, community-based charities for high-impact local giving"
Featured Student Awards
Traveling Players Students attribute numerous awards and distinctions to our programs and coaching, including:
- Winner: Helen Hayes Award for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Play, Traveling Players student
- Nomination: Helen Hayes Award for Outstanding Ensemble, Resident Play, 2009, Traveling Players student.
- English-Speaking Union Shakespeare Competition for the National Capital Region: 11 first-place awards in school competitions, Regional Finalist (2005, 2013), Regional Winner (2006 – competed in national competition at Lincoln Center), Regional 1st Runner-Up (2008), Regional 2nd Runner-Up (2012).
- Poetry Out Loud, National Endowment for the Arts, 2011 State Champion (MD) and National Finalist; 2012 State Champion (DC).
- Winner: Montgomery County Public Schools All-County Superintendent’s Performing Arts Award, Traveling Players student.
- Winner: DC-area Cappies Critics and Awards Program, Best Musical, Best Song, Best Supporting Actress Traveling Players students
- Nominations: DC-area Cappies Critics and Awards Program, Sound, Makeup, and Acting, Traveling Players student.
- 1st Place: 10-minute Playwriting Contest at Arena Stage, 2011, Traveling Players student.
- Forensics wins by Traveling Players students:
- District Level: Dramatic Interpretation: 1st and 2nd place, Humorous Interpretation: 3rd place
- Regional Level: Dramatic Interpretation, All Stars Finals, 1st Place
- National Level: Dramatic Interpretation, Prose Reading, Top 50
- Cappies 2024:
- Abby Berg— Won Best Actor in a female role
- Kal Collins— Nominated for Best Supporting Actor in a female role
- Jackie House— Nominated for the Creativity Award
What Families Are Saying
Catherine, Parent
My growth as an actor was immediately evident when I returned to school. Several of my fellow student-actors approached me in amazement over my newfound acting abilities. When they asked me how I had improved so much, I realized that I was experiencing the result of a second summer spent with Traveling Players.
Zach, Alum
The actors really do work cooperatively and not competitively. My daughter always spoke highly of the other actors and never felt that she was in competition with them.
Susan, Parent
Each year that our daughter has attended a Traveling Players program (3 summers and 2 winters), I have been so impressed not only by the wonderful and professional nature of the programs, but by the genuine camaraderie developed between the cast and the directors. No other program or experience has been more challenging or meaningful for my daughter.