Mary Jane Glaser saw a theater games demonstration with Gary Schwartz at Rock Creek Elementary School and saw an opportunity.

Schwartz was hosted by teacher Nancy Hash, who is one of his acting students at Valley Center Stage in North Bend, and after the demonstration Schwartz said he received an e-mail from Glaser inviting him to view the Greater Maple Valley Creative Arts Council space.

“I had a look at the space and thought it was a great space for theater games,” Schwartz said. “We set up a campaign to see if we could attract some students.”

Last week Schwartz taught his first teen acting work shop at the Creative Arts Center. He worked with seven students but would like to bring in more, at least 10 and as many as 16 kids, so he’s trying to get the word out to bring in more aspiring actors.

“You need interaction, you need team work,” he said. “You need people in the audience watching the people on the stage and doing the evaluation.”

With the help of Hash and Mike Uretz, another adult student, Schwartz started the work shop to give the kids a taste of what theater games can do to help them become better actors.

“We’re going to play a lot of the basic fun, games,” he said. “I use games to have fun and solve a problem. The ultimate goal is to get suggestions from the audience and to get to who, what, and where. The solving of the problem ends up being spontaneous and hilarious.”

The first class began with an exercise called “Kitty Wants a Corner,” something of a sophisticated mish mash of tag and musical chairs, that had everyone running the around the room.

Next Schwartz broke the students up into two groups. He instructed half of the children to stand on stage “and don’t do anything.”

That was a challenge for the youngsters who fidgeted and giggled. After a few minutes Schwartz asked them to count the lights in the room.

This led him to the concept of focus and how it will help the kids be better on stage.

“These games are going to give you skills that you can use … so you can be a natural actor,” Schwartz said. “We’re going to build focus like body builders build muscles. When you apply yourself to your focus you have a lot more fun.”

A game they played later was “Who Started the Motion?” which involved standing in a circle with one student acting as the leader doing subtle movements while another student had to guess who was leading. This was another exercise in focus.

Finally Schwartz got the group together as parents arrived to retrieve their children. They sat in a semi-circle and played a game of Hot and Cold. The teen who had to guess would listen to the group’s singing and attempt to determine what they wanted him to do. When the guesser got close to the task the group would sing louder and if he got far away they would quiet to a near-whisper.

After the class Schwartz talked to everyone about the idea of re-scheduling the class to make it easier for everyone to attend as well as finding ways to get a few more aspiring young actors to join the group.

He sent out an e-mail on Monday to parents proposing they “postpone the workshop then for those two weeks and see if enrollment grows.”

Schwartz said the teen acting workshop will start up again at 5:30 p.m. on Thursday, March 19.

For information or to enroll in the class, contact Schwartz at gary@valleycenterstage.org.