Filament Camps

Filament Camps offers activities such as creating new plays for young people, exploring new styles of theatre, and crafting immersive performances for family and friends. Campers take part in acting, improv, writing, singing, using puppets, playing with scripts (old and new), and devising their own productions, including creating a play in one day. Sessions also include creative problem solving, teamwork, confident public speaking, analysis of text, speaking directly to the audience, community engagement, warm-ups, practical skill studies in voice and movement, traditional acting lessons, scene work, playing with aspects of technical theater, and developing a monologue for future auditions. Some camps include creating stories based on clues, creating new clues, crafting, marching and moving together, creating and sharing a final parade, exploring magic tricks, exploring Harry Potter, exploring traditions of folk magic from around the world, learning Filament’s storytelling techniques, creating original new characters, creating moments of magic, and crafting original performances, with all camps ending in a final performance for family and friends.

• Ages: 5–16 years old
• Schedule: Half-day and full-day summer theater camps and intensives, including one-day, one-week, and two-week sessions with morning or afternoon blocks
• Price: Play-In-A-Day is Pay-What-You-Can with registration set at $0 and an actual cost of $40 per camper; other camps are generally $400 per session with an Early Bird price of $375 when booked by April 30, 2026, and sibling discounts available via email

Participants work with Filament Theatre’s directors, playwrights, teaching artists, and other professional artists, including professional actors from Stone Soup Shakespeare who share techniques they use in their own FAST residency rehearsals. Filament Camps is part of Filament Theatre, which is now in its fourteenth year and serves approximately 8,500 patrons annually through theatre programming, camps, school residencies, and classes. Filament Theatre’s mission is to create a more equitable society by celebrating and amplifying the perspectives and experiences of young people through the performing arts, and Filament Theatre is recognized as a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization. Filament Camps focus on amplifying the creativity of young participants, welcoming young people into the production process as essential collaborators working alongside adult professionals, and all of Filament’s work is accessible to multigenerational and neurodiverse audiences.

Filament Theatre is described as an anchor cultural organization for the Six Corners business district in Chicago’s Portage Park and as a vital home for innovative artists and young people finding and using their power through the performing arts. Reviews and features from sources such as the Chicago Reader, PerformInk, Chicago Parent Magazine, and audience members describe Filament Theatre’s productions as immersive, calm, and welcoming, with comments from young audience members like “Super fun and original, and I would recommend this to a nearby solar system” and “That was the best night of my life.”

Last updated April 18, 2026.