Haddonfield Theater Arts Center

I meet Scott and Christa Laska, founders of Haddonfield Theater Arts Center (HTAC), in the Haddonfield Middle School auditorium, with only two days to go until the opening of their summer musical, Wonderland. Scott is busy at the back of the stage, putting the finishing touches on a large painted set piece. Christa dismisses the actors for lunch, reminding them that they should be ready for a full dress rehearsal that afternoon.

“Our summer camp is fast and furious,” Christa tells me. “We’ve got a big task to do. We have to put everything together in just three weeks before tech rehearsal. It’s a big commitment. I’m so impressed by these kids - they are doing some good work up there. And it’s hard work, it’s not easy. But they know how satisfied they will feel at the end of it.”

Christa and Scott have been running HTAC for nearly 17 years. When they first started, they had no idea what it would become.

They originally met at their alma mater, Marymount Manhattan College. “We both grew up performing,” Scott tells me. “Christa trained in ballet at the Children’s Ballet Theatre of Philadelphia, and I started performing when I was ten. We knew what that world was like and had an appreciation for the discipline involved, and we both still wanted to pursue it.” Scott earned his BFA in drama, and Christa got her BFA in dance. After graduating, the pair lived in New York and performed in film, television, and theater. “During our first year of marriage, we were only together 11 weeks out of 52. Christa would be doing a show when I would be home, and then we would switch. I remember it so well.”

When their son Jack was born, they were still fully immersed in the performance world. “I was doing a show at the Gateway Playhouse but still keeping my survival job,” Scott explains. “We knew families who would bring their babies on tour, but we made the decision that we didn’t want to do that. So we moved to Haddonfield to be closer to Christa’s family.” They decided to step away from the hectic theater lifestyle.

Within a matter of months, Christa was itching to find a new outlet. Their realtor showed them a little garage on Veteran’s Lane which became HTAC’s first home. “We had twelve students on the first day of class. We thought, ‘It’s going to be sink or swim: either this is going to work or it’s not.’” The program took off. Scott, who had been working in hospitality and teaching at the time, decided to leave these positions to help with this new endeavor. “I knew if I took all the energy and time that I was putting into my other jobs and channeled it into the studio, it could grow. As soon as I did that, we saw it really expand.” They soon relocated to a new studio, and after COVID, they landed in their very recognizable storefront at 33 Kings Hwy E in Haddonfield.

While Scott and Christa’s goal was to provide theater education and performance opportunities to the local community, they quickly realized they were building so much more. 

“There are so many challenges raising children in the era of cellphones and social media. When kids are in our program, they have to look each other in the eye, they have to talk to each other, and they share their emotions and their feelings. It’s a different environment, and because of it, they develop strong bonds and deep relationships. Many of our actors who have graduated come back home and have holiday dinners and Friendsgivings together. They let each other crash on their couches in New York City. They really form a family.”

Classes at HTAC involve theater games, scene work, monologue work, and vocal performance. Kids often don’t realize the life skills they are gaining in the process. “The most important thing your child is going to learn in a theater class is to improvise. They become skilled at thinking on their feet.”

They also learn the ins and outs of the performing arts world. “We teach our students to be storytellers and take their audience on a journey with them. Everybody has an individual experience when they come to the theater, and live performances make the audience feel something. Your job as an actor is to generate emotion from your audience.”

Accessing and expressing emotion is a crucial part of acting, and Scott and Christa have become adept at helping students navigate complex emotions. With elementary schoolers, it often means appropriately channeling their after-school energy and silliness. “They’ve been sitting still all day, so a lot of energy comes through our doors. But I’ve found that if you can focus that energy, if you can funnel it into something productive, you can end up with a beautiful finished product. We feed off of each other’s energies, so we try to lead by example.”

For older children at HTAC, “share circles” are opportunities for connection and vulnerability. “At the older level, it can get more personal. They’re experiencing a lot in their young lives. Sharing these things with their peers is crucial for them. It becomes a really important part of their week. They want to feel connected. They want to know, ‘I’m in this now; I’ve got this place. I’ve got these people.’”

Students are able to support each other through their challenges and celebrate each other’s successes. “For a lot of these kids, the friends they have in our class are not their central group of friends. But there’s something special about getting together once a week for years and sharing your accomplishments with the same people. Once you’re part of a cast and you do a show together, you’re like a family. Ten years down the road, you might bump into someone on the street and say, ‘We did Wonderland together when I was 13! It was a great four weeks, we had so much fun.’ It’s a bond that you don’t lose. A lot of our graduates end up in New York for school, even if they aren’t pursuing the arts, and they still meet up and go to each other’s shows. When they come home for the holidays, they will send us texts saying, ‘Hey, I’m in town, do you need help? I can help with tickets, I can help with snacks…’ They just want to be around and hang out. And they’ll all show up. They just show up.”

