Artists teach children in summer program

PHOTO/KATE DALY Rehearsing for their Friday Together in the Arts performance are (l to r) Sofi a Berg, Chrissy Metzger, Erin McCarthy, Jesilyn Brennan and Brennan Lavoie.

Westborough - As mothers of young children, Andrea Ehrenreich, her sister and a friend thought a program for kids that incorporated dance, music, theater and visual arts would be great, and as artists, they decided they could put it together.

"I had started it with my sister, who is a visual artist, and a friend in the Boston Ballet," said Ehrenreich, who is a professional singer. "We brainstormed and put it together, and it's been tweaked over the years."

One step of the evolution moved the program to Westborough in 2001, when Ehrenreich and her family moved to town and she brought "Together in the Arts" with her.

Westborough children have been benefiting from the teaching of professional artists in a variety of fields ever since.

"My long-term goal is to have a whole arts cooperative in Westborough," Ehrenreich said. "I'm sort of doing it one step at a time."

Children Together in the Arts, which provides three weeks of summer camp, gives children a broad view of the arts.

"I have four professionals in the diff erent media. I do the music portion of it in addition to directing the program and all the administrative work," she said. "I have counselors who help out."

Over the course of the week, the campers, usually in kindergarten through grade six, work on music, dance, a script, scenery and costumes.

"These kids really come out getting a real sense of the arts," she said. "Every day each child will have a music class, a theater class, a visual arts class and a dance class."

Each class has a theme, such as folk stories or dance. This summer, her third week offered a musical theater intensive for kids ages 10 through 13. Each Friday, the campers perform their completed program.

"It's a great thing to watch," Ehrenreich said. "They love it so much. You can see the creative process, and they get what they're doing. It's really fun to see them. For me, that's how I thrive and it's nice to be able to give it back."

The program operates at the Westborough Evangelical Congregational Church on West Main Street and Church Street, and more than 70 campers attended.

"I have to say I don't think I've ever had a child not have a great time," she said. "The kids are kept very busy and they do a performance every Friday."

Four years ago or so, Ehrenreich decided to expand the program through the school year, and now off ers a Wednesday afternoon program for students in kindergarten through sixth grade.

"It's a music theater troupe," she said. "Basically it's rehearsing for the performance at the end of the 15-week class; they do sets, come up with costumes. They tend to own it, which is really nice."

Ehrenreich's day job is no less creative: she teaches singing at Tufts University and performs classical and oratorical concert singing. Despite that work and being a wife and mother, she has plenty of energy and creativity for Together in the Arts, she said.

Her plans for Together in the Arts are growing.

"This business for me is totally creative and it keeps being able to evolve and for me I just love being able to do that," she said. "For me that's exciting to be able to do that for a job. For some people work is a grind, and for me, it's just exciting to make it come alive and to make it grow."

Her next step is to turn the organization into a nonprofi t, she said.

"I've had so many people ask me to expand it to do diff erent things," Ehrenreich said. "I've got a lot of ideas rolling around."

For more information about Together in the Arts, visit www.togetherinthearts.org.