Young Actors Academy
Open Window Theatre, 5300 S. Robert Trail, #400, Inver Grove Heights, MN 55077
About
Young Actors Academy offers skills-based acting games and activities, full-length play productions, and musicals. Biweekly classes lead up to an end-of-semester showcase performance featuring the students’ work.
• Ages: 8–18 years old
• Schedule: Biweekly classes that culminate in an end-of-semester showcase performance
Young Actors Academy is part of Open Window Theatre, a professional, multigenerational theatre founded in May 2011. The program offers top-quality theater education and performance opportunities for youth ages 8–18, and all skill levels are welcome. All Young Actors Academy instructors and directors are professionally trained and working theater artists.
Founders Jeremy and Sarah Stanbary are trained theater professionals with over 20 years of experience producing redemptive theater inspired by their rich Catholic cultural heritage. Executive-Artistic Director and Founder Jeremy Stanbary holds a BA in Fine & Performing Arts, with 20 years of experience producing and performing theater professionally and nearly two decades of experience in theater education for youth. The leadership team includes Executive Director Mark Dittman; Box Office Manager and Office Admin Thaxton Gamache; Traveling Theater Booking Manager and Young Actors Academy Coordinator Rose Dittman; House Manager and Resident Designer Nate Farley; and IT/Website Development staff member Jeromy Darling, along with a Board of Directors that includes Mark J. Blando, J.D. (President), Molly Koop, Michael J. Barrett, CPA, Mark Daoust, Jon O’Malley, Mary Hodgdon, Sam Nelson, Jennifer Newman, and Jeremy Stanbary.
Open Window Theatre’s mission is to bring multigenerational professional theater with a redemptive vision to the Twin Cities, focusing on stories of faith, hope, and reconciliation in an intimate and immersive environment. They view art as inherently transcendent, a window to the Divine and to the innermost reality of the human person and the world, and they focus on a redemptive vision in the arts because they believe there is a crisis of hope and true beauty in today’s world. They believe creativity is a gift from the Divine Artist to be used in service of the common good, that creative training is a highly valuable tool for the mental, emotional, and spiritual growth of young people, and that artists, as ambassadors of empathy, should treat others as they wish to be treated, with love and mutual respect. Serving the Minneapolis–St. Paul metro area since 2011, their youth programming includes support of the Christian and homeschool communities.
Current Young Actors Academy students in the fall and spring receive priority registration for the summer youth musical. Current students receive top priority registration for the summer musical, followed by their siblings, and then the general public pending availability.
Testimonials about Open Window Theatre describe it as a refuge from standard entertainment that does not avoid hard issues, praise its ambitious staging of classic works such as the 15th-century play Everyman, and note that its productions are engaging, inspiring, and provocative. A testimonial from Traveling Theater Booking Manager and Young Actors Academy Coordinator Rose Dittman states that she has been blessed by the truth, goodness, and beauty of Open Window Theatre’s productions and is grateful and excited to be part of the theater’s mission.
Last updated February 23, 2026.
• Ages: 8–18 years old
• Schedule: Biweekly classes that culminate in an end-of-semester showcase performance
Young Actors Academy is part of Open Window Theatre, a professional, multigenerational theatre founded in May 2011. The program offers top-quality theater education and performance opportunities for youth ages 8–18, and all skill levels are welcome. All Young Actors Academy instructors and directors are professionally trained and working theater artists.
Founders Jeremy and Sarah Stanbary are trained theater professionals with over 20 years of experience producing redemptive theater inspired by their rich Catholic cultural heritage. Executive-Artistic Director and Founder Jeremy Stanbary holds a BA in Fine & Performing Arts, with 20 years of experience producing and performing theater professionally and nearly two decades of experience in theater education for youth. The leadership team includes Executive Director Mark Dittman; Box Office Manager and Office Admin Thaxton Gamache; Traveling Theater Booking Manager and Young Actors Academy Coordinator Rose Dittman; House Manager and Resident Designer Nate Farley; and IT/Website Development staff member Jeromy Darling, along with a Board of Directors that includes Mark J. Blando, J.D. (President), Molly Koop, Michael J. Barrett, CPA, Mark Daoust, Jon O’Malley, Mary Hodgdon, Sam Nelson, Jennifer Newman, and Jeremy Stanbary.
Open Window Theatre’s mission is to bring multigenerational professional theater with a redemptive vision to the Twin Cities, focusing on stories of faith, hope, and reconciliation in an intimate and immersive environment. They view art as inherently transcendent, a window to the Divine and to the innermost reality of the human person and the world, and they focus on a redemptive vision in the arts because they believe there is a crisis of hope and true beauty in today’s world. They believe creativity is a gift from the Divine Artist to be used in service of the common good, that creative training is a highly valuable tool for the mental, emotional, and spiritual growth of young people, and that artists, as ambassadors of empathy, should treat others as they wish to be treated, with love and mutual respect. Serving the Minneapolis–St. Paul metro area since 2011, their youth programming includes support of the Christian and homeschool communities.
Current Young Actors Academy students in the fall and spring receive priority registration for the summer youth musical. Current students receive top priority registration for the summer musical, followed by their siblings, and then the general public pending availability.
Testimonials about Open Window Theatre describe it as a refuge from standard entertainment that does not avoid hard issues, praise its ambitious staging of classic works such as the 15th-century play Everyman, and note that its productions are engaging, inspiring, and provocative. A testimonial from Traveling Theater Booking Manager and Young Actors Academy Coordinator Rose Dittman states that she has been blessed by the truth, goodness, and beauty of Open Window Theatre’s productions and is grateful and excited to be part of the theater’s mission.
Last updated February 23, 2026.
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