Youth Classes – Ages 6-18

Registration now open for
In-Person and Online Summer 2024 Camps and Intensives

Registration for Fall 2024 classes opens July 1st

View TBG's Full Schedule
of Youth Classes

The Barrow Group offers kids, tween and teen acting, directing, playwriting, and filmmaking classes. We believe that children learn the most in an atmosphere of trust, collaboration, play, and support. These classes teach our specific approach to storytelling and introduce students to the same tools that our adult professional artists practice. All of our teachers have gone through an intensive teacher training program with TBG master teachers to ensure the highest quality experience for students.

We recommend students begin with the Explorations in Acting class for their age level.

Learn more about our training program policies.

“When our son Julian shot his first commercial last year, I was surprised and excited by the honesty and thoughtfulness of his work, and I knew he needed training that would encourage those qualities. The Barrow Group is the ONLY program I felt would enhance his instincts towards naturalism. It is, hands down, the best training in NYC.” –Alice Jankell

Kids Ages 6-9

Fall/Winter/spring classes

Summer 2024 Camps - June, July, August

Tweens Ages 10-13

fall/winter/spring classes

Acting

Film/TV

Musical Theatre

Audition Prep

Specialty

Summer 2024 camps - June, July, August

    Teens Ages 14-18

    fall/winter/spring classes

    Acting

    Film/TV

    Musical Theatre

    Audition Prep

    Specialty

    Writing

    Summer 2024 Intensives - June, July, August

      About

      The Barrow Group Performing Arts Training Program, located in New York City, offers professional and emerging artists training in acting, directing, playwriting, and screenwriting.  You can view our upcoming class schedule here.

      At the heart of the Barrow Group Approach is the desire to promote clear and concise tools of the trade.  These tools are outlined and published in “An Actor’s Companion – 99 Bits of Craft” by Seth Barrish, TBG’s founder and co-Artistic Director.

      What makes The Barrow Group different from many other studios in New York City is that all of our acting teachers have gone through an intensive teacher training program.  This faculty training assures that students receive a codified, consistent learning experience from teachers who have been training with The Barrow Group for years.

      In a nutshell, these are TBG’s beliefs about acting:
      • Acting is easy.
      • Acting is most exciting when it is spontaneous and moment-to-moment.
      • Unplanned behavior is usually much more interesting than planned behavior.
      • Relaxation is the key to many of the things we strive for.
      • The best technique is invisible.
      • The best technique leaves us free (free to imagine, free to respond, free to feel, free to whatever).
      • We don’t think there is one “way” to approach acting. It’s about finding whatever works.
      YOUTH SCHOLARSHIP PROGRAMS
      • The Barrow Group Diversity Scholarship
      • Citrin Low Income Scholarship

      Apply Now!

      Upcoming Schedule of Classes
      The Barrow Group School offers techniques designed to do the following:
      • Encourage spontaneity
      • Foster entertaining, human, and compelling behavior
      • Help you become more sensitive, imaginative, responsive, and alive onstage
      • Relax you
      • Change your work effortlessly and invisibly (so the audience won’t detect any effort on your part and therefore will feel like they are watching a real person rather than an actor “working”)
      • Bring more freedom to your work

      “It’s Called a Play.” There’s a tool included in Seth Barrish’s book “An Actor’s Companion” that goes by this name. This tool invites actors to have more fun onstage, on screen, and in the acting process. The children’s acting classes at TBG reveal the true power of this invitation. The kids, tweens, and teens that make up our youth classes bring such playfulness and enthusiasm into our space, and they make it a joy to offer them the simple, actionable tools that define this approach, the same tools offered to our adult students.

      While the TBG teaching artists strive to help each artist, of any age, find greater and greater success in their time with us, it’s uniquely rewarding to encourage children towards the beginning of their acting or writing or directing journeys to embrace their own individual spontaneity, sensitivity, and imagination. The children’s acting classes are a very special opportunity to guide children of all ages in their artistic growth while preserving that creative, playful aspect of this “work.” It’s meant to be fun, after all!

      What makes Children's Acting Classes at TBG special?

      "The energy that the students bring! The children show up to class so committed and ready to act, explore, and learn each day. It's also so fun to see the students in the children's acting classes bond with each other after even just a day or two. I love when students join for multiple classes throughout the year. It makes me so happy to see them become a part of our community."
      Laura Cornachio, TBG Teaching Artist