Christa and Scott also invite the HTAC alumni to celebrate the holidays with them at their home. “They come and go all day. Well, they come and they don’t really go - they stick around for hours. We’re early birds, they’re night owls, they’re living their college life. But it’s really nice.”

Back in the theater, the young actors are making their way in from lunch wearing their costumes. Wonderland is a musical that puts a modern spin on “Alice in Wonderland” and “Through the Looking Glass.” It briefly landed on Broadway in 2011. Only a few HTAC productions each year are copyrighted musicals - many of the shows are original scripts that Christa and Scott have put together with their musical director, Zach Wisely. “We are so fortunate to be working with Zach. He has been with us for 16 years, and he’s our backbone. He’s as much of this program as we are.” 

Their intention is to give all of the kids in their programs, ages four and up, a chance to have a moment in the spotlight. “We want to give all of our younger actors equal performance opportunities. We didn’t want to only put on shows where five kids get great parts and everyone else supports them. All the kids want to participate; they all want lines, and they all want to have their moment. So we started writing our own shows. We cycle through four holiday shows and then tweak them each year based on who we have in our program. We also put on an original show each spring. The ultimate goal is for everyone to take a bow and feel proud of themselves at the curtain call. We want them to think, ‘I did that! I can’t believe I did that!’

For children who want to take performing even more seriously during the school year, Christa and Scott offer a Company program. “That’s for our actors who are more focused and want to perform a book musical in the spring. It’s a pretty intense program. They typically start in January. This year we put on ‘Into the Woods’.” When summer hits, there are a variety of HTAC camps for the young actors to choose from. They are also offering a new “On Camera” course this year. “As we were filming prescreens for the kids and working to get them more comfortable in front of the camera, we realized we could host a class for this. When we were doing our research, we couldn’t find anyone else offering something like it in the area.”

HTAC gives children the opportunity to support fellow actors who are different ages and skill levels than themselves. “The older kids will be cheering and hooting and hollering for the younger ones at the curtain call; many of them remember what it was like to be doing this at their age. We always say, ‘You never know who you’re inspiring.’ The younger children will watch the big ones and ask us, ‘When can I do that?’” Scott specifically remembers what it felt like growing up in the theater world as a boy. “I think giving an opportunity for the younger boys to watch the older ones is so helpful. It lets them see, ‘Oh! This is ok for me to do!’ Our son acts here and he plays football. He has an incredible support system, including his coach and his teammates. I know the younger kids look at him and think, ‘That could be me!’”

HTAC isn’t always just for children. Christa and Scott have offered adult classes in the past, and occasionally they get specific coaching requests. “We’ve had adults reach out who want to feel more comfortable with public speaking, for instance. You would think that this kind of work would be very different than what we typically do, but it’s actually not. We work on creating a character together. It’s fun.”

Working and living in a small community like Haddonfield has been a blessing for the Laskas. This was never clearer than during COVID. “It was a very scary time for us as a small business. We thought, ‘This might just be the end.’ But we felt a blanket of love around us. Families started reaching out. They asked, ‘What can we do? How can we help? What do you need? This is really important for my child; my child needs this right now.’ So we switched to film and shot everything outside that year. We got creative and adjusted.”

People often ask Christa and Scott how they manage to work full-time with a spouse. “I tell them, ‘I don’t know! We are still figuring that out. We’re still deciding if it’s a good thing or a bad thing. Depends on the day.” Christa laughs. “It’s wonderful, but it’s also all-encompassing. It’s become so much of who we are. We are very much yin and yang, and I think that’s what makes it successful. I sometimes have more of a tough love personality. Scott can be more of a good cop. We make it work. All the things we teach our kids are skills we use ourselves: improvising, being quick on our feet, trying our best, getting creative. Sometimes we become our biggest critics; we just want everything to go well for everyone. We have moments of thinking, ‘Are we doing this right? Is this going to be good?’ It’s the artist part of us. Sometimes we just need to shut that part of our brains off. It helps to look at the kids and see how accomplished they feel.”

“This program is not about us. We had our moment. Our goal has always been to focus on the kids. It’s been wonderful to see our own children grow up enjoying it; both our son and our daughter have such a love and respect for the performing arts, and I think that’s really nice. I think it’s beneficial for whatever they go on to do. Sometimes we tell our students at the start of summer camp or a company program, ‘We are all climbing a mountain together. And at the end of it, you’re going to look around and be so proud of the work that you’ve done.’”