Young Actors Academy

Young Actors Academy gives participants skills-based acting games and activities, full-length play productions, and musicals through Open Window Theatre. The program includes biweekly classes that focus on theater fundamentals and end in an end-of-semester showcase performance. The Young Actors Academy program at Open Window Theatre serves hundreds of young people every year.

• Ages: 8–18 years old
• Schedule: 10:00am–2:00pm, Tuesday–Friday

Open Window Theatre’s Young Actors Academy offers theater education and performance opportunities for youth ages 8–18, and all skill levels are welcome. YAA students gain confidence and develop creative talents as they take part in skills-based acting games and activities, and then put what they have learned into practice through full-length play productions and musicals. Open Window Theatre is a professional, multigenerational theatre that tells redemptive stories of faith, hope, and reconciliation, and its support of Christian and homeschool communities, driven by its redemptive mission in the arts, is described as making its youth programming unique.

Founders Jeremy and Sarah Stanbary are trained theater professionals with over 20 years of experience producing redemptive theater inspired by their Catholic cultural heritage. All Young Actors Academy instructors and directors are professionally trained and working theater artists. Founder and Artistic Director Jeremy Stanbary holds a BA in Fine & Performing Arts from the University of Nebraska–Lincoln (2000) and has more than two decades of professional theater producing and performing experience. Executive Director Mark Dittman holds a BA in Psychology & Liberal Arts from the University of Minnesota–Morris, a Master of Catholic Studies from the University of St. Thomas, and an MBA from Bethel University, is Working Genius Certified, and is a Certified Senior Professional through the Society for Human Resource Management. Thaxton Gamache, Box Office Manager and Office Admin, is a graduate of the University of Northwestern – St. Paul with a BS in English Literature and Writing. The leadership team also includes House Manager and Resident Designer Nate Farley and Part-time Young Actors Academy Coordinator Rose Dittman. The Board of Directors includes President Mark J. Blando, J.D., Treasurer Michael J. Barrett, CPA, Molly Koop, Mark Daoust, and Founder Jeremy Stanbary.

Open Window Theatre was founded in May 2011 to bring multigenerational professional theater with a redemptive vision to the Twin Cities, focusing on relevant stories of faith, hope, and reconciliation in an intimate and immersive environment. The organization notes that its support of Christian and homeschool communities, driven by this mission in the arts, is what makes its youth programming unique, and it has served the Minneapolis–St. Paul metro area since 2011. The company has produced works such as A Year With Frog and Toad, which was nominated for three Tony Awards including Best Musical, and plays like Robert Bolt’s A Man for All Seasons and William Gibson’s The Miracle Worker, both Best Play Tony Award winners.

Reviewers have described Open Window Theatre as a refuge from standard entertainment that does not avoid hard issues, and have praised its ambitious staging of classic works such as the 15th-century play Everyman. Other feedback notes that Open Window Theatre, led by Executive-Artistic Director Jeremy Stanbary, puts on productions described as engaging, inspiring, and provocative, and one staff member, Part-time Young Actors Academy Coordinator Rose Dittman, has stated that she has been blessed by the truth, goodness, and beauty of the theatre’s productions and is grateful to be part of its mission.

Last updated July 26, 2026.